From owner-freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Fri Mar 29 02:31:51 2013 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.FreeBSD.org [8.8.178.115]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id C1CC7EA5 for ; Fri, 29 Mar 2013 02:31:51 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from fjwcash@gmail.com) Received: from mail-qc0-x22a.google.com (mail-qc0-x22a.google.com [IPv6:2607:f8b0:400d:c01::22a]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 885A9622 for ; Fri, 29 Mar 2013 02:31:51 +0000 (UTC) Received: by mail-qc0-f170.google.com with SMTP id d42so78230qca.1 for ; Thu, 28 Mar 2013 19:31:51 -0700 (PDT) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=gmail.com; s=20120113; h=mime-version:x-received:in-reply-to:references:date:message-id :subject:from:to:cc:content-type; bh=zStf1w/Wy/YLabbhROMztCo6mzfKncAVikSebo1S4rs=; b=nXJ//y/no4C4jrVHZKlpOhGpWwnHSijykOqlymwmAdyG0HmSDXRIim5k++n1r4r0VC BOnu33xFZ5uEQ0zCQP/yqNP9e7qnyLHW3+T+CUJYK6iTE/2Tan5LnsZF1yTQC8/QFnGv KAxeuN5bU8ii8V0R++fQk6yiOU8aCgO8rn0bSk1sFCG46IgrYmjrGO0ZFJwXc5j9RW29 0dYX8P58+LWerVDg5RMh/tzl7sxa6bM0Jf0ztK89iXtejQ4wuL/FQmX1dM+rbOs2U0/z wQ5HoI7vHS3ds68/NEBKQwIAZxPqeWT2ypDsbjfWRjlvb3JG5f7JJRqusOaZPy5HtUIw tSZA== MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Received: by 10.49.62.2 with SMTP id u2mr1641953qer.22.1364524311010; Thu, 28 Mar 2013 19:31:51 -0700 (PDT) Received: by 10.49.50.67 with HTTP; Thu, 28 Mar 2013 19:31:50 -0700 (PDT) Received: by 10.49.50.67 with HTTP; Thu, 28 Mar 2013 19:31:50 -0700 (PDT) In-Reply-To: <20130328231043.GA3666@ethic.thought.org> References: <20130328212955.GJ42080@manor.msen.com> <20130328231043.GA3666@ethic.thought.org> Date: Thu, 28 Mar 2013 19:31:50 -0700 Message-ID: Subject: Re: Seeking an extended-support O/S similar to FreeBSD From: Freddie Cash To: Gary Kline Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 X-Content-Filtered-By: Mailman/MimeDel 2.1.14 Cc: FreeBSD Hackers X-BeenThere: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.14 Precedence: list List-Id: Technical Discussions relating to FreeBSD List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Fri, 29 Mar 2013 02:31:51 -0000 I'm confused. Every other minor release of FreeBSD is supported for 2 full years, with no new features added, just security fixes (aka Extended Releases). And every major release of FreeBSD is supported for at least 4, somtimes 5, years. Canonical just shortened their support for LTS to 3 years, including server releases. And you can't get new versions of software on Ubuntu without upgrading the OS or adding random PPA repos. Sometimes you can get a backports repo, but they aren't officially supported. And only the official repos get security updates (if you're lucky). RedHat isn't much better. Sure, they'll support the core OS for 5 years, but you can't install new, up-to-date software on it unless you upgrade the entire OS (been down that road too many times to ever want to try again). We gave up on RedHat after fighting with 2.x, 3.x, and 4.x. FreeBSD isn't perfect (what OS is?), but it's amazing that you can install the newest versions of MySQL, Firefox, KDE, Postfix, etc on 7.4 (until the end of Feb, anyway), or 8.3, or 9.0, or 9.1. And can continue to get security fixes for all those releases (except 7.x now). Good luck installing any of those onto a Linux release from 2-3 years ago. What's missing from FreeBSD support?