#10

The Discourse web interface can be very confusing, so it is certainly
understandable for this mistake to be made.

#11

Probably also because this discussion platform is primarily advertised on the Silverblue site thus far?

1 Like
#12

Silverblue is a completely different way of managing your base system, so a command like this wouldn’t really work…

If you’re referring to Chrome OS, it’s a very different beast from a standard Linux distro…

#13

There are three main true rolling releases: Gentoo and its derivatives, which is mostly built from source on your machine, Arch Linux and its derivatives, and openSUSE Tumbleweed. I don’t know of anyone who runs a bare-metal server using Arch or a derivative of Arch, or using openSUSE Tumbleweed. I’m sure there are people, but the economics don’t pencil out.

There are people who run Gentoo on bare-metal servers, although not a large number. So if you’re looking for a model of successful servers on a rolling release, I’d hunt down a Gentoo shop.

I don’t think there’d be much of a market for a Fedora rolling release server; people want a long-term support model like Ubuntu LTS, RHEL / CentOS, and Debian Stable. They want something that’s popular, so they can easily find solutions to problems with Google and easily hire experienced DevOps engineers.

It costs time and money to test upgrades, and scheduled interruptions are another cost for deployment. So unless there’s a newly-patched security hole, there’s little incentive to upgrade a server.

#14

I think you’ve moved a little away from the subject, relating Silverblue, that’s not the case.

I am speaking about the fragmentation and waste of time with multiple versions of Fedora and packaging; and the focus on a rawhide model …

“A different way of managing your base system” Sure, then what can said you about these question ¿ H264 codecs on Chromium? if you are using rpm thirdparty repositories. The project still dependent on rpms and the use of dnf …

rpm-ostree is a hybrid image/package system. It uses libOSTree as a base image format, and accepts RPM on both the client and server side, sharing code with the dnf project; specifically libdnf.

We should take a look at Nix; and see their maturity; what I imagine Silverblue wants.

Other, In Silverblue are trying to replace critical parts of the system with a few commands; Wen you update/replace “A” program you must recompile dependent packages (b, w…z), if there is a jump in a “.so” or the path was changed. In rpm packaging some times a package requires a massive rebuild. It is inevitable even in “Silverblue”

I do not see differences; simply an adequate graphical interface; where the user only has access to some parts, unless you enable root . I mention Google because the Rolling release model works for them. If, it is not a standard linux; It is other discussion.

In the end, what it all comes down to is this:

The rolling release model makes our life a little bit easier.

This is because the less time it takes to maintain your operating system, the more time we have for things in life that matter.

#15

You could give Rawhide two branches, which modularity would make easier to achieve.

There’d be a developmental branch which includes pre-release releases of the kernel (e.g. 4.20.0-0.rc2.git0.1.fc30 is what my Rawhide install is presently using) and GNOME (e.g. 3.31.2 is what my Rawhide install is using), which is what Rawhide presently does, and a bleeding branch, which features largely the same software, except without pre-release (or developmental) releases of software like the kernel and GNOME, only the latest stable releases (e.g. 4.19.2 is the latest stable kernel, 3.30.2 is the latest stable GNOME).

Keeping the software up-to-date could be automated using bots/scripts, with humans only getting involved when a package fails to build or a runtime bug is encountered. Given the number of packages in Fedora’s repos, I’d imagine something like this is already going on (correct me if I’m wrong).

The bleeding branch would be for people like me, that like rollers, but don’t want the level of bugs that comes with developmental software. The developmental branch would be largely for Fedora developers and the odd courageous and curious person. Those that wish a mixture of bleeding-edge software with a little extra stability would go for stable Fedora releases. If they want a pinch more bleeding-edge, without taking the leap to rawhide, they can enable ‘testing’ repositories.

As for LTS releases, well frankly I suggest people should go look at CentOS/Oracle Linux/RHEL/Scientific Linux for that. Fedora is pretty much synonymous with cutting-edge software, which I think might be why so many developers (including Torvalds) seem to use it.

