[sf-lug] meeting update -- what happened yesterday

[Rick Moen]

Quoting jim stockford (jim at well.com):

> In the face of Rick's finger-waving, okay, I'll continue to carry them
> around with me until I myself get copies of 6.x.

Honestly, Ubuntu 5.10 "breezy badger" isn't so bad:  It's only nine
months out of date.  I keep encountering people who say they want to
install RH9(!)  My rule of thumb is that any distro release more than
one _year_ old is conclusively too old.

This is why I write the release date on Linux install media I burn for
people, and include that information on
http://linuxmafia.com/cabal/installfest/#distros .  However, Ubuntu
makes it easy:

 5 . 10
 ^   ^
 |   -- month
 ------ year within the 21st century

Thus, 5.10 was released in October 2005.

Releases thus far:

4.10 "warty warthog":  October 2004
5.04 "hoary hedgehog":  April 2005
5.10 "breezy badger":  October 2005
6.06 "dapper drake":  June 2006

If the current development branch, "edgy eft", is released on schedule,
it'll become v. 6.10.  If not, not.


I can think of three reasons why installing an obsolete set of distro
media is (a bit) bad:

1.  Security.  Obviously, you can compensate, but it takes effort.
2.  Missing the cool stuff in newer versions.
3.  Some of your hardware may not be supported (or supported poorly).

When you _give_ people obsolete Linux install media, if the obsolete 
installer screws up, they'll often not think "Gosh, that almost 
did the trick.  Think of how much _more_ cool it'd be if only I had 
the current version."  More likely, they think "Well, that settles
it.  Linux sucks."

Note that any media you burn will become obsolete pretty soon, and spend
a long time being that way -- which is another big reason why I always
write release dates on 'em.

P.S.:  You want copies of 6.06?  I have all editions of Ubuntu, Kubuntu,
and Xubuntu for all four platforms.  I lack only Edubuntu copies.
Feel welcome to visit and copy.