Technical strategy and performance

[Jason Azze]

On Thu, Jun 30, 2016 at 6:01 PM, Hal Murray <hmurray at megapathdsl.net> wrote:
>
> Is CentOS reasonable coverage for the Red Hat side?  What versions do we need?

CentOS is now an official Red Hat project and is built from the same
Red Hat Enterprise Linux sources (probably by many of the same
people). I believe the only differences are Red Hat branding (icons,
etc.) and some special Red Hat tools are removed (e.g. their
subscription manager). I'd recommend CentOS 6.8 and whatever the
latest CentOS 7 is (7.2.1511 as of this morning) to test on. I see
that buildbot already has some 7.2 builders.

> Is Scientific Linux enough different that it's worth running it too?  If so,
> what versions?

I'm not as familiar with Scientific Linux. In my experience I only see
it used for HPC. It's another Red Hat Enterprise rebuild, but I don't
know how closely they track Red Hat's release schedule. The "About"
page is a little vague.
https://www.scientificlinux.org/about/why-make-scientific-linux/

I'd feel comfortable saying that it's not different enough from
RHEL/CentOS to be considered a separate creature.

> Is openSUSE reasonable coverage for SUSE?  If so, what versions do we need?

I think it is not as close a match as the CentOS to RHEL comparison
is. In my work as the guy who maintains a fleet of test machines for
engineering simulation software, we consider openSUSE and SUSE Linux
Enterprise Server to be separate things. We sometimes get different
test results between the two.

I can't give a good answer about what versions to test. I don't have a
sense of how widely deployed the various versions are. And the version
numbering and release naming in the SUSE world is a maze of twisty
little passages, all alike. It looks like they've renamed openSUSE to
"Leap" recently. I think you need to find a German to explain it. :-)

> Is there a free version of Oracle?

Oracle Enterprise Linux is also identical to Red Hat Enterprise,
except you have the option to run their "Unbreakable Kernel" and buy
an expensive support subscription.
It is possible to download an ISO, install, and run it for free. But
just like Red Hat Enterprise -- "yum update" doesn't work without a
subscription.