#16

$ rant begin
I know this is a cliche, but how is a 36-48-month life cycle for Fedora “skating where the puck is going to be?” How would a 36-48-month Fedora be better than RHEL/CentOS?

You want a vendor to ship Fedora on a laptop? Have the IBM CEO close a sale with the CEO of a hardware vendor! Have it be a priority with a bonus attached for getting it done. Have attorneys and accountants to show it’s a win-win.

Get marketers to show why it’s better than a Dell XPS with Ubuntu. Get enough feedback from real paying customers to know there’s a market and then get a team of engineers to fit the product to that market. The reason there’s a Dell XPS with Ubuntu on it is that Canonical and Dell executives agreed there was a business case to build and market it, not that Ubuntu is “better” than Debian or RHEL or Fedora or any flavor of SUSE.

I think “where the puck is going to be” is Silverblue / podman / Kubernetes / CoreOS / Flatpak. The only thing that’s keeping me off of Silverblue now is two devices - a USB WiFi adapter and an NVidia GPU - that don’t work yet.

I deployed a Docker app on Digital Ocean with the Atomic Host image they have and it was a slam-dunk. Everything just worked. I’m so fed up with the Docker for Windows unfixed bugs and terrible documentation that I’m seriously considering learning enough PowerShell to make the equivalent using Atomic Host in Hyper-V. That’s where the puck is going to be.
$ rant end

#17

[quote=“mattdm, post:1, topic:690”]
But there are some good cases for a longer lifecycle. For one thing, this
has been a really big blocker for getting Fedora shipped on hardware.
Second, there are people who really could be happily running Fedora but
since we don’t check the tickbox, they don’t even look at us seriously. I’d
love to change these things. To do that, we need something that lasts for
36-48 months.
[/quote]

$ rant begin
I know this is a cliche, but how is a 36-48-month life cycle for
Fedora “skating where the puck is going to be?” How would a
36-48-month Fedora be better than RHEL/CentOS?

You want a vendor to ship Fedora on a laptop? Have the IBM CEO close a sale
with the CEO of a hardware vendor! Have it be a priority with a bonus
attached for getting it done. Have attorneys and accountants to show it’s a
win-win.

Get marketers to show why it’s better than a Dell XPS with Ubuntu. Get
enough feedback from real paying customers to know there’s a market and
then get a team of engineers to fit the product to that market. The reason
there’s a Dell XPS with Ubuntu on it is that Canonical and Dell executives
agreed there was a business case to build and market it, not that Ubuntu is
“better” than Debian or RHEL or Fedora or any flavor of SUSE.

I think “where the puck is going to be” is Silverblue / podman / Kubernetes
/ CoreOS / Flatpak. The only thing that’s keeping me off of Silverblue now
is two devices - a USB WiFi adapter and an NVidia GPU - that don’t work
yet.

I deployed a Docker app on Digital Ocean with the Atomic Host image they
have and it was a slam-dunk. Everything just worked. I’m so fed up with the
Docker for Windows unfixed bugs and terrible documentation that I’m
seriously considering learning enough PowerShell to make the equivalent
using Atomic Host in Hyper-V. That’s where the puck is going to be.
$ rant end

[Visit
Topic](https://discussion.fedoraproject.org/t/fedora-lifecycles-imagine-lon
ger-term-possibilities/690/16) or reply to this email to respond.

You are receiving this because you enabled mailing list mode.

To unsubscribe from these emails, [click
here](https://discussion.fedoraproject.org/email/unsubscribe/84384b1267ec65
76aeca682b7ff15af948b7afca3a7e93556ac17c7211d6c0f5).

Indeed. Additionally, longer lifecycles wouldn’t help to get hardware vendors
to pick up Fedora. They’d just need to update the images they’re throwing out
once every 6 months. That’s not a lot to ask. Does that mean there would be
systems out there with old versions of Fedora? Probably, almost definitely.

