[TriLUG] OS recommendations/Aging software issues

[Marc M]

Hi, 

I work for a major defense contractor that is very tight with money at 
times. Two years ago, before I came, they got RH 9 (bought or downloaded- 
whatever). I guess that got deemed appropriate to buy at the time, and it 
has been sitting here getting old ever since. The purpose of this server is 
to run Symantec Manhunt on it as an IDS. They bought Manhunt at the same 
time and never got around to deploying it until now. 

Now I am about to deploy a linux server (Dell) and I am trying to figure out 
which version to go with - RH 9, FC 1-3, or whatever. I want it to be 
redhat-based since I am the main admin, and I am more comfortable with that 
than on debian based systems. 

On the other hand I am not sure what to do. My boss makes the argument that 
we need to run the oldest, since he has seen versioning issues and conflicts 
in this situation. However most of that is in the world of Windows which 
does stupid things by default as we all know. 

In this scenario my argument is <still> that we should go with something 
more recent. I don't like the idea of putting something out there that is so 
old it isimpractical by today's standards, that am going to think is stupid. 
I guess there is some wisdom in being able to keep the age of the OS in sync 
with the age of the software, but in the linux realm, that really isn't the 
same issue as it is in other areas - right? OTOH I don't want to do a 'yum 
update' on the box and not be able to get updates because the version is so 
<frickin'> old. I think FC2 would be a good choice. Although it is still 
old, it at least is a little bit ahead of RH9. An additional concern - even 
if I were to deploy FC2, I would probably want to upgrade that too. Is that 
gonna be a problem? Can I upgrade versions of Fedora (2 to 3 to whatever) on 
a production box without a lot of problems? Will yum do that cleanly and 
consistently without a lot of headaches? 

Whatever choice I make is going to have to last for a good while. Does 
anyone have any advice for this situation? 

Thanks in advance

Marc