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The Fedora Legacy project closed a few months ago. http://fedoralegacy.org/

Last time I used Fedora was over 2 years ago. At that time, there was no decent gui font-end to yum. Anyways, all you need to do is to type yum equivalent of apt-get update && apt-get upgrade.

Another important thing is your release being supported. I know the fedora legacy project was introduced to support older releases, but they're being shut down now. Last update to FC3 was made almost half a year ago.

If you don't want to upgrade your distro often, Ubuntu LTS (long term support) might be a good solution. They will release patches for 5 years. Last one (6.06, Dapper Drake) was released in June 2006 (we'll probably have to wait a full year for the next LTS, at least that's what M. Shuttleworth is predicting). By default, Ubuntu shows a icon in a taskbar whenever there are some updates. You can, however, choose the option of having them installed automatically.

Last time I used Fedora was over 2 years ago. At that time, there was no decent gui font-end to yum. Anyways, all you need to do is to type yum equivalent of apt-get update && apt-get upgrade.

Another important thing is your release being supported. I know the fedora legacy project was introduced to support older releases, but they're being shut down now. Last update to FC3 was made almost half a year ago.

If you don't want to upgrade your distro often, Ubuntu LTS (long term support) might be a good solution. They will release patches for 5 years. Last one (6.06, Dapper Drake) was released in June 2006 (we'll probably have to wait a full year for the next LTS, at least that's what M. Shuttleworth is predicting). By default, Ubuntu shows a icon in a taskbar whenever there are some updates. You can, however, choose the option of having them installed automatically.

I have some RH 7.3 too and they all are fine.

Just use the FedoraLegacy rpm package ( http://fedoralegacy.org/download/fedoralegacy-mirr ors.php)
glibc-2.2.5-44.legacy.8

Do it quick, as Fedora Legacy Project ( http://fedoralegacy.org/ )is closing shop.

Peace!

I have some RH 7.3 too and they all are fine.

Just use the FedoraLegacy rpm package ( http://fedoralegacy.org/download/fedoralegacy-mirr ors.php)
glibc-2.2.5-44.legacy.8

Do it quick, as Fedora Legacy Project ( http://fedoralegacy.org/ )is closing shop.

Peace!

If an operating system release is not supported with security patches in the long term, it may not be a good long-term choice for production machines. The folks maintaining http://www.fedoralegacy.org/ recently announced that they were punting on maintaining everything before Core 4. Ask yourself: in 1.5 years, do I really want to be forced to install a new OS because I can't get security patches on this one? Compare against Ubuntu LTS, which will be around for at least 3-5 more years.

This decision is bad! There are many websites, tech articles, blogs like mine [Ocean Of Technologies] http://victwu.blogspot.com/ that reference to the link http://download.fedoralegacy.org./ I spent quite a fair bit of time on this blog and now I have to keep an eye on when the fedoralegacy goes disappear. Can anyone suggest me the alternative reference? Victor Wu

This has absolutely nothing to do with Red Hat... Fedora Legacy is not controlled or funded or anything by Red Hat. It is community driven, which is what Fedora is all about, and apparently the interest just wasn't there in Fedora Legacy. Hell, at the bottom of http://fedoralegacy.org/ it even says "The Fedora Legacy Project is not a part of Red Hat, Inc."
Regards,
Steve

""In case any of you are not aware, the Fedora Legacy project [CC] [MD] [GC] is in the process of shutting down. The current model for supporting maintenance distributions is being re-examined. In the meantime, we are unable to extend support to older Fedora Core releases as we had planned. As of now, Fedora Core 4 and earlier distributions are no longer being maintained. Discussions... on the #Fedora-Legacy channel have brought to light the fact that certain Fedora Legacy properties (servers) may be going away soon, such as the repository at http://download.fedoralegacy.org/ and the build server.""

So what does Microsoft have to say?

fc4 is legacy once fc6-test2 shipped.

fedoralegacy.org is where you need to move for fc4 support, but better to move to fc6.

Also note that fc3 will only be supported by fedoralegacy until fc7-test1 ships.

>> Who says you have to upgrade instantly? I know a bunch of people running FC1,
>> or even RH9 or 7.3. If it works, you don't have to touch it

> It's not a good idea to run systems, especially if they're Internet-facing,
> on old releases that don't get security updates.

The Fedora Legacy Project provides security updates for RedHat and Fedora releases that have been end-of-lifed by RedHat. Currently, they support RH 7.3 and 9, and Fedora 1-3.

Fedora (as the biggest example) *does* exist "merely at the sufferance of a corporate entity". If Red Hat stopped supporting it tomorrow, it would be gone faster than you can say "Red Hat Linux 9.0".

