Steve Bergman wrote:
I'm trying to come to a decision between CentOS 4.2 and Fedora Core 4 for use on a server. One of the things the server will be serving is X desktops so there are some advantages to Fedora.
However, one thing I can't help but notice is that the patch volume for FC4 from Oct 11 2005 thru the present compared to CentOS 4.2 for the same period is about 5 times greater. In fact, since June, there are 899 RPMs in the FC4 updates directory for FC4 which seems absolutely insane.
CentOS is a smaller distro, but not that much smaller. Also, I understand that CentOS's parent distro (from a prominent North American Linux Distributor) is supposed to be better tested before release than Fedora. But still, there must be some other factor to explain the disparity. Like CentOS only releasing a patch for security problems and not bug fixes or something like that.
Could someone enlighten me?
Thanks, Steve Bergman
CentOS is server class stable although conservative. Fedora is bleeding edge and acts as a testbed for what sometimes winds up in CentOS. If you bleed a lot.. you need to get patched up a lot. I think what you have just researched proves why many of us run CentOS instead of Fedora... reliability.. and not getting burned or cut by the latest release of a package which has not been tested in a real world environment.
Best, John Hinton