CentOS is a really great product, and the package supporters do a bang up job, but the one deficiency I've found is the fact that one can never rely on being able to get updates at any particular time. Whether it's CentOS proper or the Dag additions, something is broke most every time I want to apply updates. I know this is whin[ge]ing, and I certainly don't have a solution to offer. If anyone can offer bucks and/or equipment to improved the software distribution process, your karma would get an enormous boost!!! -- Collins Richey Debugging is twice as hard as writing the code ... If you write the code as cleverly as possible, you are, by definition, not smart enough to debug it. -Brian Kernighan
On Thu, 2005-11-24 at 10:42 -0700, Collins Richey wrote:> CentOS is a really great product, and the package supporters do a bang > up job, but the one deficiency I've found is the fact that one can > never rely on being able to get updates at any particular time. > Whether it's CentOS proper or the Dag additions, something is broke > most every time I want to apply updates. > > I know this is whin[ge]ing, and I certainly don't have a solution to offer. > > If anyone can offer bucks and/or equipment to improved the software > distribution process, your karma would get an enormous boost!!! >It's called a local mirror -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: signature.asc Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 189 bytes Desc: This is a digitally signed message part URL: <http://lists.centos.org/pipermail/centos/attachments/20051124/60190b46/attachment-0005.sig>
On Thu, 2005-11-24 at 10:42 -0700, Collins Richey wrote:> CentOS is a really great product, and the package supporters do a bang > up job, but the one deficiency I've found is the fact that one can > never rely on being able to get updates at any particular time. > Whether it's CentOS proper or the Dag additions, something is broke > most every time I want to apply updates. > I know this is whin[ge]ing, and I certainly don't have a solution to offer.I do. If you want CentOS "proper," pay Red Hat for RHEL. That's a solution. Although some might disagree with the value, I very much agree with the value. Both from the standpoint of what they give me from a configuration management standpoint, as well as the number of GPL projects their revenues fund. Please don't take that the wrong way. I absolutely applaud the CentOS team for the continued and most excellent work, as well as the work done by DAG and others. We are honored by their sacrifices and hard work. But if you find yourself having repeat issues, and it is really important to you, I have to suggest you consider paying Red Hat. I know some here might disagree, but I have to at least say it. Of course, I will also point out that if you're wishing for 3rd party repositories to be perfectly aligned with CentOS, going RHEL isn't going to help you much more there either. So that's not quite a "full solution" for you.> If anyone can offer bucks and/or equipment to improved the software > distribution process, your karma would get an enormous boost!!!While I'm sure donations help, it's still "chump change" compared to what Red Hat can pour into its development, testing and other services. For the most part, SRPM rebuilds do come out fine in CentOS. But every now and then, it's not totally clean because there are assumptions or differences in the build system that only the RHEL developers know. -- Bryan J. Smith b.j.smith at ieee.org http://thebs413.blogspot.com ------------------------------------------------------------------- For everything else *COUGH*commercials*COUGH* there's "ManningCard"
On Thu, 2005-11-24 at 12:00 -0600, Johnny Hughes wrote:> It's called a local mirrorI have to agree with Johnny. If you're maintaining any number of systems, take it upon yourself to maintain a local mirror and rsync. Tag updates in your YUM (or other) repository appropriately until you have tested them. Then retag them appropriately when you have found a release with packages that are all inter-working well. No OS solves this completely. Configuration management isn't optional, although I would argue that Linux (especially less changing Enterprise Linux) is as ideal as it can get. If you want some help in this regard, Red Hat's tools with their subscriptions are very helpful. But, again, it doesn't solve the 3rd party equation. That's what Fedora is trying to do, although most with differ on the results (and even I have to concede there is a lot of room left for improvement). -- Bryan J. Smith b.j.smith at ieee.org http://thebs413.blogspot.com ------------------------------------------------------------------- For everything else *COUGH*commercials*COUGH* there's "ManningCard"
Hm, no problems with updates via normal 4.2 repo config here. Kai -- Kai Sch?tzl, Berlin, Germany Get your web at Conactive Internet Services: http://www.conactive.com IE-Center: http://ie5.de & http://msie.winware.org