MYTH - Fedora is unstable and unreliable, just a testbed for bleeding-edge software

FACT - This misconception comes from two things:

1. From http://fedora.redhat.com/: "It is also a proving ground for new technology that may eventually make its way into Red Hat products."
   
2. Fedora has rapid releases, a short life-cycle, and a lot of new code.
   

As for the first item, this means that Red Hat uses Fedora as a platform to promote the development of new technology, some of which might end up in Red Hat Enterprise Linux. This does not mean that Fedora is a dumping ground for untested code, it simply means that Fedora is a rapidly progressing platform.

For the second item, this does mean that Fedora is often running in uncharted innovative territory, but not that it is using too-new code. The programs in Fedora are generally stable releases or well-tested pre-release versions. There are guidelines behind the inclusion of pre-release software, and thorough testing is always done prior to Fedora Core releases.

Each version of Fedora Core receives updates from the Fedora development community that includes Red Hat for up to a year. Continuing updates from the Fedora Legacy Project may extend the life of a release to two years or more, depending on the release schedule. Refer to http://fedoralegacy.org/about/faq.php for more details.

We do everything we can to make sure that the final products released to the general public are stable and reliable. Fedora Core has proven that it can be a stable, reliable, and secure platform. Many businesses and organizations rely upon Fedora Core for both day-to-day tasks and, in some cases, critical infrastructure. Additionally, our well-managed packaging and review process adds an extra layer of safety not found in some other distributions. You can count on Fedora Core.

The parent should be modded up.

I'm not aware of any distributions as old as redhat 5 that are still being patched. Connecting a redhat 5 system to the internet would be a huge security risk. Sure, you could patch it yourself but that is a lot more work that upgrading.

Redhat 7.3 is still being patched by fedoralegacy. Maybe there is an old version of debian that is still being patched?

I have a number of production servers to this day still running RedHat Linux 7.2. They are patched and up to date, even though RedHat axed support for RedHat long ago. I spend very little time doing so, because Progeny came to the rescue allowing me to milk another couple years out of otherwise perfectly happy, capable, production servers.

Also, there's the Fedora Legacy project which has picked up RedHat 7.3 as well, providing yet another option for administrators of "axed support" distros.

Let me ask you this - what companies or groups have stepped up to the plate to support Win9x after Microsoft's abandoning of the platform?

I guess Windows is really not that open, is it?

You'd better go here and install the Fedora updates (three in the last month)!

http://www.fedoralegacy.org/updates/FC1/

That looks like support to me.

http://www.fedoralegacy.org/updates/FC1/

That looks like support to me.

It really depends on your usage of the server imho. If you are talking about a home server and you are already familiar with RH or Fedora, why not use it as a server. You are forgetting about the fedora legacy project for community support on older versions if you just don't feel like upgrading it but still need package updates.

http://fedoralegacy.org/

That's interesting. This page on fedoralegacy.org says: Please note that support for RHL 7.2 and RHL 8.0 has been suspended, and that new updates are no longer being generated for these versions!

As much heat as Woody gets from the Slashdot crowd, I think it is a good idea to have a stable release that doesn't update very quickly. Keep in mind that, as "old" as Debian is, it was released in 2002. It is no older than Windows XP (2001-2002 release) and is a good deal younger than Windows 2000 (1999 release). One of the servers I have an account on is a RedHat 7.2 machine, which is of the same era as the first Woody release. While I develop on Fedora Core three, I make sure my software compiles as is on a RedHat 6.2 system (2000 era).

For servers and corporate desktops, an update every three years is a frequent update. I am glad that Debian has been current with security updates on this three-year-old release; I would rather have that than the updgrade treadmill Fedora has me on. (The Fedora Legacy project seems to be comatose) In fact, I'm going off of the treadmill--my next Linux will be CentOS (a no-cost generic clone of Red Hat Enterprise Linux) which will allow me to have sane updates--once a year or two instead of once every six months.

Updates for FC1 are still available from Fedora Legacy. Alternatively, consider the Free RHEL rebuilds such as Centos or Whitebox, which promise to have updates available for as long as RHEL does (2010, as it stands at the moment).

I am not clear to what extent VPS would complicate things. I haven't worked with them, just VMs. But it seems to me each OS should be able to run its own package manager without drama. RH 7.3 and 9 updates are available through Fedora Legacy. If your PHB requires commercial support, you can buy it from Progeny, founded by Ian Murdoch, the man who put the Ian in DenIAN. Progeny also ported Apt to RPM and Anaconda to Debian.

Up2date would probably be fine for your Core 2 installs. But yum or apt would allow uniformity accross versions. I don't understand your point about running yum on many virtual servers. It isn't doing anything unless you are running an update, and you shouldn't need to do those simultaneously. You'd probably want to maintain your own repositories though.

How is apt on Debian better integrated than apt or yum on RHL/Fedora? Than up2date on Fedora (it was not so great on RHL)?

