On 24/07/14 16:15, Scott Dowdle wrote:
Greetings,
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There's also a very large commercial 32bit user base that is being abandoned by the upstream. I know the "Centos marks" can't be used in commercial markets, but this is a topic that could use some thought.
I'm talking on the order of hundreds of thousands of platforms that require newer os features, but logistics fail to allow the hardware to be updated. I'm not talking theoretical here, I'm talking of a legitimate case where the upstream is abandoning its existing customer base and trying to force hardware upgrade schedules. Is it past time everything was 64bit? Sure. Does that mean I can just wave a magic wand and make it happen on their schedule? Absolutely not.
Upstream has also "abandoned" a significant number of hardware RAID cards and network cards in EL7. I have a few HP Proliant 64-bit servers that are about 6 or 7 years old... and the RAID card isn't detected in 7 where it was in 6. I've heard a few other people mention the same thing with regards to their NICs.
So besides the hundreds of thousands of existing systems running 32-bit only, there are also quite a few other systems that are incompatible with EL7 because of other hardware.
ELRepo.org can help with those cases, especially the disabled NICs. Some have already been done (e.g 3c59x and forcedeth) and it's pretty simple to do for others so just file an RFE for the drivers you require at http://elrepo.org/bugs
Answer, continue to use 6 for the years it has left.
If EL6 died on EL7 release day, then yes there would be an "abandonment"... but since 6 still has a few years left on it, not so much.
TYL,