EOL only occurs nearly a year after a release, and at those point those
systems can certainly still be updated, even through those GUIs the DEs have.

#18

I don’t know for a fact that Red Hat or SuSE didn’t try to sell Dell on the idea of a supported Linux laptop as a product for sale to end users. Nor do I know for a fact that Dell didn’t say, “Let’s make a Linux laptop”, do a little research on popularity, discover that Ubuntu was far and away the most popular, pick up the phone to Canonical and initiate discussions of a partnership.

What I do know is that there must be some kind of partnership between the “brands” for the XPS with Ubuntu to exist as a commercial product. You at least have to do all the trademark legwork and market viability assessment if nothing else.

You can buy laptops with Linux on them - some prefer to ship one distro but most will load any Linux you want on them and will also load Windows if you pay for it. But they aren’t Dell.

But you know what? They aren’t IBM, either. Red Hat is part of IBM now, and I think IBM could sell a really top-notch laptop with “36-48-month-life-cycle-Fedora Workstation” on it, but with Red Hat or IBM branding. Or create a new brand. I don’t think an open source / foundation-governed Linux distro can compete with a Dell / Ubuntu XPS. IBM / Red Hat probably can.

#19

We already have an LTS. At least two of them. RHEL and CentOS.
A rolling release would be fantastic, but redundant with Fedora’s regular point-realease/upgrade cycle;;; that’s okay, the current release cycle is silly and may as well be rolling.

#20

If you want rolling release, you can run Rawhide. It’s actually fairly stable.

#21

@mattdm: The Fedora LTS version is a good idea regarding the kernel (long-term), when a user of a Fedora flavour can choice a kernel with long-term-support. For older hardware it is often sufficient enough to run with a older long-term-support kernel. On the other hand a LTS version will bind manpower to maintain a LTS version. All other amazing things like actual software etc. should remain. A rolling release I would only offer, if a high-quality testing team is available, otherwise it would be a disaster for many user when they get a broken system and they have no help from Linux-professionals. Today I would wish to have an automatic system-upgrade every release-point with a self-maintaining OS supported by Artificial Intelligence in the background to avoid obsolete packages and digital “waste” caused by updates and other user/system activities. This options should be standard on all Fedora systems to guarantee a smooth running and well performing system. The software install options should prevent that a user can do system-destroying actions. That is my vision of things that are usefully and realisable and do not destroy the spirit of Fedora being a cutting-edge and always modern OS. For Microsoft Windows there are also plans to build a self-repairing and maintaining system. I am sure, that this will broaden the user-base of Fedora. I hope my ideas will have practial effects for Fedora.

#22

@mattdm: The Fedora LTS version is a good idea regarding the kernel
(long-term), when a user of a Fedora flavour can choice a kernel with
long-term-support. For older hardware it is often sufficient enough to run
with a older long-term-support kernel. On the other hand a LTS version will
bind manpower to maintain a LTS version. All other amazing things like
actual software etc. should remain. A rolling release I would only offer,
if a high-quality testing team is available, otherwise it would be a
disaster for many user when they get a broken system and they have no help
from Linux-professionals. Today I would wish to have an automatic
system-upgrade every release-point with a self-maintaining OS supported by
Artificial Intelligence in the background to avoid obsolete packages and
digital “waste” caused by updates and other user/system activities. This
options should be standard on all Fedora systems to guarantee a smooth
running and well performing system. The software install options should
prevent that a user can do system-destroying actions. That is my vision of
things that are usefully and realisable and do not destroy the spirit of
Fedora being a cutting-edge and always modern OS. For Microsoft Windows
there are also plans to build a self-repairing and maintaining system. I
am sure, that this will broaden the user-base of Fedora. I hope my ideas
will have practial effects for Fedora.

[Visit
Topic](https://discussion.fedoraproject.org/t/fedora-lifecycles-imagine-lon
ger-term-possibilities/690/21) or reply to this email to respond.

