Re: [OS:N:] Why Free SW should remain as light as possible

[Etienne Goyer <etienne goyer linuxquebec com>]

On Sun, Mar 14, 2004 at 03:40:44PM -0500, anthony baldwin wrote:
> Somebody just donated a 400mhz AMD machine with 96mb ram and I'm loading 
> RH8.0 on it right now.

Unless you have specific reason for using an older distribution, I
suggest you stick to the latest release (that would be Fedora Core 1 for
RedHat).  There are many reasons: 

1. Security: latest distribution (should) have less security bug pending
out of the box.

2. Update: IIRC, RedHat does not produce patch anymore for RedHat 8.

3. User experience, software feature: considering the breakneck pace of
OSS development, latest distribution bundled with the latest release of
major software package will (or at least should) provide a better user
experience.

You may believe that older distribution are less bloated and thus would
perform better on older hardware but this may be true.  It's
counterintuitive as we've been conditionned to increased bloat coming 
with each revision with CSS, but it does not always hold true with OSS.  
Kernel 2.6 apparently perform much better than 2.4 for desktop (can't 
comment  as I have only used it on server).  Gnome and KDE are also 
being optimized release after release; KDE 3.2 is reputedly more 
responsive than 3.1.

If you have only RH 8 media in hand, you could ask your friendly LUG if
somebody could lend you a more recent set of CD.

Just my humble 0,02$.

-- 
Etienne Goyer                    Linux Québec Technologies Inc.
http://www.LinuxQuebec.com       etienne goyer linuxquebec com