<story><title>What&apos;s wrong with enterprise Linux</title><url>https://unix.foo/posts/enterprise-linux/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>darkhelmet</author><text>There is another problem that wasn&amp;#x27;t covered in the article.  The 10+ years of stability leads to behaviors and outcomes that remind me of the long-lived SSL certificate problem.  Updating is done so infrequently that the &amp;quot;how?&amp;quot; is forgotten.  As the 10 year support limit approaches, most of the old team members who did it last time are gone, tech debt is through the roof, few people know where everything is or how to build it, and so on.  Enterprise Linux &amp;quot;stability&amp;quot; enables all sorts of bad behavior if your company is inclined that way.&lt;p&gt;LetsEncrypt did us a huge favor by forcing automation vs having the guy who knows how to update the SSL certs every 4.9 years and left 6 months ago.  I&amp;#x27;d like to see the RHEL stability model go away too and force people to complete their automation and solve the problems of being able to rebuilding on demand - and actually doing it.&lt;p&gt;(I know, most HN folk are well disciplined but there are a lot of corporate cultures that are not.)</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>mfer</author><text>Think of all the places Linux runs. Planes, trains, and automobiles. Medical equipment. So many other places. Many places that don&amp;#x27;t have readily available network access. Yet, many &amp;quot;enterprises&amp;quot; need support here.&lt;p&gt;If a medical device or train works but needs support for years and years, should someone be constantly updating Linux? What about the software that runs on Linux and is tested there?&lt;p&gt;Considering just the modern cloud environment really limits where enterprise Linux runs and is useful. And, where there are calls for really long support contracts.</text></comment>
<story><title>What&apos;s wrong with enterprise Linux</title><url>https://unix.foo/posts/enterprise-linux/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>darkhelmet</author><text>There is another problem that wasn&amp;#x27;t covered in the article.  The 10+ years of stability leads to behaviors and outcomes that remind me of the long-lived SSL certificate problem.  Updating is done so infrequently that the &amp;quot;how?&amp;quot; is forgotten.  As the 10 year support limit approaches, most of the old team members who did it last time are gone, tech debt is through the roof, few people know where everything is or how to build it, and so on.  Enterprise Linux &amp;quot;stability&amp;quot; enables all sorts of bad behavior if your company is inclined that way.&lt;p&gt;LetsEncrypt did us a huge favor by forcing automation vs having the guy who knows how to update the SSL certs every 4.9 years and left 6 months ago.  I&amp;#x27;d like to see the RHEL stability model go away too and force people to complete their automation and solve the problems of being able to rebuilding on demand - and actually doing it.&lt;p&gt;(I know, most HN folk are well disciplined but there are a lot of corporate cultures that are not.)</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>bluGill</author><text>Years back (late 1990s) I worked with some mainframe people. They bragged that everything is hot fixable on the fly so they can apply security updates or replace broken hardware without rebooting. Then they admitted they schedule a reboot every 6 months anyway.  Turns out the redundant backup power supply failed in at the same time and one hot patch was not applied to startup scripts and it took a week to figure out what was missing so the system booted again.  By rebooting every 6 months they remember everything and so can get the system back up.&lt;p&gt;I probably have some details wrong in the story above. I worked with those people, but never on the mainframe. I think the point stands though, if you don&amp;#x27;t do something often it can&amp;#x27;t be done.</text></comment>