Discussion on LTS OSes
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@IRJ said in Linux OS Thoughts?:
What do you get on bleeding edge that you don get with LTS, that outweighs the compatibility issues?
More bugs to troubleshoot and learn Linux with.
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@scottalanmiller can explain what the fundamental differences is between LTS and anything bleeding edge.
To summarize it lazily, LTS is a set in time that is only updated for security concerns. BE is everything not that and you wanting to use the newest features as soon as they are released.
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@DustinB3403 said in Linux OS Thoughts?:
@IRJ said in Linux OS Thoughts?:
What do you get on bleeding edge that you don get with LTS, that outweighs the compatibility issues?
More bugs to troubleshoot and learn Linux with.
I prefer to use it vs troubleshoot it. You will get plenty of opportunities to troubleshoot.
There is plenty of learning to do with installing packages managing updates, etc, to deal with incompatibility issues that are easily preventable.
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@IRJ said in Linux OS Thoughts?:
@DustinB3403 said in Linux OS Thoughts?:
@IRJ said in Linux OS Thoughts?:
Stick to LTS versions (...hides)
I say the bleeding edge is better.
If you want to run linux for literally everything and never boot Windows, LTS is a better choice. Because if there is any type of software packages for linux they will be made 100% for LTS. I have never seen an example where LTS wasnt supported and Rolling update versions were supported. I have seen PLENTY of software where rolling versions like Fedora or Ubuntu 19.10 are not supported , but LTS versions are supported.
That would be software that I wouldn't consider unless forced to.
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@travisdh1 said in Linux OS Thoughts?:
@IRJ said in Linux OS Thoughts?:
@DustinB3403 said in Linux OS Thoughts?:
@IRJ said in Linux OS Thoughts?:
Stick to LTS versions (...hides)
I say the bleeding edge is better.
If you want to run linux for literally everything and never boot Windows, LTS is a better choice. Because if there is any type of software packages for linux they will be made 100% for LTS. I have never seen an example where LTS wasnt supported and Rolling update versions were supported. I have seen PLENTY of software where rolling versions like Fedora or Ubuntu 19.10 are not supported , but LTS versions are supported.
That would be software that I wouldn't consider unless forced to.
Sounds great, but completely false in the real world.
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@IRJ said in Linux OS Thoughts?:
I have never seen an example where LTS wasnt supported and Rolling update versions were supported. I have seen PLENTY of software where rolling versions like Fedora or Ubuntu 19.10 are not supported , but LTS versions are supported.
For "deploy yourself". For SaaS, we don't support LTS at all.
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@IRJ said in Linux OS Thoughts?:
What do you get on bleeding edge that you don get with LTS, that outweighs the compatibility issues?
More vendor support in my experience. More updates, faster. Fewer update problems.
Example... Fedora 29 > Fedora 30 is a much smoother and less breaking update path than CentOS 7 > CentOS 8.
LTS tends to break things, increase risk, and make for a lot more administration overhead.
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@IRJ said in Linux OS Thoughts?:
@DustinB3403 said in Linux OS Thoughts?:
@IRJ said in Linux OS Thoughts?:
What do you get on bleeding edge that you don get with LTS, that outweighs the compatibility issues?
More bugs to troubleshoot and learn Linux with.
I prefer to use it vs troubleshoot it. You will get plenty of opportunities to troubleshoot.
There is plenty of learning to do with installing packages managing updates, etc, to deal with incompatibility issues that are easily preventable.
I find it about equal. Not seeing advantages of LTS for that. In fact, LTS so infrequently supports that well that generally you have to break the LTS portion in order to get LTS to work. (Example... leaving the OS and getting third party PHP source on CentOS.)
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@IRJ said in Linux OS Thoughts?:
@travisdh1 said in Linux OS Thoughts?:
@IRJ said in Linux OS Thoughts?:
@DustinB3403 said in Linux OS Thoughts?:
@IRJ said in Linux OS Thoughts?:
Stick to LTS versions (...hides)
I say the bleeding edge is better.
If you want to run linux for literally everything and never boot Windows, LTS is a better choice. Because if there is any type of software packages for linux they will be made 100% for LTS. I have never seen an example where LTS wasnt supported and Rolling update versions were supported. I have seen PLENTY of software where rolling versions like Fedora or Ubuntu 19.10 are not supported , but LTS versions are supported.
That would be software that I wouldn't consider unless forced to.
Sounds great, but completely false in the real world.
If you require support, yo uhave to. Remember according to Ubuntu... only the rolling release gets full support. "Support" for LTS is limited to "what updates are easy" and "helping customers update to current." So if your software 100% depends on LTS, technically, you aren't making production / supported software.
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@scottalanmiller said in Linux OS Thoughts?:
@IRJ said in Linux OS Thoughts?:
What do you get on bleeding edge that you don get with LTS, that outweighs the compatibility issues?
More vendor support in my experience. More updates, faster. Fewer update problems.
Example... Fedora 29 > Fedora 30 is a much smoother and less breaking update path than CentOS 7 > CentOS 8.
LTS tends to break things, increase risk, and make for a lot more administration overhead.
You say this, but it is completely opposite of real world. I can show you examples upon examples where LTS is supported and Bleeding Edge is not. I have shown examples here on ML before. We have had this conversations many times.