Better than payment, the Fedora Legacy project would really love to have more people doing QA and testing.

It's not the most glorious job out there, but someone has to do it! Right now, that is usually the biggest hold up to getting updates out.

Better than payment, the Fedora Legacy project would really love to have more people doing QA and testing.

It's not the most glorious job out there, but someone has to do it! Right now, that is usually the biggest hold up to getting updates out.

Actually, RedHat 9 updates are still available through the Fedora Legacy project (http://www.fedoralegacy.org/). Payment not required (though I'm pretty sure they'd like a donation or two)

Fedora brand Redhat has the legacy project for updates of older versions, and official Redhat you pay for has (RHEL) 12-18 month release cycle and 7 years support for each of the 3 versions. A clone to redhat proper is Whitebox linux.

All of that is completely mistaken. It does not mean no more updates. It means essentially nothing at all to the end user and to anyone who's not a core developer. It simply means the distro version migrates to being managed by the Fedora Legacy project for updates. Besides that, any product needs a feature freeze upon initial release anyway, or else it's not a product. So security and bugfix updates will come for a very long time. Absolutely nothing to see here.

having more releases doesn't force you to upgrade more often. What it does do is give you freedom to upgrade at times you choose.

Actually, it does. Did you know that FC1 is already going into legacy mode, meaning no more updates for it?

The principle of having frequent releases doesn't force upgrades in itself; a distrubutor dropping support does that, regardless of release frequency, and it isn't a reason for stating that frequent releases are bad.

Yes, I do know that Red Hat don't support Fedora 1 any more, but it is supported by The Fedora Legacy Project. So nobody has to upgrade: they can just get their updates from there instead.

The Fedora Legacy project maintains up-to-date security patches for Red Hat 9 and some other Red Hat based distros. So, yes it is patched against many recent vulnerabilities.

I used to get my RH 9 gnome rpms from Ximian, but they seem to have stopped updating for 9. Alas.

FWIW, You might be able to continue getting them as backports from The Fedora Legacy Project

It is also interesting that the Fedora Steering Committee has transferred Fedora Core 1 into the Fedora Legacy Project.

Really? I'd love to know where the source of that information is. I see no mention of it on the Fedora Legacy Project site. In fact, the fedora legacy download site only has up to RHL9.

More info, please!

Excuse me, this is nothing personal against the parent poster but I really have to vent here:

I am so sick of people getting all up-in-arms about this "support lifespan" stuff.

Red Hat offers official support for two versions of the core OS. So when FC3 comes out Red Hat will stop providing updates for FC1.

This is NOT the same as it becoming usupported! It just means that there is no longer a for-proffit company donating its time to provide the updates. Instead, the provision of updates is handed back to the community *just like 90% of the other distros out there*.

Seriously, if I hear one more idiot saying "Red Hat doesn't support Fedora long enough. I'm moving to Gentoo/Debian/whatever" I'm going to explode. The only difference between Fedora and those distros in terms of support is that Fedora enjoys a good year or so under Red Hat's umbrella before becoming community-supported just like them.

See http://www.fedoralegacy.org for more info. As long as there is a community to support it, Fedora is as supported as 90% of the other distros out there.

Between the fedora project and the Fedora Legacy Project you get something like 2.5 - 3 years of supported updates. And at any point you can do an upgrade, you do not have to "wipe and reinstall."

There's the Fedora Legacy project that backports security fixes for RH9 and in the future also for old Fedora Core releases. There's already some testing packages for RH9 available in Bugzilla, once they're approved they'll be up on the RH9 advisories page. You should use yum to download and install the new packages, it's all explained on the website.

There's the Fedora Legacy project that backports security fixes for RH9 and in the future also for old Fedora Core releases. There's already some testing packages for RH9 available in Bugzilla, once they're approved they'll be up on the RH9 advisories page. You should use yum to download and install the new packages, it's all explained on the website.

Now with Linux, you're no longer dependent on that string; you can leverage off the community providing updates

wrong. Linux isn't about supporting legacy, it's about re-inventing everything constantly.

Case in point? Read the red-n-pink text. http://fedoralegacy.org/updates/

If the community can't even keep an old Red Hat going for a couple years how on earth do you expect them to keep an embedded system alive for 30 years?

If you consider a company as above, namely, that they have bought a Linux vendor's distribution with support and they are not going to modify that distribution and lose their support. At that point, what IS the difference between 'Shared Source' and 'Open Source'?

Well, one difference is that someone else can come along and support the Open Source product if the original vendor chooses not to do so.

Try that with code released under "Shared Source". Equating "Shared Source" with software libre is what it is disingenuous - it isn't the availability of source code that counts, it is what you can do with it.

