[ic] OT: Alternatives to Red Hat

[Gary Norton]

> I apologize if this is a bit off-topic, but I think that this is a good
> forum for this issue. As many of you probably know, Red Hat is undergoing
> some strategic changes which will result in the near-term demise of Red
> Hat
> Linux as most of us know it: versions 7.2 - 8.0 will no longer be
> supported
> as of the end of this year; currently-shipping version 9 will no longer be
> supported after April of next year. Red Hat will instead focus on their
> Enterprise product, which is no doubt impressive - and has mandatory
> licensing and subscription fees.
> 
> For those of us primarily concerned with building and operating web
> servers, this is a bit much. Red Hats Fedora project might be a
> possibility, but it's unclear what shape that is taking just yet. I would
> appreciate hearing any opinions on the other Linux dist's from those whom
> have had the opportunity to use them for some time, again in the context
> of
> interchange and web server services.
> 
> Thanks in advance for all remarks!
> 
> - Ed LaFrance
> 

Well, this isn't really any feedback specific to other distros, but we have
been trying to decide internally what we will be using in the upcoming year.


It seems that Fedora is going to be the development platform for some of the
other software that we use as well, so I think initially we are going to
look at that as the path of least resistance.

I have never worked with another distro, but I guess we will be looking at a
few of them. Right now there is no release of Fedora (they were supposed to
release yesterday, but have posted a delay of several days). We were waiting
for the GA release, but are going to start looking at Test 3 release now
instead.

Initially it seems like Fedora would be best for us, but considering that it
is November and we are targeting a beginning of the year migration the
schedule slip is not encouraging.

If anyone has any experience with Fedora test builds, I am interested in
your feedback.

Also, like Ed, if not Fedora, what is everyone else looking at?

-Gary