On Thu, 24 Nov 2005 14:06:34 -0500, Bryan J. Smith" <thebs413 at earthlink.net> wrote:> But if you find yourself having repeat issues, and it is really > important to you, I have to suggest you consider paying Red Hat. I > know some here might disagree, but I have to at least say it.However, in my case I arrived at CentOS via Whitebox after giving up on paid support from RH on ES3. They were nice enough people, but I have had fewer problems getting updates from CentOS and have obtained equally helpful support here as I ever did from RH; for only $25.00 USD per box per year vs. ~$1000.00 per box per year. As my experience with RH is not yet a year old I very much doubt that there has been much change for the better. Sometimes you do not get what you pay for; and when you do not then it is better to have paid little than much. Regards, Jim -- *** e-mail is not a secure channel *** mailto:byrnejb.<token>@harte-lyne.ca James B. Byrne Harte & Lyne Limited vox: +1 905 561 1241 9 Brockley Drive fax: +1 905 561 0757 Hamilton, Ontario <token> = hal Canada L8E 3C3
On 11/24/05, Collins Richey <crichey at gmail.com> wrote:> CentOS is a really great product, and the package supporters do a bang > up job, but the one deficiency I've found is the fact that one can > never rely on being able to get updates at any particular time. > Whether it's CentOS proper or the Dag additions, something is broke > most every time I want to apply updates. >One other thing I haven't seen mentioned in this thread that's worth pointing out is a yum plugin called fastestmirror. You can find it and how to enable it on the yum wiki. It does a good job of getting the packages you need quickly if the only problem is download speed, at the cost of a slight (very slight in my case, less than a second) delay at the beginning. Several of the yum plugins are becoming quite sexy for daily use.> I know this is whin[ge]ing, and I certainly don't have a solution to offer. > > If anyone can offer bucks and/or equipment to improved the software > distribution process, your karma would get an enormous boost!!! > > -- > Collins Richey > Debugging is twice as hard as writing the code ... If you write > the code as cleverly as possible, you are, by definition, not > smart enough to debug it. > -Brian Kernighan > _______________________________________________ > CentOS mailing list > CentOS at centos.org > http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos >-- Jim Perrin System Architect - UIT Ft Gordon & US Army Signal Center
On Fri, 25 Nov 2005 21:30:26 -0500, "Bryan J. Smith" <thebs413 at earthlink.net> wrote:> You were paying $1,000/year for RHEL ES???As I recall it was in the $700.00 USD range which amounted to over $1,000.00 CAD per year at that time. And that was with the discount that RH gave to early adopters of their new support programs when we were forced off of our previous plan with the depreciation of RH9 (at ~$60.00 USD per host per year). However, I might be confusing the renewal price with what we actually paid while on RH support. In any case, the final cost in the second and subsequent years was over the magic three figure limit. Perhaps if you have hundreds or thousands of machines then RH might offer attractive bulk discounts, but for companies with just a handful of servers the cost of RH update support was made unbearable. I see now that there is a Basic level of support available from RH, which I do not recall as being offered originally. This presently costs $349.00 USD or about $410.00 CAD per host per year and I suppose that this service is equivalent to what CentOS provides in effect. To create a local mirror for RH updates without paying the per host fee is, of course, a violation of the contracted support agreement. One is compelled to place each host on contract, go without support for some hosts, or pay a tremendous sum of money for the privilege of maintaining a local mirror. To put RH pricing in perspective, I just installed a 2.8Ghz P4 server with a DVD DL super-mode burner, 250Gb of disc and 2Gb of RAM for less than $600.00 CAD. As I wrote earlier CentOS, at ~$25.00 (CAD) per host, is a bargain in comparison to RH. The minuscule degree of delay in updates between RH and CentOS hardly bears serious consideration in the matter. I suppose that if you have a government regulator on your back about some security issue or other then one might find a certain legal solace in pointing to a subscribed service as evidence of due diligence. Then again, our federal government requires us to use an application written only for the now depreciated and unavailable Microsoft JVM and supports it only under MS-IE 5.5 running on a pre- XP version of MS-Windows. So, go figure. (It runs, so far, under a fully patched MS-IE 6, but that is not the supported platform.) Regards, Jim -- *** e-mail is not a secure channel *** mailto:byrnejb.<token>@harte-lyne.ca James B. Byrne Harte & Lyne Limited vox: +1 905 561 1241 9 Brockley Drive fax: +1 905 561 0757 Hamilton, Ontario <token> = hal Canada L8E 3C3
On Mon, 28 Nov 2005 08:03:21 -0500, "Bryan J. Smith" <thebs413 at earthlink.net> wrote:> Illegal redistribution is illegal redistribution. It's not > debatable.I would point out, tongue in cheek, that the practitioners of an entire profession make a very good living by assuming otherwise. Regards, Jim -- *** e-mail is not a secure channel *** mailto:byrnejb.<token>@harte-lyne.ca James B. Byrne Harte & Lyne Limited vox: +1 905 561 1241 9 Brockley Drive fax: +1 905 561 0757 Hamilton, Ontario <token> = hal Canada L8E 3C3