[svlug] My next computer and its support

[Ivan Sergio Borgonovo]

On 11/21/2016 04:47 PM, norm at dad.org wrote:
> I am a very old man, 84 years old.

That's generally not enough to have a wikipedia page ;)

> I have been using RedHat systems and paying for RedHat support for nearly 20
> years now. I am currently using Red Hat Enterprise Linux Workstation release
> 6.8, on a very high-end workstation. I use if for program development (mostly
> Java but some C and a little Perl, Bash, Python etc), for entertaintmenrt,
> and for managing my life.

> For me, Redhat problems are that:
>
>         I haven't been able to get the latest versions of Chrome and Chromium
>         to work under it.
>
>         The paid support varies from really terrible, to mediocre, and very
>         occasionally good.

Which kind of support?
No theorem in CS has my name and I assure you I'm pretty lazy, but for:
- programming in C, bash and python
- listening music/watching video
I never needed paid support.

It really much depends on how you use your workstation.

I've to say that in the past, not just because I was very ignorant, but 
because Linux "environment" was far less mature I was used to ask much 
more questions on Linux mailing lists, but now most things works by magic.

>         And the next version of it, RHEL 7, will use systemd instead of init.

>               I know almost nothing about systemd except that using it will
>               mean I will have to learn a lot of new stuff and that one of
>               its authors is the author of the RHEL 6 sound system, which has
>               given me endless grief. For those two reasons, I would like,
>               all other things being equal, to avoid it.

I had my issues with pulseaudio as well, but far in the past. I had no 
issues with systemd. I didn't have to learn anything with the exception 
of using systemctl [actio] [service] in spite of /etc/init.d/[service] 
[action].
My daily life didn't involve any tweaking of system services nor it 
does, still I've found systemd diagnostic is nice. If you do have to 
tweak system stuff YMMV.

I'm running debian sid on my workstation and testing on my home server.
I'm currently an embedded developer, I used to develop ecommerce/cms 
sites. I still manage my mail/horde/file server. I occasionally write 
some "web" code for some toy project so I've to fiddle a bit with my 
server configuration.
I listen music and watch video on Linux, I use Chrome, Chromium and 
Firefox with flash support, icedove/thunderbird, occasionally gimp, 
maxima, eclipse (from upstream, no debian package).
I occasionally print.

Being on sid/unstable most of my problems get solved with this routine:
- find which package broke some functionality
- report the bug
- put on hold the culprit
- wait no more than 1 week
- upgrade

I've to admit that the level of effort I was willing to solve annoying 
stupid problems has become lower and lower through the years and I don't 
know where it will be when I'll be 84, but again, I've had less and less 
stupid problems to solve as years passed.

I'm not aware of any particular issue with Chrome/Chromium on RHEL, 
Fedora or Ubuntu latest version.
You'd be more specific with the problem you're facing with RHEL 6.5, it 
seems you don't have to upgrade to 7 to get it working, but I'm not a 
RH/Centos/fedora user.

Generally you can find Chromium packages directly in the repository of 
your distribution and you'll have to add Google repository to install 
Chrome. Chromium requires you to install pepper to have Flash support.
So to use Chrome you may have to add google repositories to RHEL.

Ubuntu switched to systemd, I wouldn't be surprised if it will become 
harder and harder to avoid systemd.

I've found this for Ubuntu support:
https://www.ubuntu.com/support/plans-and-pricing#ubuntu-advantage-for-desktop

but it doesn't look as something suited for your need.

I may guess you'll find easier to get used to systemd rather than 
switching from a RH based distro to a Debian based.

-- 
Ivan Sergio Borgonovo
http://www.webthatworks.it http://www.borgonovo.net