Latest updates broke my system (URGENT)

[John Summerfield]

shrek-m at gmx.de wrote:
> John Summerfield schrieb:
>> shrek-m at gmx.de wrote:
>>> Fedora is ok for day_to_day_work.
>> Just have a look at the fedora-list archive, how many problems there
>> are that fall in the general categories:
>> [.......]  These are taken from subject lines, and suggest to me that
>> the problem is more likely to be software-related than user error, and
>> that are likely ro require local action (ie physical presence) and
>> substantially prevent the system's use.
> 
> you count the fedora-list subjects line, i count fedora-bugs,
> we both should contact our doctor ;)

Count them anyway you like; there are too many critical problems that 
are not caused by users' stupidity for sensible reliance on Fedora for 
daily use for important work.

> 
>> likely I'm wrong about some (both inclusions and exclusions), but then
>> I've had some personally that are unreported.
>>   For example, the fine new (to pe) graphical update too crashed
>> (segfault), so I just use commandline yum.
> 
> let us talk about rawhide:  and without yum?
> rpm
> if you need more luxuriance for downloading packages you can use  lynx,
> elinks, *ftp, wget, curl, ...

Why? How is that relevant? I'm arguing against uninformed reliance on 
Fedora. Relying on rawhide is insanity.


> 
>>   For example, I've seen loadaverage 45+ and climbing. No idea what it
>> was doing, I couldn't do anything to find out. It cleared itself by
>> next day.
> 
> procps, sysstat

At loadaverage 45+ as I said, it's basically not listening. The simplest 
command takes minutes to run, logging in is impossible (exceeds the one 
minute timeout).

It's dual core, 2 Gbytes RAM.

> 
>>   For example, on FC3 the kernel panicked initialising USB on many
>> systems, including my laptop.
>>   For example, the current xenified F8 kernel doesn't boot without
>> special (unusual) options on my system. Reportedly it happened on F7
>> and was fixed, then recurred in the F8 test cycle, is fixed in the
>> later standard kernels but not in the -xen kernel.
> 
> only one seriously bug for me in fc5 (boot from raid1|5)
> two little update-bugs in f7
> 
> not fedora faults:
> nv-bugs (nvidia)
> one (ibm)harddisk-crash (no raid - 2004) - only a few lost files, not
> really dramatically
> one accidently  `rm -rf /path/to/data/` - ok, 2 backups per year is not
> really often
> one accidently fc6-i386 update over fc5-x86_64 - oops, nice result :)

Unfortunately, if I manage to drive down the wrong side of a street at 
140km/hour on the wrong side without having an accident, that doesn't go 
far to say it's safe to do that. Most people see it as risky behaviour.


> 
>> These are evidence, amounting to proof in my eyes, that Fedora isn't
>> suitable for important daily use.
>>
>> If you can handle problems such as those,
> 
> i hope so ;)
> if all goes wrong i need a rescue- or live-cd and chroot
> 
>> and they won't seriously inconvenience you if your system is down for
>> a day or more, then by all means use Fedora for day-to-day work.
> 
> one day ore more without fedora/redhat ?
> max. 2 - 4 hours and i should have fedora back for my day_to_day_work
> even on a completely new system.

I had in mind something that happened to me while I was over east. In 
this case, a power failure took out a switch, and let the smoke out. It 
was a week before I got back to attend to it.

It could as easily have been this, if i relied on automatic updates.
1. A new kernel gets installed. As it's the Fedora default behaviour, 
it's marked as the default for booting.
2. Power fails.
3. System boots. Kernel oops.





> 
> 
> ok,
> let us go back to rawhide ;)
> 
I was telling Antonio I think it foolish to rely on Rawhide's reliability.

You, shrek-m, suggested Fedora's okay for regular use. I dispute that 
that is so, unless circumstances and your skills are sufficient to 
overcome any problems, and unless the consequences of a serious outage 
are no more than an annoyance.

You're free to make your own choice for your own use, but please don't 
recommend it for general use. I've heard of folk running 
business-essential servers on Fedora, and that seems to me fairly 
serious folly. Risk of an outage is fairly high, and so is the likely 
cost, especially compared with properly-supported business-grade Linux.

-- 

Cheers
John

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