HN Explorer

Ask HN: What's the oldest OS you are running in production?

7 points by snake_case ↗ HN
Curious about reasons why you may be sticking to older versions of Linux/OSX/Windows in production server/client environments.

8 comments

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ipfaffy
Debian 3.1. For our most important prod server. Everyone is afraid to touch it.

We custom compiled an SSL fix for heartbleed. I died a little inside.

petemc_
I was using NT4 desktop until a year or so ago. All I needed was putty and outlook, helped with productivity that it didn't run a modern browser.
ongoodie
Solaris 9, RHEL 5, Windows XP Since it is not connected to Internet, there is no point to risk an upgrade. Newer versions of Windows take more resources.
snake_case
For the past two summers I've been an intern at my local county's IT department. Last year, I helped get rid of ~40 Windows XP computers in favor of brand new HPs that were downgraded from Windows 8 to 7. I even got to install a second 4GB of RAM in each one, along with asset tagging them. It was a pretty fun day.

Now the county libraries are a different story. Their public computers are running Userful[1] which is a Linux OS that allows one desktop tower to power multiple workstations. I wish I checked the version, but as I can recall, they looked a little outdated.

Here's the reason why Ontario libraries started using Userful [2].

[1]: http://www.userful.ca

[2]: http://www.userful.ca/press/ontario-libraries-power-consumpt...

neo_optimus
RHEL 5, mostly because most of the system ops seem to be more comfortable with it than the newer version.
pngat2x
DOS is the primary interface on some of the instant-replay servers used for broadcast video. People know how to use it, after a decade or two in production. There are some more current web interfaces and client tools, as well.

Here's a manual with some fun screenshots from the EVS XT3 [1]. Apparently 196 of them were used together at the World Cup last year [2].

[1]: http://www.evs.com/sites/default/files/download_area/package...

[2]: http://sportsvideo.org/main/blog/2014/06/broadcast-asia-2014...