Edward A. Berry schrieb: ...
May I turn the question on its head and ask, why would anyone want to upgrade, except because the people developing the software did? What new functionality has been introduced since 2001 that the average crystallographer using a 32-bit machine would like to use? (OK, firewire, disk sizes greater than 132 GB, but those are fixed simply enough by installing the latest kernel)
Ed, I take care of more than a dozen workstations. My reasons to upgrade: a) I try to minimize the amount of work I put into system administrationb) my security concerns are proportional to the number of different operating systems / OS versions in my lab. Don't think you're safe because you're behind a firewall - if you read email or browse the web, you are vulnerable. I'm not thinking about Windows viruses here, but about e.g. Java. A firewall only reduces some threats.
c) if I buy new hardware then the old Redhat 7.3 does not support it. Old kernels do not cope well with hyperthreading and dual-core CPUs.
d) functionality: there are better compilers in newer operating systems. E.g. gfortran now supports OpenMP. I use Windows via VMware - probably the software would be able to run on an old OS, but I would not like to try it.
e) my conclusion is: I use the same version of CentOS (a RedHat Enterprise Linux, RHEL, clone) on all computers. This helps users a lot because they find the same environment. I don't need to worry about security because Redhat takes care of the patches, and they are installed every night automatically. A major release of RHEL is bug-fixed and security-fixed for more than 5 years, and they include support for new hardware released during the first 5 years.
Upgrading for me means to install, on all workstations, a new major version of RHEL every 3 or 4 years, which is not too painful.
If I had just 2 workstations I wouldn't worry too much. just my 2 €-cents! Kay -- Kay Diederichs http://strucbio.biologie.uni-konstanz.de email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Tel +49 7531 88 4049 Fax 3183 Fachbereich Biologie, Universitaet Konstanz, Box M647, D-78457 Konstanz
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