RE: Redhat 7.1 (log, dull, etc) -- was RE: [nottingham] Looking for a local more-recent Redhat distro...I think automating admin job, likely to be more popular with managers than admins ;)
I used perl script 'mirror' to grab updates, and you tend to get a forewarning of security advisories, as usually there's an rpm out (which you see in an email report when it's been downloaded), before the public announcement on the security-lists. Need to test changes as auto installing a duff rpm everywhere can take out a whole network, and prevent you from fixing remotely.
Good point about mag distro coverage, the updates are usually a month or so old, but it can save major download time, if your release is fairly old. Problem usually is they get all the tree from KDE say, or XFree, and the binaries on the site don't really work well with the distro they're intended for.
I dont use the subscription programme, and I'm extremely wary of this kind of service too. No one known my systems like I do. I've got into the habit of grabbing the latest RPM updates directory from FTP by hand, either from Red Hat direct or one of the mirrors, then churning the installers on each machine I run this stuff on - this keeps me in control.
If using updates from Magazines is your thing, then you'll need to stick to one of the bigger distributions anyway. Often these magazines give distributions away on their cover disks; the demos and packages that follow are usually checked against the distro they've supplied.
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