Literally all the NIST, CIS, etc standards point to LTS and dont have benchmarks for Bleeding Edge. You can argue that bleeding edge is better, but I want to know how. Not some tangible evidence of you saying it works better when everyone else believes the opposite.
Negatives about bleeding edge:
Often not supported
No available benchmarks
Higher chance for bugs as it gets untested releasesWhat are the tangible negatives for LTS?
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Honestly, for real, having watched how LTS has been treated the last few years, I think LTS has failed and been abandoned. The LTS model is so bad in the real world that pretty much no one is using it in reality anymore. People are still claiming to use it by installing Ubuntu LTS or CentOS, but then modifying the OS to act like a more rapid release. Vendors basically require this now. Whether requiring third party PHP, NodeJS, databases, or whatever, they are no longer using the OS components that are LTS, but replacing them with often bleeding edge options because the LTS releases are so stagnant that the software becomes non-competitive.
We see this even on the desktops with AppImage and Snaps taking over from version locked RPM and DEB repos for the OS.
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@IRJ said in Linux OS Thoughts?:
You say this, but it is completely opposite of real world. I can show you examples upon examples where LTS is supported and Bleeding Edge is not. I have shown examples here on ML before. We have had this conversations many times.
Everyone says that they have examples, but I don't believe it. It's all words. It's excuses to simply not have production support. Not offering current support isn't the same as supporting LTS.
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@IRJ said in Linux OS Thoughts?:
Often not supported
Not supported by whom though? Third party software devs or the OS devs them selves. Where are you asking support to be supplied from?
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@DustinB3403 said in Linux OS Thoughts?:
@scottalanmiller can explain what the fundamental differences is between LTS and anything bleeding edge.
To summarize it lazily, LTS is a set in time that is only updated for security concerns. BE is everything not that and you wanting to use the newest features as soon as they are released.
Yeah that's not true. Dot releases with CentOS/RHEL give you packages that weren't in previous releases. For example adding VDO in 7.5 or 7.6. By the way, I believe you still need copr on Fedora to install that (so not in upstream yet.).
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@IRJ said in Linux OS Thoughts?:
Literally all the NIST, CIS, etc standards point to LTS and dont have benchmarks for Bleeding Edge.
And this, in turn, makes them complete and utter jokes with no place in a production environment. If they don't know computing basics (and they don't) they shouldn't be making recommendations. We know that these agencies are inept and at best decades behind the times. That they recommend LTS tells us a lot about if that's a good idea. Remember until just two years ago NIST was recommending insecure passwords because they couldn't keep up with decades old basic computer knowledge.
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@IRJ said in Linux OS Thoughts?:
Stick to LTS versions (...hides)
what is LTS Versions vs. Bleeding Edge
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@IRJ said in Linux OS Thoughts?:
You can argue that bleeding edge is better, but I want to know how.
Basic software engineering tells us this.... products that are more maintained and "alive" naturally win over those that are stagnant. LTS is a marketing term to make "stagnant" sound viable. It's only beneficial to ghost ship or very poorly updated software. As a software engineer, I only use LTS to screw the customer, never to make good software. It's so I can get away without maintaining or patching. It's so the risk is the customer's not mine, but the risk is magnified.
Bleeding edge is the WRONG term and nothing to do with what we are discussing. We are talking about LTS (aka stagnant) versus Current support. Ubuntu and Fedora are not rolling, nor bleeding. They are simply a six month update cycle compared to a longer update cycle.
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@scottalanmiller said in Linux OS Thoughts?:
@IRJ said in Linux OS Thoughts?:
Literally all the NIST, CIS, etc standards point to LTS and dont have benchmarks for Bleeding Edge.
And this, in turn, makes them complete and utter jokes with no place in a production environment. If they don't know computing basics (and they don't) they shouldn't be making recommendations. We know that these agencies are inept and at best decades behind the times. That they recommend LTS tells us a lot about if that's a good idea. Remember until just two years ago NIST was recommending insecure passwords because they couldn't keep up with decades old basic computer knowledge.
A good portion of business that have any compliance requirements dont have a choice. Pretty much businesses that have any kinds of audits are going to need to meet benchmarks even if they arent specific to CIS or NIST. Nobody is able to provide valid benchmarks for Bleeding Edge as they change so much.
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@scottalanmiller said in Linux OS Thoughts?:
@IRJ said in Linux OS Thoughts?:
Literally all the NIST, CIS, etc standards point to LTS and dont have benchmarks for Bleeding Edge.
And this, in turn, makes them complete and utter jokes with no place in a production environment. If they don't know computing basics (and they don't) they shouldn't be making recommendations. We know that these agencies are inept and at best decades behind the times. That they recommend LTS tells us a lot about if that's a good idea. Remember until just two years ago NIST was recommending insecure passwords because they couldn't keep up with decades old basic computer knowledge.
The hardening for RHEL is written by Red Hat, not NIST. So the benchmarks are made by the people that make the software...
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@IRJ said in Linux OS Thoughts?:
Negatives about bleeding edge:
Often not supported
No available benchmarks
Higher chance for bugs as it gets untested releasesNone of these are true for what we are discussing. They are often MORE supported (Ubuntu they are the ONLY option for what IT calls support, and as that is the biggest OS, this is a big deal.) RHEL gives more phone support to LTS, but more coding support to current.
Benchmarks are easily available.
Higher chance of bugs based on what? I don't believe this to be true, especially in real world usage. It sounds plausible, but doesn't really hold up.
