7.2 or 7.4 for critical data?

Hello all,

I will be installing Debian distro soon at my company. I'll be
storing critical data and am wondering if I should go with stable 7.2
version or use the 7.4 version (for all the latest features and bug
fixes). I'm currently doing the research for the management here.

I have checked the newsgroups/blogs/websites and there doesn't seem to
be any major problems with using 7.4 version. If you are a DBA/system
admin at your company and currently using 7.4 for critical data
storing, please post your experiences and if they were positive or
negative.

Thanks,
Jared

jarednevans(at)yahoo(dot)com (Jared Evans) writes:
> I will be installing Debian distro soon at my company. I'll be
> storing critical data and am wondering if I should go with stable
> 7.2 version or use the 7.4 version (for all the latest features and
> bug fixes). I'm currently doing the research for the management
> here.
>
> I have checked the newsgroups/blogs/websites and there doesn't seem
> to be any major problems with using 7.4 version. If you are a
> DBA/system admin at your company and currently using 7.4 for
> critical data storing, please post your experiences and if they were
> positive or negative.

Is there some reason you aren't considering 7.3 as well? After all,
it's WAY newer than 7.2, and WAY less "bleeding edge" than 7.4.

At any rate, the situations where I have seen 7.4 fall down have been
cases where the problem was _hardware_, where you couldn't expect 7.2
to do one iota better. If you set fire to a disk drive ;-), that data
is _toast_, irrespective of what OS, DBMS, or scripting language you
may be using...
--
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http://cbbrowne.com/info/linuxdistributions.html
Rules of the Evil Overlord #168. "I will plan in advance what to do
with each of my enemies if they are captured. That way, I will never
have to order someone to be tied up while I decide his fate."
<http://www.eviloverlord.com/>

jarednevans(at)yahoo(dot)com (Jared Evans) writes:
> I will be installing Debian distro soon at my company. I'll be
> storing critical data and am wondering if I should go with stable 7.2
> version or use the 7.4 version (for all the latest features and bug
> fixes). I'm currently doing the research for the management here.

7.2 is not "stable", it's "obsolete". We stopped fixing bugs in it
quite some time ago. I would consider it less reliable than either
7.3.6 or 7.4.2, because it hasn't gotten the benefit of fixes for any
bugs discovered in the last year or more. By and large we do tend to
fix more bugs than we introduce with each new release ;-).

My recommendation would be to go with 7.4.2 (or later). You could also
make a case for 7.3.6 but really I think that that's pointless for a new
installation. The only good reason to be installing 7.3.6 at this point
is if you've got an existing database you can't afford to initdb, or if
you've got serious compatibility problems with updating an existing
application to 7.4.

regards, tom lane