6500 CatOS versions going backward?

[jbiederstedt]

I just got a couple of new 6509's with Sup32's, and they shipped with CatOS 6.4.23. This didn't make sense to me since I got a few 6500's -w- Sup32's last year which all shipped with 8.4 Yet, I checked cisco's download site, and sure enough 6.4.23 was released December 21, 06, and 8.5.8 was released December 5, 2006. The image size for 6.4 is quite a bit less that 8.5, but new switches came with 6.4. Is 6.4 a new train or something?

[aperez2004]

I found this image CAT6000-SUP32/MSFC2A of release 12.2.18-SXF7 which is IP Services. Released on 11/06.

[glen.grant]

It really depends if you need the 8.4 features or not though I am surprised they didn't ship at least 7.6.X code as that is currently considered GD .