Confused

----- Original Message -----
From: "Craig White" <craigwhite@azapple.com>
To: <plug-discuss@lists.plug.phoenix.az.us>
Sent: Thursday, February 28, 2002 8:45 AM
Subject: Re: Confused


> On Wed, 2002-02-27 at 18:07, Jim wrote:
> > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> > Hash: SHA1
> >
> > As newer releases of the kernel and other components that make up all
> > distributions, they (i.e. Red Hat, Mandrake, etc.) continually release
newer
> > versions of their products. You can be sure that if you install the
most
> > current release of your favorite distribution, you are getting the most
> > secure, least bug-infested versions of the software that is included.
With
> > the lead time from typing in the text of a book to the time it hits the
> > bookshelves, the software references in almost any technical book are
> > woefully our of date.
> >
> > My particular beef regarding the marketing of distributions is that the
> > clueless stores, like Borders for instance, leave outdated distributions
on
> > the shelf. This just confuses the uninitiated. Maybe we should see if
we
> > can get some sort of information out to those stores so that new users
are
> > not buying old versions of the distributions with all the attendant
issues
> > that those older versions are known to have.
> >
> > On Wednesday 27 February 2002 17:39, you wrote:
> > > I'm confused by one thing (Ok, a lot more than one) that is I see a
lot of
> > > current books still talking about Red Hat 6.2 and I also see Red Hat
7.2..
> > > What is the Red Hat 6.2 that is in these books? They are mostly
server
> > > type books.
> > >
> -----
> It's not unusual for people to use a slightly older distro for server
> based application since there is a distinct advantage of the beast that
> you know. The biggest problem becomes the updating necessary to cure
> known security issues. For example, Redhat 6.2 would be a pretty solid
> choice for a firewall.

I do agree here, but there is alot of work to do to 6.2 to secure it I mean
even the likes of rpm and crond on 6.2 have holes in them .. of course
updating the version of rpm and obviously installing later rpms for older
binaries is always an option.

>
> I tend to use the current versions because I see the progress but it
> does mean that I have to fight through things like iptables which is
> less understood (at least by me) but other things such as the
> improvements in Samba are so vast that it's worth the pain.
>

I always find that running the likes of Slack im always building the latest
versions of things like

Sendmail, Samba ( if needed ), Bind or MaraDNS or any other daemon for that
matter
so the transition of new things or options in config files is kinda
transparent.

as regards to books though as this thread started out I guess its like the
O'reilly book on Apache web server, because its not fundamentally different
yet a new book is not needed the version i have is like written for version
1.3.5 i think. Until ver 2 is out there i dont think o'reilly will release
a new version of that book.

I think this goes for the actual OS books too.

Nige
> Craig
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