NewsForge: Why I Do Upgrade My Linux Systems Frequently

"In his recent article Why I won't upgrade my Linux distribution Nathan Willis argues that there are many reasons not to upgrade your Linux-based system frequently. What he is really talking about is the proverbial RPM Hell and the not-so-good fragmentation of RPM-based distributions. Packages not part of your distribution might easily be broken by a system upgrade. Even parts of the distribution can stop working due to the upgrade. But RPM-based distributions are not the same as Linux.

"There are many reasons why a Linux system should be upgraded frequently, security issues being the most important. While we Linux users don't experience virus problems very often, there are exploits, root kits, and other such nuisances. Skipped system upgrades are a risk..."

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• NewsForge: Why I Won't Upgrade My Linux Distribution(Dec 19, 2004)
• Editor's Note: Who's Getting Behind the Desktop?(Oct 22, 2004)
• Linux.com: SysAdmin to SysAdmin: The Red Hat End-of-Life Debacle(Aug 26, 2004)