[mcidas-x] 20080129: Unidata McIDAS-X supported platforms

[Tom Yoksas]

Hi Samuel,

re:
>I've noticed McIDAS's "Supported Platforms" page
>(http://www.unidata.ucar.edu/software/mcidas/current/specs.html) states
>that Fedora Core 5 and 6 are supported OS's.

Correct.  I support McIDAS on platforms for which I have a development
environment where I can test.  We still have Fedora Core 5/6 here at
the UPC, so I can still support McIDAS on them.  As you might guess,
this situation will change as we upgrade our FC 5/6 machines to Fedora 8.

>However, RedHat's  "Installation Guide"  for current versions
>(http://docs.fedoraproject.org/install-guide),  list Fedora Core 6 (and
>older versions) as obsolete, so it's not receiving regular updates from
>RedHat.

Correct.

>What gives?

The list of platforms for which we provide support does not necessarily
match what the vendors list as their supported OS versions -- we are
constrained by the platforms we have in-house.

If your question is if you should upgrade your OS, then our
recommendation is yes, you should upgrade so that you have a system
that will continue to get needed security patches.  This means that you
should upgrade any/all Fedora Core 5/6 machine(s) to Fedora 7, or,
better yet, Fedora 8.  The other option is to use a version of Linux
that the vendor supports.  This would mean switching to RedHat
Enterprise or, perhaps, some other version of Linux like CentOS (CentOS
is a freel-available distribution of RedHat Enterprise).

Cheers,

Tom
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