You are receiving this because you enabled mailing list mode.

To unsubscribe from these emails, [click
here](https://discussion.fedoraproject.org/email/unsubscribe/f04a4d09d4cebe
037de4025a53dbe9d6f1b79866ffd4ddc119b3dcc1addc315b).

What problems would the use of an old kernel solve? I have systems from 2004
that run Fedora 29 today. The only systems I use a different kernel on are my
own X200 tablet and T400 laptop, but even then it’s only because I put my
kernel in cbfs on those.

Why have all of the wasted effort for a LTS kernel?

The software install options should prevent that a user can do system-
destroying actions.

Of course, and dnf does that already. You’d have to be trying to break your
system, if you’re using only the package manager.

#23

I believe the usual idea is that kernel upgrades can break things, which is relatively rare but pretty bad when it does happen, and in certain uses/workflows you can’t really afford that risk.

#24

If that were true, then those updates should be tested before mass applied.
Even if we did have a LTS kernel, there’s no way we could test literally all
hardware which would be affected by a given change.

#25

Well, yeah, but the chances of something breaking due to a ton of changes in drivers, filesystems, and system internals are a lot higher than three backported security buffer overflow fixed.

#26

Hate to necro a 6 month old topic, but I think the general reason people ask about a Fedora LTS is because they’ve tried CentOS but hit a wall when trying to find basic desktop packages like say everyone’s favorite time waster Frozen-Bubble, you have to either compile it yourself or use a third party repo that might have outdated packages or run into a dependency resolution problem, if the epel repo could be expanded to include more packages like you’d find in the Fedora repos, or a new el repo was created containing those same packages, then I think that would satisfy the niche of people asking for an LTS version of Fedora. And as a note I’m not a developer, I’m just some dude that knows how to install and use several Linux distros and I stumbled into this while trying to find an el repo with a decent number of pacakges in it.

#27

A lot of this can actually be worked around rather nicely using containers; CentOS makes a pretty good container host OS (at least until we get RHEL CoreOS or similar).

#28

For what it’s worth, I don’t think we should worry about “thread necro” in this forum. I mean, if five years from now there’s probably no need to make a non-essential comment on something from Fedora 29 times, but if it’s a general topic like this where there are still open questions and you have something to add, go for it!

#29

From when I started switching my systems to Fedora Workstation eight years ago, I always saw Fedora as the leading edge and That’s one of the reasons I went to it. The other was that there are Redhat folks watching over it to keep things from going off the rails, but still let the creativity flow.

Since I started helping out with QA I’ve been delving more deeply into what is Fedora really? That is: What are the goals, philosophy, etc. I was more than a little surprised at how many versions of Fedora there are. There are new ones coming in and not so old ones being abandon. Not necessarily a bad thing, but just look over https://kojipkgs.fedoraproject.org/compose/ and consider this. If our goal, ultimately, is to provide what Redhat needs for RHEL 8 do these help us achieve that goal?

I really liked that phrase earlier of “skating to where the puck is going to be”. Starting back in the 70’s, that’s what we were doing in the electronics inductry. When we first started a new system design from scratch we designed for the parts that would be available when we were ready to build prototypes. We had to it was a major tool that helped our companies survive and prosper. Though I’m very new to Fedora I’ve been involved with software for my whole career and though the open community has embraced this in places and at times. More would be better. As I understand it, the basic purpose of Fedora is to hone that edge so RHEL can be the best.

My 1/2 cent worth is that with some more settling down, Silverblue would make a good successor to Workstation. Perhaps by F35 it could be in a good position to be the next candidate to make major contributions to RHEL.

As for Fedora becoming a pseudo commercial product provided with hardware… well… I guess I would ask: Of all the items in koji compose what is being offered? How much effort and time will it take to get it ready to be offered? Will the cost in time and effort produce commensurate value to Fedora and Redhat?

Sometimes we need to stand back from the trees to understand how best to manage the forest.