Fedora Server – As An Alternative ?

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hi guys

I wonder if any CentOSian here have done something different than only contemplated using Fedora Server, actually worked on it in test/production envs.

If here are some folks who have done it I want to ask if you deem it to be a viable option to put it on at least portion of servers stack.

Anybody?

Many thanks, L.

13 thoughts on - Fedora Server – As An Alternative ?

  • I run CentOS 7 but with an updated server stack, including rebuilds
    (sonetimes with tweaks) of Fedora packages.

    Gives me a stable base with modern server software. Does take some work to get some stuff built.

  • Le 20/12/2018 à 14:11, lejeczek via CentOS a écrit :
    each new versions I think.

    Many years ago I was using opensuse as some of my servers were running SLES and migration between versions was  realy difficult without full reinstall every 1,5 to 2 years…

    Patrick

  • That’s just…err, misinformation.  The Fedora team works very hard to enable upgrading (without a clean install) from one release to the next…often skipping releases is fine (e.g., 27 to 29).

    That said, I only have a few Fedora boxes (used like servers — that is, not on people’s desks) for my users that need more bleeding edge software stacks and additional packages than CentOS + EPEL can provide.  Due to the heavy flow of packages updates and kernel updates, it takes a special kind of user to cope with updates, reboots, and occasional breakage.

    Chris

  • lejeczek via CentOS wrote:
    I would not run it as a server. In a server and workstation environment, you do *not* want to have daily multiple updates to software, you want stability, or you’re likely to have your users seriously aggravated by you, for breaking their jobs far too frequently.

    Spin up a VM or two, for folks who actually (or think they actually) need newer software and utility stacks, but use something stable as a base.

    mark “I do see how many update’s my manager’s fedora box gets…”

  • What I’m really looking forward to – why I thought I’d poke around, thus that question – is RDP in Wayland.

    When it get’s into RHELs I worry be ages and I’d really love to try to introduce Linux desktops to those really dumb and unreformable users.

    Everything else – frequent updates, etc. These can be as rare as we users want them, another extra bit of time to think of it would not kill me, personally.

    Also, we all know, what is in those Fedoras(maybe more so when it comes to “server” variant) is going to end up in our CentOSes – why not help by using/testing those, I ask myself. Especially now with 29 which I
    suspect might be our CentOS main new version.

    So I’m thinking.. I’ll start mixing that Fedora Server in.

  • They dropped mir. They moved to wayland. [They are still working on Mir but aren’t integrating it.]

  • This is what I end up doing on occasions as well, though I try to restrict it to isolated forward-compatible shared libraries rather than a full stack.

    Unfortunately, the Fedora folks seem hell-bent on discouraging [1]
    cross-distro compatibility in the name of Progress, so I don’t expect direct SRPM rebuilds to halt their increasing annoyance and difficulty as time goes on.

    -jc

    [1]
    https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/devel@lists.fedoraproject.org/message/HZNCOBZZFQ6GA2OKUJTII7D7QNLB3TE2/

  • Le 20/12/2018 à 16:21, Chris Schanzle via CentOS a écrit :

    … or just 27 years of migration experience :-D (all OS included). Even with Fedora laptop, but of course it was many years ago with realy old versions (4 to 5 to 6…). No doubtthat things have been improved but between theory and practice….

    Patrick

  • Why are we beating ourselves up about updates.  I have a couple Win7
    systems here and updates are constant.  My daughter is often caught not being able to do her homework as the system is applying updates on powerup.  Or I wake up to my Win7 system running at the login after I
    had suspended it the prior day, as some non-sleeping task took advantage and did a required reboot overnight.

    dnf update is now part of the startup and a regular process. Warnings about needing to reboot, are really no different than what Win users deal with.  Again, my daughter is often clicking on delay autoreboot for an hour so she can finish her homework (and the other night she got the BSOD for her efforts).

  • Yes, updates come out practically every day.  So?  Microsoft sends out updates to its desktops practically every day also.

    I turned off auto updates on my Fedora notebook and tend to do them Monday mornings to start the new week ‘up to date’.  I have NOT turned off auto updates on the Win7 systems here, as otherwise I might just forget as I use them too infrequently myself.

    Tracer is an interesting tool to see, after an update, what you have to restart.  Sometimes just an app or a logout and back in. Sometimes a reboot.

  • I did a project 15 years ago converting a centralized web server to individual Fedora containers for 500 orgs.

    each container to a new version annually was painful. Yeah it’s only this php thing breaks or that perl module does something different. But when you multiply that by 500x it gets painful quickly. After having done that a time or two converted to CentOS containers which made for less work for the admins and fewer angry users.

    Another project used Fedora as a LAN router which worked great, but again annual updates/reinstalls/reconfigurations got old. Migrated to pfSense with a clicky-clicky UI which a junior admin can configure and couldn’t be happier. Granted pfSense upgrades sometimes break, but 10 clicks later everything needed is reconfigured and working.

    Don’t get me wrong, Fedora has its place but sometimes needs a little more care-and-feeding than some other choices for any given problem/solution.