To Update or Not?

[Rippl, Steve]

We've been bitten more than once by what seemed to be problems introduced
after updates.  We generally try not to run any updates after we have a
stable system (we have no public facing ports on any of the ltsp servers),
and often have regretted it when we do!

Maybe if one just applies security updates it would be fine, but unlike in
Debian (which we run on our other servers and do keep patched successfully)
regular updates can surprise you.  That said our Debian servers tend to be
much more single purpose and have far fewer packages on them (no gui etc
etc) while an LTSP server is a pretty complex arrangement.  I would really
go by "if it ain't broke don't fix it", I'm not saying this is good policy
but in our experience it's a good idea!

Steve Rippl


On Thu, Oct 27, 2011 at 5:43 PM, Joseph Bishay <joseph.bishay at gmail.com>wrote:

>
> Hello,
>
> I hope everyone is well today.
>
> So I came across this article and wondered if it applied to Edubuntu:
>
>
> http://www.zdnet.com/blog/diy-it/why-ive-finally-had-it-with-my-linux-server-and-im-moving-back-to-windows/245
>
> The gist of the rant is that Linux servers are rather unstable because
> any upgrade can kill the server, and therefore you should NOT be
> updating your machine once it's running perfectly.
>
> I get a notice about different packages having available upgrades on
> our production LTSP server at least once a week and for the most part
> I always do so -- is this going to suddenly result in a
> similiarly-described situation?  Should I turn off all updates?
>
> Thank you
> Joseph
>
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-- 
Steve Rippl
Technology Director
Woodland Public Schools
360 841 2730
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