On Wed, 1 Oct 2008, Florin Iucha wrote:

>> I've been using RHEL for years and Ubuntu for a few months and Ubuntu 
>> seems to be a lot easier for me.  I like apt-get, for one.  RHEL 
>> software is often way out of date.
>
> You mean "stable", right?

Right -- that's the term!  ;-)  Well, the funny thing is, something that 
has been out for 3 years may not yet be labeled "stable."  Is that because 
it has proved in testing to be unstable, or is it because they haven't 
completed testing yet, or is it just that they are too lazy to get around 
to admitting that they should upgrade their packages?  I never know for 
sure, but I do know that there are bugs in some of the programs I'm using 
on RHEL that were fixed in a new release of that software several years 
ago.  So sometimes it seems like the old software I am using is literally 
unstable (prone to crash) and the newer versions are improved but not 
readily available to me (for my own protection, of course).

So, given the option, I prefer to just install the newest stuff and hope 
it is OK.  The alternative is to stick with old software that isn't being 
used anymore by most people, so it isn't continuing to stand the test of 
time.  Why should I think the old version of the software is better than 
the new?  The reason for changing it is to make it better.  Some things 
are a pain to upgrade, so I won't be in a hurry, and with a few things 
like sshd, it might be better to give it a few months after a new version 
comes out (or just not upgrade because of the hassle).


> 'same kernel and libraries' is a really fuzzy concept.  Is 2.6.18 the 
> same kernel as 2.6.19?  Is 2.6.18 the same as 2.6.18+three patches? Is 
> 2.6.18 the same if two people configure it from scratch, enabling 
> different options?

That's a good point.  I'll have to watch out for that.


>> What differences would affect functioning of Oracle or the Oracle 
>> installation process?
>
> The instructions might refer to files paths that you don't have or 
> installation scripts might try to modify the 'wrong' files.  And if you 
> call Oracle, for support, you might be refused on the grounds of not 
> using a 'supported' configuration.  That's why I suggested Centos, 
> because it is as close to RHEL as possible.

I'll have to study CentOS a little bit.  I've heard the name many times 
but never knew about the relationship to RHEL.

See, I thought the problems with "wrong files" were supposed to have been 
dealt with by the LSB, but...


>> Do the newest versions of these distros conform to Linux Standard Base 
>> (LSB)?  If so, doesn't that make them much more alike than they used to 
>> be?
>
> Yes, they do contain the LSB compatibility packages.  The problem is 
> that the vendors test against well-known versions of well-known 
> commercial distributions, and not against LSB.

Interesting.  I might have to get in touch with Oracle tech support to see 
what they say about Ubuntu.

I guess I don't understand LSB because I thought the idea was that distros 
would comply to a standard and then all programs would work on all 
distros.  The library versions would be the same and all paths to 
libraries and other important files would be the same.  It seems that you 
are saying that LSB is a set of packages that allow developers to make 
software that works with LSB, or they can ignore LSB and make it work on 
RHEL but not on Ubuntu, and so on.  I'm a little disappointed by where 
that went.  Getting cooperation from distro developers is probably like 
herding cats.

Mike