[Beowulf] OS for 64 bit AMD

Mark Hahn hahn at physics.mcmaster.ca
Sun Apr 3 12:17:06 PDT 2005


> >>   I am sure others will take issue with this, but I would strongly 
> >>advise against using a rolling beta OS (FC-x) as the basis for a 
> >>production cycle machine.  If it is a purely experimental cluster, go 
> > 
> > 
> > calling a non-test FC release "beta" is just plain petty;
> > all software is beta by that definition.
> 
> Not at all.  This is a direct quote from http://fedora.redhat.com
> 
> "The Fedora Project is a Red-Hat-sponsored and community-supported open 
> source project. It is also a proving ground for new technology that may 
> eventually make its way into Red Hat products. It is not a supported 
> product of Red Hat, Inc."
> 
> It is by Redhat's definition, a rolling beta (proving ground).

perhaps those words have a different meaning for you.  FC releases
are real releases, fully usable in a production environment.
the fact that they are a staging ground does not mean that they
are not production-worthy, or have not been tested.  it really 
only means that FC is on a shorter release cycle, and might contain
the new puce-and-teal color scheme, which turns out to be a bad idea.

beta is short for beta-test, and necessarily means that the testing
and resulting behavior has not reached a level which permits release.
of course, you may distrust any software's release criteria.




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