Fedora Rolling Release?

sonoran · #1 29th May 2009, 07:40 AM

I've been using Rawhide since Fedora 11 Alpha, and have been very happy with it - really no more problems than what I normally get with a new Fedora release, at least since F9.

I understand that since I am up to date, there is no advantage in my installing F11 Final when it comes out.

If I go back to Rawhide now, doesn't that mean that essentially what is happening is a Fedora Rolling Release? In effect, if not in name? Or am I missing something obvious? At some point will I have to do a new install of Fedora 12, or will I get that by staying with Rawhide?

SlowJet · #2 29th May 2009, 07:50 AM

Almost every rpm will change from f11 to f12
so you would be better off installing the F11 release, making room for a second f12 to install from the boot.iso.

In this way you can have the best of both worlds, using one to fix the other when needed (as tools sets permit.)
You can re-install f12 as needed to straighten it out or test.

Upgrade the f11 with the f12 dvd or install f12 on the f11 partitions, then install f13 on the f12 partitions.

SJ

RahulSundaram · #3 29th May 2009, 07:53 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by sonoran

I've been using Rawhide since Fedora 11 Alpha, and have been very happy with it - really no more problems than what I normally get with a new Fedora release, at least since F9.

I understand that since I am up to date, there is no advantage in my installing F11 Final when it comes out.

If I go back to Rawhide now, doesn't that mean that essentially what is happening is a Fedora Rolling Release? In effect, if not in name? Or am I missing something obvious? At some point will I have to do a new install of Fedora 12, or will I get that by staying with Rawhide?

Rawhide is a permanent rolling development branch. Fedora releases are branched from Rawhide.

http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Releases/Rawhide

http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Upgrad...lease_to_final

If you have more questions, feel free to ask.

kevmif · #4 29th May 2009, 07:53 AM

That is true, it would be like a rolling release, however fedora rawhide is incredibly unstable and not recommended other then for testing. Especially before the feature freeze.

This is how the cycle works:
i) Rawhide open for development. Lots of new features and ideas going in. Highly unstable.
ii) Feature freeze. No new features added - existing features continue to be worked on). Still very unstable as the features are still being implemented / completed).
iii) Development freeze. Features are either implemented to a level where they are testable or dropped. Tree becoming stable but lots of bugs still exist. Bugs being actively worked on.
iv) Final freeze - changes accepted for critical bugs / approved fixes only. Tree largely stable and testable.

http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Schedule

The difference between Fedora and a rolling release is that each release of Fedora comes with a distinct set of features whereas a rolling release implements features on a more ad-hoc basis. Each idea has good and bad points. Personally I am not a huge fan of a rolling release.

sonoran · #5 29th May 2009, 09:19 AM

Thanks for the great replies:

SJ - I do have room and will try that - "best of both worlds."

Rahul - thanks for the links, the - "untested" aspect of rawhide had slipped my mind.

kevmif - the story behind the schedule - apparently I've been lucky with my F11 rawhide.

My experience with ArchLinux rolling release is similar to F11 rawhide - little breakages from time to time, but not as intimidating as a new version install - the culprit is easier to identify and the fixes follow quickly.

I'm back down to earth now - but with a plan

Darkslide · #6 31st May 2009, 01:19 PM

Another option you have is to run the released versions of Fedora and pull down only selected packages from Rawhide as you need them. For instance, when I was running Fedora 10, I really wanted to use version 3 of thunderbird. However, version 2 was only available in the F10 repos. I would issue the following to pull down thunderbird without having to run Rawhide all the time

Code:

#yum install thunderbird --enablerepo=rawhide

This allows me to dip my feet in the waters of the bleeding edge without jumping completely in.

RahulSundaram · #7 31st May 2009, 01:33 PM

Hi,

If you actually try that, you will pull half of rawhide anyway due to dependencies. New version of Thunderbird requires new version of XULRunner which will pull in all the packages that are built against this new version and it will quickly escalate. Rawhide is the development branch and not the place to get new software for the current non-development releases.

scottro · #8 31st May 2009, 02:32 PM

Arch is quite different than Fedora. Fedora, despite the rapid pace, is probably intended to be version X, then version Y, whereas Arch is always rolling. (Too many song fragments come to mind here.)

That is, Arch is intended, as far as I know, to *work* with a rolling release, whereas with Fedora, the rolling part (Rawhide) (and of course, the theme song to the old Western comes to mind, Rolling, rolling, rolling) is considered experimental and volatile. Arch of course, has the testing option that can be enabled in Pacman, but if you don't enable it, you should, in theory at least, expect updates to not break anything.

This isn't saying one way is better than the other, simply that Arch is a rolling release by design, whereas I wouldn't say that with Fedora.

sonoran · #9 1st June 2009, 07:08 AM

Thanks scottro - I remember Rowdy & Gil - huge part of my childhood - but never made the connection. I've squeezed my Fedora 11 partitions to make room for F12 - I plan on reinstalling F11 and then I'll enable Rawhide and just "Keep them doggies movin'" .

axel · #10 1st June 2009, 07:54 PM

I don't think that enabling Rawhide is a good idea unless you want to search for bugs.

In Arch would you have the testing repository enabled all the time?

brunson · #11 1st June 2009, 08:48 PM

Here's a variation on the original question: I'm currently running rawhide, when F11 is released, how to I "stick" on that? I originally upgraded from F10 with prerelease, should I just prerelease to F11?

sonoran · #12 2nd June 2009, 09:06 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by axel

I don't think that enabling Rawhide is a good idea unless you want to search for bugs.

In Arch would you have the testing repository enabled all the time?

I am using SlowJet's idea and triple booting Arch, Fedora 11 & Fedora 12 (rawhide). As I said I experienced very few problems with F11 rawhide - probably because my system is old & plain vanilla.

No I don't mess with Arch testing - I use Arch for work. But I pacman -Syu every night and have not had a system breakdown since installation 6 months ago.

I only use Openbox on Arch, no Gnome or KDE, and I understand the system configuration.

**AdamW** · #13 2nd June 2009, 06:36 PM

brunson: as long as your /etc/fedora-release says Fedora 11 (Leonidas), you'll stick with F11 once the switchover happens, you don't need to do anything special.

brunson · #14 2nd June 2009, 06:45 PM

Cool, that's what I thought, but I wanted to make sure before F12 packages started getting sucked in. :-)