On 2011/09/17 01:06, Tanmoy Chatterjee wrote:
> On Sat, Sep 17, 2011 at 8:19 AM, Nico Kadel-Garcia<[log in to unmask]>  wrote:
>> On Fri, Sep 16, 2011 at 1:11 PM, Tanmoy Chatterjee<[log in to unmask]>  wrote:
>>> On Fri, Sep 16, 2011 at 10:36 PM, Connie Sieh<[log in to unmask]>  wrote:
>>>> On Fri, 16 Sep 2011, Tanmoy Chatterjee wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Is there any difference between Sl6.1 and SL6x repositories? Do I need
>>>>> to enable only of these two or both?
>>>>
>>>> sl6x is a symbolic link to the "current" release.  So at the moment sl6x
>>>> points to sl6.1 since sl6.1 is the current release.  When we release sl6.2
>>>> then sl6x will point to sl6.2 .
>>>>
>>>> So you need to pick 1 .  If you pick sl6x you will updated via the yum cron
>>>> job to the "next" release when it is released.
>>> Thanks for the elaboration - so it is a good idea to enable the SL6x
>>> repositories instead of SL6.1.
>>
>> It's a choice, and it's actually a reasonable one to select 6.1. If
>> you follow the model of The Upstream Vendor, the "5.0", "5.1", "5.2"
>> releases are all supposed to upgrade in place, automatically, to get
>> all current packages. ""6.0" and "6.1" are timestamps for media
>> releases, and do not represent a different software repository
>> maintained by them. This avoids the amazing pain some of us had to
>> deal with for years, back with the original "releases back when their
>> old "7.0" and "7.2" releases were likely to be incompatible.
>>
>> This way works better, by not trying to split support among so many
>> sub releases.
>>
>> Our friendly maintainers at Scientific Linux, understandably, don't
>> quite follow that, but with their common "5x" repository, and
>> "rolling" releases, it's pretty close. I really appreciate using that
>> one or two repositories, instead of having to mix and match from point
>> releases.
> Have really got confused after going through your entire post - so I
> am asking again - is it better to enable SL6X than SL6.1?

At some point you have to accept responsibility for the choice based on
your specific needs. If you need a stable system with minimal changes
use 6.1. If you can accept a little additional risk and want product
updates as they are folded in then select 6.x.

On my machine here I have two very demanding customers, me and my partner.
I kept it on 6.0 until the VM version I have looked stable with 6.1 and
there were no complaints. So I moved to 6.1 on the firewall machine. It
promptly tossed its X11 cookies with either nouveau (which I had setup
and working on 6.0) and nVidia drivers which I tried in frustration. The
next kernel update fixed the problem. (I was able to work around it since
I mostly administer from command-line anyway. And "startx" worked if I
told it to use a display other than the first one.)

So moving from 6.1 to 6.2 MIGHT cause problems that sticking with 6.1
and security updates only might avoid. But, then, it might not. What
level of risk are you willing to take, very low or very very low? That
is your call to make. You're you and I'm me. We face different demands.

{^_^}    Joanne