[Leaplist] Linux Advocasy: What they'll miss

[Andrew]

On May 8, 2008, at 10:58 AM, Steve Litt wrote:
> I can't say whether or not Linux boxes decay, because a new  
> Mandriva comes out
> once a year, so once a year I format/install for that reason, possibly
> preventing creeping decay.

I maintain a set of RHEL 2.1 boxes that will probably see the full 7  
year lifespan of that product, all running under their original install.

About the closest I've come to reinstalling a Linux box for  
performance degradation was when I saw huge fragmentation on a very  
busy mail server, but all I had to do was backup the mail spools,  
reformat them, and restore to fix the fragmentation.  No actual  
reinstall required.