[TriLUG] Migrating to Fedora

[Paul Boyle via TriLUG]

Thanks everyone for your feedback.

To John V. Yes, I was very surprised that the vendor chose Fedora as a platform.  I know Fedora is a rapid development cycle non-production distro.  This is pretty much the opposite of what most us crystallographers want for our instrument control computers.  We want stability so our instruments spend most their time collecting data.  Before committing to Fedora, I will investigate Centos and/or Scientific Linux to see if the installation of the Apex3 software goes more smoothly than on OpenSuSE.

I know next to nothing about containers, but the idea is intriguing.  I need research this more and  think about these more to see how they can best be used in my laboratory.  I have several student instrument operators and it might be useful to see if I can set them up each with their own container.

Thanks Again,

Paul

________________________________________
From: John Vaughters <jvaughters04 at yahoo.com>
Sent: December 26, 2016 7:12:32 PM
To: Rogers, Matthew; Paul Boyle; Triangle Linux Users Group General Discussion; Triangle Linux Users Group General Discussion
Subject: Re: [TriLUG] Migrating to Fedora

Peter,

I would be disappointed if a vendor only supported Fedora. This is not meant to be a production OS. The OS version changes every 6 months and the total life cycle for maintenance is like 13 months. On top of that fedora is a maintenance nightmare, with constant updates for bugs. It is really only a test environment that I use to get a flavor for what RHEL will look like in the future. I would ask the vendor if they support a RHEL version and use the appropriate matching Centos version. If they do not support an RHEL version, I would ask them why? AND encourage them to do so. They should be able to tell you exactly why they do not support RHEL, like certain Library/Package version requirements that RHEL does not support. It is possible to make a Centos version work by upgrading to the versions of software needed for their software. So it could be that they are still working on that solution or you could attempt it yourself but you need to know the software requirements, if they would give it to you.

For workstation vs server, it is moot. the only difference is the software you load. The term workstation and server are vague and meant only as a convenience. Find out the exact requirements from them on software required to be loaded and then load whatever else you think you need. The workstation convenience install may be a good place to start, but in any case if the vendor supports Fedora, they should be able to tell you exactly what to load.

It is not clear what hardware you use to communicate with the equipment, but if it is only Ethernet, then consider the virtual option and for that it may be worth while to investigate LXC containers. If it were me, I would load Centos 7 and then install LXC containers and start experimenting with different loads of Fedora and Centos in LXC Containers.

If you want to discuss this further offline, I would be glad to help.

Thanks,

John Vaughters