How to deal with Linux Releases?

English Open Chat
21

Until last summer - Yes. I did a couple of re-installation but always the same WinXP. No even automatic updates.
After some years I put SP2. OK some updates like Win Installer, Virtual Machine for .net etc.
But I didn’t have to customize all the PC once again. It was just a setup.

And now something typical for Ex-Win-Usr :wink: want Mozilla 3.5? Setup.exe :slight_smile:
I didn’t have to move to Win NT 6.0 because of that.

And about security - I had always a good firewall (Kerio when it was free) and up-to date antivirus and never any problems.
But I’m listening you guys and I fully understand the reasons that you provide.

22

And I’m not planning to moaning like some people that Linux is not so fast/easy/whatever like their Win was.

I’m just curious what are the reasons that one distro can not be for years if Microsoft managed to do it :wink:

And it was very valuable to know what it the average life-time of the single release.

23

On Wed, 2009-12-02 at 17:16 +0000, cygi wrote:
> And I’m not planning to moaning like some people that Linux is not so
> fast/easy/whatever like their Win was.
>
> I’m just curious what are the reasons that one distro can not be for
> years if Microsoft managed to do it :wink:

Microsoft is a single point of control. It’s the “box” that
many choose to live in. It gives everyone a single point to blame
and that makes people feel “happier”.

24

When comparing operating system releases from Microsoft to current Linux distributions, you have to keep something in mind. Microsoft only managed to “keep” Windows XP for so long b/c the developers did a radical rewrite of the OS core for SP2. I have always considered Windows XP SP2 to be a completely different operating system from WinXP GM/SP1, and if you consider the history of the release, it becomes more apparent.

According to Wikipedia, Microsoft originally planned on releasing Windows Vista in 2004, or roughly 3 years after XP. That version of Vista was only going to be a minor upgrade and wasn’t going to include all the bells and whistles the real version of Vista has. Microsoft was then going to do a major release of Windows in 2006/7, which would have looked like something of a Windows Vista/Windows 7 combined release in regards to all of the changes made to the operating system and new features.

What happened is Windows XP GM and SP1 had so many security problems that Microsoft diverted a lot of the resources dedicated to making the original version of Windows Vista to “fixing” Windows XP. In the process, a lot of the core changes that were going to go into Windows Vista were backported to XP. Eventually SP2 for Windows XP came to be the interim operating system release for 2004, Windows Vista was promoted to being a major release (which was released in early 2007), and Win7 came to be a somewhat minor update of Windows Vista (essentially same core, but included some performance fixes and spiffy new features). So if you look at this time table of releases for Windows:

Windows 2000 - 1999
Windows XP GM - 2001
Windows XP SP2 - 2004
Windows Vista - 2007
Windows 7 - 2009

You can see that, in reality, Microsoft has been releasing new operating systems just as frequently as many of the enterprise Linux vendors do (roughly 2.5 - 3 years). Because Windows XP SP2 was a free upgrade to users, and had the same name as its predecessor, many standard users don’t consider it a new operating system. This leads users to think that Windows XP (specifically the SP2+ version that most people run today) has been around a lot longer than it really has.

Please note I left out the server variants of the systems, but those don’t typically effect the standard desktop user.

In summary, Microsoft really hasn’t supported Windows XP for 8 years because there is no single “Windows XP”. There were two releases under the same name, with the latter being 5 years old. Also, the original version of Windows XP is no longer supported (users are urged to upgrade), and the current version is only supported for security updates. So really, there isn’t as much of a difference between Windows operating system releases and enterprise Linux operating system releases as it appears.

25

Well it’s true.

But please understand the user point of view.
In Linux no support means no new soft.

In Windows I could install i.e. Mozilla 3.5 on Win Xp 2001.

Why then I can not have SUSE 8.1 and download from Mozilla mozilla_setup35.rpm?

In true I know the answer but I want to show the user point of view.

26

I use Linux for just a little more then a year, so the subject is in real interest to me as well, and I’m basicly satisfied from what I learn reading the thread.

Just one clarification, or at least how I see the things with “testers”: like it, or not if you use OS, you do some test(remember that “send”, “don’t send” dialog when application crash in win xp). Even if you just call for support, and from that some bug is fixed and then released as update, in some form it is testing as well. Of course there’s one major difference regardless open source and closed source OS, namely when you send even the tiniest bug report, you actually do it mostly becouse of community and the idea to be part of world which share something good just becouse it’s good to share. And in addition you got your OS with opportunity to change a lot of it, and eventually redistribute it. You could say that that’s deal with benefit for both sides. Ofcourse some companies make profit of some distributions, but they are also the companies which usually give most back to the Linux kernel, and other open source projects, and again like it or not - we live in the world where money does matter.

