[AUUG-Talk]: Attention auug.org.au administrators

[Greg 'groggy' Lehey]

On Sunday, 23 December 2007 at 18:32:14 +1030, David Newall wrote:
> Greg Black wrote:
>> On 2007-12-23, David Newall wrote:
>>
>>> Christopher Vance wrote:
>>>
>>>> On Sun, Dec 23, 2007 at 07:08:44AM +1030, David Newall wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Please warn me if you have issues or see problems with this.
>>>>>
>>>> Is it worth first upgrading the machine to a more recent version of
>>>> the OS?  4.X is ancient.
>>>>
>>> Is there any need to upgrade it?
>>
>> If it's ancient and if it faces the outside world, I'd say the answer
>> would be a clear "yes".
>
> Okay, let me ask the question I really meant: Why does it need to be
> upgraded?  Being ancient is not a reason.

Reasons are:

- Potential security issues.  I don't know of any, but I'm sure
  somebody more paranoid than I will find something.
- Ports rot.  The FreeBSD Ports System is notoriously intolerant of
  down-rev OS releases.  I *know* you're going to run into trouble if
  you try to pour your new wine into old skins.
- Lack of grunt.  One of the reasons that new.auug.org.au was set up
  was because the old machine wasn't fast enough for the fancy
  software on new.  If you want to take that software and put it on
  www, an upgrade is absolutely necessary.

Greg
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