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