[CentOS] Volume of patches for CentOS vs Fedora

Fri Jan 27 09:05:16 UTC 2006
John Hinton <webmaster at ew3d.com>

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