Back to the subject of updates - from perspective of the end of 2009 it looks like we are in some kind of new hardware revolution which just started with dual and quad core processors, so yea one probably will need to keep pace with new software, but basicly Linux is quite well suited for new desktop hardware, couse lots of new desktop stuff are already present on servers, which in their bigger part are on Linux. And I’ll go to reread what more experience then me Linux users already post in the thread.

27

Yes and no.

I was explaining this the other day. You gave the example of SuSE 8.1, so I’ll run with that. If you try and get modern software, even if from the source code, that source code has been compiled against modern libs and so on, so even if you got it in source code, you’d still have to upgrade other packages. Which would then cause dependencies on other packages and so on.

The only way to get software for those systems, if archived mirrors, but then there is nor guarantee that it’ll work do to dependencies. And again, you wont find new software built for a system no longer maintained.

Your choices are either upgrade, or except the fact that software is no longer made for systems beyond the life cycle. Frequently Asked Questions - openSUSE

28

That isn’t Microsoft’s doing though, it’s Mozilla’s. They know that a lot of people still run Windows XP, so they create an executable for it. Eventually third party support for XP will stop (as it is already happening to Windows 2000). Also many software vendors have dropped support for the Windows 9X line simply because they are too old and the hassle of repackaging their programs to work with them is too much of a hassle.

It is the same principle as Linux software not being able to work on older systems b/c of the dependency problem @johnathan_r explains. The only difference is b/c open source software gets developed faster, the supported system libraries are more of a moving target. So being unable to compile programs for older version happens faster.

As I see it, the only reason Windows software is seemingly supported for a longer period of time is b/c the operating system and underlying system libraries aren’t updated as frequently. Less updates = less changes = longer support time, but it also means there are fewer new features added, and bugs stick around longer.

Of course, wrt linux software, most of the time the source code is available, so if a user wanted to run a really old release they theoretically could so long as they update all of the appropriate dependencies. With most Windows software, this isn’t the case and users are stuck using old/unsupported versions of software. Just because software is still being released that support Windows XP now doesn’t mean it will always be like that.

So this means that, given enough time and patience in updating software libraries, Firefox 10 could be compiled to run on openSUSE 11.1, but unless the Mozilla devs compile a Windows XP version, end users are out of luck.

It comes down to whether it is worth it to update or not. On Linux, a user could do the update themselves, but on Windows that responsibility is put onto a dev. And considering software is always changing, I doubt there are very many devs who would want to support an old system for so long when there are newer and (hopefully) better systems available.

29

I was a skeptical voice to trigger and hear your opinions.

No worries, with my talent and never ending digging in any OS I’m pretty much sure that I will kill my system (in a way that only re-installation will help) sooner than 2 years :wink:

Thanks for this discussion so far.

World speedup, Electronics also, maybe OS development need too :stuck_out_tongue:

30

MS distribute a core OS which does less.

How many ppl want to install & use IE6 today, rather than having to use it cos’ it’s there and their applications were written for it?
You still on Office 98, 2000? No trouble with pesky 2007 documents proliferated by crazy upgrade addicts?
Still using your 2001 Virus scanner?
Same games?

I think if you’re honest, you’ll say “No!”; then start to think about what you get for being willing to do an annual live upgrade which will likely be even easier in the next release than the one to 11.2 is.

31

No you will think you need to re-install but actually be wrong about it.

Anyway actually if you backup the system properly, then you can do bare metal recovery, which would always be an easy option.

32

On Wed, 2009-12-02 at 20:36 +0000, cygi wrote:
> I was a skeptical voice to trigger and hear your opinions.

You make a very valid point. But perhaps with Linux distros
and FOSS, maybe the problem is our own expectation of how
things should be based on our experiences dealing with
Microsoft.

IMHO, since things are moving server side, the future front
end can be anything and that means it will be determined purely
by cost (ultimately) and that’s good news for FOSS and Linux.

A lot of Window’s complexity is due to being large on the
front end (desktop). I predict Microsoft will have to run
their business strictly on their application revenue in the
very near future. The question is: Will they be able to create
an online application model that people will pay for? Or
is it too late to make big money on that?

33

About on-line model.

It’s amazing and a bit scary how much I use google products.
Mail, Calendar, Documents and everything on-line collaborated with my wife.
so in true I don’t need desktop PIM, Open Office I use only for big files, etc.
My Windows-based friends use Google Chrome, Picassa as a default image viewer etc.

We are very dependent from google in this case. I always wonder what they do with my private data and WHO PAYS FOR THEIR BUSINESS :wink: and development (only ads?)…

And some time ago they said something about developing google’s OS :expressionless: Who knows. I wouldn’t go so far but many people will.