On Mon, 29 Jul 2002, Robert Mullenax wrote:
> While it's appropriate to take this off line..I know I would
> like to know if there are any stability issues at all with RH 7.3.
Quick reply to this.
7.3 has several known and possibly known issues.
1. The version of XFree86 shipped with RedHat 7.3 will cause severe
problems with GEMPAK. An updated version which fixes it is now available,
and word is that the problem is solved (look in the rawhide directory, RH
7.3 users).
2. GCC 2.96 has had lots of bugs, but there have been 2 major fixes with
it since Redhat has released it. The first bugfix literally swatted dozens
of bugs. Personally, I haven't had ANY problems with GCC (unless this
version of LDM is proving me wrong, which still is a possibility). 3.10
ships with RH 8.0, which was released as a beta 2 weeks ago. I have no
idea how good/bad it is.
3. As with ALL versions of RedHat...for some reason, there are problems
with getting upper air data through an ADDE server. I can't remember the
exact nature of the beast, but maybe Tom Yoksas can chirp in here. From
Redhat 5.0 to 7.3, it has been reported, but never fixed. Tom thinks it is
a kernel problem, IIRC.
You may say that there have been tons and tons of bugfixes and
problems with Linux and Redhat, BUT I counter that with the facts: It's
still evolving nicely (although it is getting bulky...there are programs
in there few would use), big security problems are generally fixed
quickly, and overall, the OS has become very stable (compared to 7.2,
which was anything but. However, I must say that most RH 7.2 users found
it to be very stable, which I still can't figure out to this day, and of
course, AWIPS runs on it, and so do the NOAAport uplink machines).
RedHat has also become much easier to manage (particularly the 7.X genre),
without losing any control. Most of you know I'm "rah-rah" for Redhat, but
I'll be the first to say it's far from the end-all of all OS's. But
besides getting bulky, I do like where it is going, I like where it is
now, and it's very cost-effective. Customer support hasn't been the
greatest, but then again, I get just the free version, so I can't complain
here, either! RedHat has opened and solved two trouble tickets of mine
personally (Think Sun or Microsoft would do THAT?), and I'm a freebie
player at that.
All that said, it very well could be that 7.3 is causing my LDM 5.2
problems. But, I can easily fall back to 5.1.4 (I can do it in under 10
minutes now! :-) ), and upgrade just as easily. If I had to do it all
over again, I wouldn't go any other way. As for Sun...
RedHat has been kicking Sun's butt. Sun's stock prices plummeting down
below $5 proves that, along with the obvious statistics that people have
switched for the cost-effectiveness and great work in Apache (the web
server, now renamed Http with the latest version), Mozilla, and
Staroffice. Having said that, if you like and are comfortable with what
you have, stay with what you've got, unless, like above, you think the
company will dump support. Frankly, if I were a Sun customer, with their
bad customer support (oh, do I have first-hand horror stories), lack of
direction, and the potential for product limbo and dropping support for
OS's...I would say get out. I haven't run FreeBSD, but from the people
I have talked to who run it, it is also nice and a solid, stable
performer.
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Gilbert Sebenste ********
Internet: gilbert@xxxxxxx (My opinions only!) ******
Staff Meteorologist, Northern Illinois University ****
E-mail: sebenste@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx ***
web: http://weather.admin.niu.edu **
Work phone: 815-753-5492 *
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