You are right that this ESR piece is poorly written though. I'm not quite sure how one of his rants qualifies as a "Halloween document".

Fedora is the free RedHat TESTING branch. There is NO stable and free RedHat anymore. Get that?

Go ahead and cite a source for that ... you can't. You are absolutely dead wrong - the RedHat testing branch is Rawhide. Fedora is its own distro with its own release schedule. Does technology that ends up in RHEL start in Fedora? Sure, the same way that technology start starts in SuSE linux ends up in Suse Enterprise linux.

Fedora says they schedule releases 2-3 times a year. That is a joke for any system that actually gets used in the real world. The current versioning is nice timing for your argument, but 3 months from now it'll be a new release with new bugs and new holes. 3 months from now SuSE and Mandrake will be that much more secure and stable, and a year or two from now you might want to think about updating.

As I have already stated, RedHat doesn't oficially support Fedora. However, you can get updates for about a year and half if you want to continue running an older Fedora release. Mandrake seems to be supported for about the same amount of time. I can't find product lifetimes for SuSE, but I suspect you'll find that their commercial release is 2 years or less, while the enterprise version will give you longer (~5 years, like RedHat) lifetime.

...you're a keen RedHat fanboy from way back... <snip the rest of the ad-homenim attacks>

I won't dignify this with a response. Suffice it to say that I actually run a couple of distributions for work on a day-to-day basis. Unlike yourself, I don't go around spreading FUD and half-truths about any of them though.

* - technically there is no 'official' support from Red Hat for Fedora. But the fedora-list and fedora-test-list mailing lists, as well as bugzilla.redhat.com will get you direct contact with the Red Hat engineers who will gladly help out.

• Beautiful boot screen and polished feel.
• Easy installation from freely available CD-ROM images.
• Automatic hardware detection via kudzu, at install time and when adding new devices.
• Updates released regularly with the Fedora Legacy Project providing updates for older distributions.
• Many pre-built RPM packages are available on-line from projects such as Samba and otherwise.
• Many great console & X11-based applications included by default.
• Files and configurations are in logical places.

It's only free if you use the "Freedom" definition of "Free".

Meanwhile it's just gotten a lot cheaper to be on a legacy Red Hat platform.

Product End-of-Life came to Red Hat 7.2 but then there is still life. Do you believe in life after End-of-Life? Miracles can happen.

first, thanks to sw155kn1f3 for pointing out the Fedora Legacy Project. I had no idea until then.

Installed yum, but WTF is all that header stuff when I could download a package directly and be done with it?

Then I thought of a faster way. I used to use a program called updateme which allows you to view which packages that need updating. Just point it to an FTP site, and voila. Fortunately, fedoralegacy provides FTP mirrors. Then you just use rpm -Uvh as usual.

Initially I'd hoped to take advantage of the Fedora Legacy project, but they just don't seem serious. For example, one of their primary modes of distribution is via yum. They released packages for 7.2 and 7.3, but never for 8.0. I opened this bugzilla report on it nearly two months ago. They're just ignoring it. Hardly the response you want to see from someone you're trusting for security patches.... Maybe someone will mod this up enough that they'll take note.

As a side note, I'm keeping White Box Linux in the back of my mind as an option if FC2 flops. The legal issues are still a little disturbing, though.

The good people at Fedora Legacy are providing updated RPMs for RH 7.2, 7.3, and 8.0, and will be providing support for 9.0 when it's EOLed in a few days. They've been a bit sluggish getting update RPMs out recently due to download server problems, but the support's still there.

• Fedora's 'bleeding edge' might introduce unwanted hassle for us, so stay away
  
• Fedora Legacy project will provide support updates to RH9 so could we redirect yum to the right location and live with RH9 for the forseeable future
• We could migrate to Whitebox Linux to effectively get RHEL 3

But SUN's hardware is quite expensive and with the power saving alone you would be able to buy a bunch of x68 hardware with the prefered Linux flavor of your choice. I still understand your concerns and if you have the budget then stick to SUN. Besides the SUN's are well designed, nice-coloured and you could install redhat or fedora on them, if you get one on ebay. For end-of-lifecycle die-hard redhats there's community Fedora Legacy Project.

http://www.fedoralegacy.org/ is great... they've been releasing security update RPMs for RH 7.2, 7.3, and 8.0 since January.

Updates for RedHat 7.2 and up.

I would (and do) use the Fedora legacy project.

What version of RHL and FC will be supported, and for how long?

We are currently supporting Red Hat Linux 7.2, 7.3, and 8.0 as these have reached their End-of-Life (EOL).

When Red Hat Linux 9 becomes EOL on April, 31 2004, we will start legacy support for it as well.

As Fedora Core releases become EOL, we will provide support for them on a 1-2-3 and out policy, providing for roughly 1.5 years of update support for each release.