Server update advice please

[moofer]

Hi I'm new to opensuse but not linux I've been a ubuntu/debian user for 5yrs, however recently I took up a VPS with 1&1 and my options if I wanted Plesk was openSuse or CentOS5. I went for openSuse for no other reason than I liked the logo better! having no experience of either this seemed as good a criteria as any for making my choice.

I have 10.3 on my vps which looks old so my questions are

1. Is 10.3 getting old now?
2. Should I upgrade?
3. Is there any real benefit?
4. Is it safe?(I am also new to administering a VPS so I need to avoid complications).
5. How do I perform an update through ssh should an upgrade if advisable and necessary?

Any pointers will be very welcome, thanks in advance.

[Akoellh]

SUSE Linux Lifetime - openSUSE

moofer wrote:
> I went for openSuse for no other
> reason than I liked the logo better! having no experience of either this
> seemed as good a criteria as any for making my choice.

except, if you had checked before deciding you might have learned that
10.3 went unsupported yesterday....AND, there is no easy upgrade path
from 10.3 to any now current openSUSE...(by no easy path i mean: there
is no upgrade, but rather it is required to format and new install
11.1 or 11.2, see <http://en.opensuse.org/Upgrade>)

[now, i do NOT know if you would have been any better off with CentOS
i have no idea what 1&1 is offering there, or when it goes unsupported]

and, i have no solution on how to upgrade a VPS...perhaps you do a
"network install" see <http://en.opensuse.org/INSTALL_Internet> i do
not know, hopefully others here (or at 1&1 can/will help)..

as for security, i'm currently running a fully patched 10.3 on my home
system, behind a nat router firewall, and sleep well at night....BUT,
i can imagine that the 10.3 image that the 1&1 VPS starts with is *as
released* on 4 October *2007* and needs two years of patches
applied....patches which are available for not much longer, if at all,
on openSUSE repos around the world (use YaST to access, update)

other than that, welcome to openSUSE...i hope you figure out a way to
stay...[and, standby for real help, i'm just a pretend guru...i'm
pretty sure that someone here has openSUSE on a VPS administration
experience, maybe..]

--
palladium
Have a lot of fun..

[Knurpht]

I manage some VPS's, all running Centos except one running 10.3. I would have suggested a combo of Centos and cPanel if you'd asked first.

Theoretically it's possible to replace the OS of the VPS. I was just thinking you should be able to boot it from an install ISO, after backing up all needed (!!!!), and do a text based install.

I know 10.3 still is a much offered choice as an OS on VPS's.