Re: Choice of distribution for new sourceware.org server?

[Carlos O'Donell <carlos@redhat.com>]

On 2/5/20 9:02 PM, Frank Ch. Eigler wrote:
> Hi -
> 
> 
>>> Having to upgrade apprx. every 8 months is a PITA though, with so much
>>> activity and non-distro software on the machine.
>>
>> Sorry, I don't follow, could you expand on this a bit?
> 
>> How much non-distro software is there on sourceware?
> 
> Well, quite a bit.

If non-distro softare impacts our maintenance costs, should we be evaluating
the list of non-distro software for value vs. cost?

>> When you say "activity" do you mean that users would be impacted
>> once every 8 months for a small window of downtime?
> 
> Probably, if nothing goes wrong.  And if there's an incompatible
> rebase of python or php or whatever, then we (?) have to fix the
> thing.  There is a downside to upgrade churn, in terms of our
> manpower.

Best practice is to have a production and development server to
avoid these kinds of problems and shake out such changes.

Do we have 2 servers now?

> Note that with rhel8/centos8, we'll have a competent container
> platform.  Heck, the new machine is big enough to carry a few VMs too,
> so if some future service were to require newer rawhide-y prereqs, we
> can accomomdate that even with a stable base.

I agree it would be great to run containers or VMs on sourcware for
specific services.

In which case RHEL8 with ELS as an option is even more valuable?

In summary:
- Why not stick with RHEL8 to get ELS and avoid CentOS 8 early phase out.
- Stick with RHEL8 as long as we can to avoid costly maintenance upgrades.
- Use VMs and containers to isolate new systems to provide services that
  need newer userspace or kernels.

Does RHEL8 seem like the better choice here with ELS?

-- 
Cheers,
Carlos.