[PLUG] Recovery mess...

[M. Edward (Ed) Borasky]

someone wrote:
> Well, Fedora Core 3 isn't supported anymore and I don't think it is possible
> to grab all the updates for it.  I tried to upgrade glibc and ended up  
> hosing it.  Yikes!  Some quick thinking and I've temporarily got the  
> machine back up.  I installed Fedora Core 3 again on the backup  
> partition minimal installation and wholesale copied /lib and /usr/lib.
> 
> I'm debating on how to upgrade this machine and I probably should because
> it is in a sorry state.  There are so many customizations though.  What
> is the best way to migrate logs and email?  I'm thinking of going to
> Fedora 9/10 or CentOS 5.  I have network root servers running off of
> this box, so I have a lot of stuff to replace when I upgrade.
> 
> Concerning updates, they are a real nightmare considering that Linux is so
> stable in general that I may go for years between major upgrades.  Has anyone
> created their own local yum repository seeded from all the repositories that
> are typically used?  Dependencies become problematic when you do upgrades.
> I had an upgraded glibc and couldn't get flash installed.  Turns out, I needed
> the upgraded glibc and a few other upgrades I don't have.
> 
> Keeping older Linux distributions makes sense considering that Linux  
> in general has been getting more memory and resource intensive over  
> time.  For how much longer will a Pentium III be adequate for Linux?   
> Are the days of the 486 mail
> server past now?  There should be some focus on tailoring future Linux
> distributions to be only as fancy and resource intensive as the computer they
> are installed on can handle.  Should Linux need more powerful hardware  
> from one
> year to the next?  Gnome and KDE seem pretty mature, how about cutting their
> resource use in half without significant feature loss? Just because  
> today's computers have more memory and processing power, there is no  
> need to waste it.
> 
> I need to figure out how to migrate this major server to a supported Linux
> distribution that is more current.  I've been dreading this.
> 
>       Michael C. Robinson

Well ... where to begin?? :)

1. What's your budget?

2. What's the tradeoff between buying a whole new machine, installing 
something stable like CentOS or Scientific Linux 5.x on it and migrating 
the applications versus your time attempting to rescue your current 
setup again and again and again?

3. How long is this hardware going to live in the physical sense?

I just installed openSUSE 11.1 RC1 on my ancient (Compaq Presario 
2110US) laptop and I noted with some joy that most of it is *i586*, not 
i386! Frankly, I wish it had been i686 -- I don't see why the Linux 
community thinks it should support machines that won't even run Windows 
ME! The LiveCDs are i686, though, which is a good thing.

As far as desktops are concerned, I think Gnome has become a lot leaner 
and more modular in recent years. I haven't touched KDE in a long time, 
so I can't speak for sure about it. XFCE 4.4 is lighter than Gnome 
without giving up a lot of functionality, and XFCE 4.2 was even lighter 
if you can still get it.

I personally run WindowMaker on my 4 GB desktop and Gnome on my 512 MB 
laptop, but that's mostly because Gentoo testing has a bizarre mix of 
Gnome 2.22 and 2.24 pieces that I haven't been willing to put the time 
into troubleshooting. :)
> 
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-- 
M. Edward (Ed) Borasky
ruby-perspectives.blogspot.com/

"A mathematician is a machine for turning coffee into theorems." -- 
Alfréd Rényi via Paul Erdős