I'm not real sure what this discussion has to do with Scientific Linux, 
but I'll give this a shot.

On 11/08/2017 05:25 PM, ToddAndMargo wrote:
>
> I can't afford to have my Contacts and Tasks wiped out
> by the OS being too out of date to accept fixes and
> an OS vendor that won't fix it.  So it works both ways.
RedHat is quite up front about the point of RHEL, which is long term 
stability and support. EL is NOT about being anywhere even close to 
leading edge, much less bleeding edge. If you buy a heavy duty pickup 
truck, you do not get (and should not expect) sports car performance.

We use EL for both servers and workstations in hardware design[1] (and 
we are not alone in this). That's because that's what the third party 
tools support. There is no way those vendors can validate complex tool 
chains against a new build every six months. Yes, we are frustrated that 
we can't use the latest email client, web browser, or aardvarkial 
sanitization discomboobulator, but it comes with the turf. Conversely, 
many software groups prefer something that is very up to date, such as 
Fedora, Ubuntu, etc. They need a sports car, and recognize they can't 
haul a half ton microscope in it.

And you know what? For the job they really need to do (all sorts of 
things around hardware design and basic business and communication 
functions), the EL-based workstations work great.
>
>>> And you know the Cxxx series of chipsets have been around
>>> for a while now.  Just not long enough to be out of
>>> production at which point it will appear on Red Hat
>>> compatibility list.
>>
>> Nonsense. Our friends over at Red Hat are continuously supporting
>> leading edge *server* hardware. 
>
> Niko!  The C236 chipset *IS* a server grade chipset!
> And it has been around for a long time.  No doubt Red Hat
> will eventually support it in about five years, which is
> typical of them and useless to me.
>
Actually, it was meant to be a consumer and workstation chipset. While 
it is based on a server chipset, it's been somewhat gutted. But either 
way, unless the hardware vendor partners with RedHat, the latter is 
unlikely to support it. Should vendor be yelling at you if your employer 
got caught in a Congressional budget crunch and couldn't pay for massive 
magnets? No, because that's not how it works.
...
>
> My problem is that I have been trying to pound a square peg
> into a round hole.  RHEL is a really poor choice for a system
> that has a lot of innovation going on on it.

It does sound like you're trying to pound a square peg into a round 
hole, but it's not the peg's fault. One must pick the right peg for the 
hole that needs to be filled.

-Miles


[1] And there is a *lot* of innovation happening on these systems.