Redhat 7.x and 8.x sunset

[Bob George]

David Kramer <david at thekramers.net> wrote:
> [...] and Debian stuck in years-old technology, leaves me no
> good options.

Agreed that Debian STABLE is years-old. TESTING is much more current, and
generally "near release". I realize that 'testing' might cause concern, but
after dealing with RH years ago, I can say I've had far fewer problems with
Debian!

I've tried (over the years):

* Storm (debian) now defunct.
* RH5.2-9 in various increments.
* SuSE 8.0
* Fedora (close for desktop! but not quite. Quite impressed though.)
* Others I can't think of right now.

I've been happiest with Debian not majorly breaking things between major
updates... at least the MAJOR things. That said reading the docs between
updates is still a good thing.

> [...]
> - I am not the typical home user or the typical corporate user.  I
> run a HELL of a lot of stuff on my box.  On the other hand, I do not
> make one attempg to get something working then give up; I'm very
> persistent.  Weight my opinion as you see fit based on that.

Did you post previously what it is you're trying to do? I'm curious where the
tradeoff between "current" and "stable" lies. I've been similarly dis-satisfied
with various distributions over the years, but recently have found a
satisfactory blend (based on the dropping prices of hardware, and my tendency
to build "frankenboxen" out of parts):

I use Debian for my server-side stuff (email, etc.) but also consider myself a
power-user/hobbyist for the most part. I find Debian rather bland for the
desktop (esp. for family members) but I personally love it on the server-end,
and have had few problems over the last several years with updates, even
between major revs.

The latest solution I'm trying is keeping a separate box for Debian doing the
"real" work (email, iptables/firewall, etc.) and configuring separate boxes
with more current hardware as 'user' machines with MDK9.2. Using NFS/NIS, the
user data is all on the (backed up) server, so I can more-or-less wipe and
reload the desktops without too many worries if/when I want something besides
MDK.

So I've leaned towards a nice, solid Debian solution for server tasks, and a
featureful MDK solution for end-user tasks. I'm happy enough with MDK that I'll
probably join the club to give them some financial support as well, in the
hopes they stick around for a few more years.

- Bob