[rescue] Recommended patches for old versions (why)

[rescue at sunhelp.org]

> > 2.5 Added features (CDE on supplement disk)
> > 2.5.1 added support for U1
> > 2.6 Performance imporvements, UE support, rock solid reliablilty
> > probably the most widely deployed release ever.
> >
> > and so on.
> >
> > Am I even close?
> 
> I remember 2.5.1 being widely deployed and rock solid.  When 
> my university attempted to upgrade to 2.6, they very quickly
> decided to downgrade again and wait for 2.7. 

Similar things everywhere I saw...few professional sysadmins
wanted to run Solaris 2.x until about 2.4, since SunOS 4.1.x
was at least as good in most any way and was better understood.
All the production 2.4 and 2.5 installations that I ever knew
got upgraded to 2.5.1 pretty quickly--and there are still a
lot (as in thousands) of 2.5.1 installations in one large
organization of which I'm aware.  Those folks are going directly
to Solaris 8--2.6 was such a debacle for them that they stuck
with 2.5.1 as long as they could.  Now it's time for a hardware
refresh and new baseline, and Sol9 doesn't have enough miles
under the tires yet.

In that organization, the only 2.6 installations of which I'm
aware were to support specific commercial products that
required or specified 2.6--for example, at one point both
the Raptor and Gauntlet firewalls for Solaris required 2.6,
well after the release of Sol7.

I definitely wouldn't describe 2.6 as "rock solid", but beauty
is in the eye of the beholder.

  --Rip