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Progeny offers software updates for users of Red Hat Linux 7.2, 7.3, and 8.0, as part of their Platform Services offering.

Progeny has already announced two updated packages, one for tcpdump and one for cvs. Can't find a public announcement, but they were sent to subscribers a few days ago.

Actually, Debian's sad excuse of an installer may be a thing of the past. Redhat's Anaconda installer has been ported to debian. Anaconda for Debian

Ever heard of Progeny??? They make their money off of selling 3rd party support for older OSes that RedHat no longer supports...fairly good pricing too...$5/mo per machine or $2500/mo for an unlimited number of machines...

They actually have some really good pricing for companies that want to stay with old versions of RedHat.

Compare apples to apples and oranges to organges please.

Others can and do offer support on end of life RH versions. Only Microsoft can provide updates to Microsoft Products.

Corporate versions of Windows cost more than RH Enterprise does.

Somebody please point me to a Linux distribution that offers that duration of support at any price.

Given that Linux distributions are open source, if there were a market for such long support, someone would sell it. Much like a company other than RedHat is supporting old RedHat distributions. I like to call this effect "free market done right."

:w

http://transition.progeny.com/

The latest stable release of Debian is 3.0r2. The last update to this release was made on November 21st, 2003.

Do you have any other stupid comments to make?

Uh, actually Progeny is offering support for Redhat. If you want an up-to-date debian, you use unstable, which isn't. And most aborted sourceforge projects I've seen seem to have been aborted due to lack of interest. So what?

No, because redhat is open source he does have an argument.

unofficial redhat patches nr. 1
unofficial redhat patches nr. 2

Now, where are those unofficial windows patches?

Ah, but here's the difference with OSS.

If everyone is ignoring SCO's threats, and they have *no* effect on Linux deployment, then how could Red Hat show actual damages?

Good point. We've got quite a few RH boxes online here for a variety of customers, most of them small enough that RH Enterprise does not make sense for them.

We would have been delighted to keep paying the individual user price of $5/box/month to avoid waiting for peak hour access to the RedHat Network. Months ago, long before the end-of-life announcements, I wrote to RH to ask about a 100-server quantity deal -- not even looking for a price break, but hoping to run a mirror locally to reduce their overhead. They didn't answer my email.

Too bad for them. We're going to be looking at Progeny for our RH support now.

SCO? SCO is not even a blip on our radar. The RedHat sales dept is RedHat's worst enemy.

The problem isn't the ridiculously short lifetimes of Red Hat's releases, it's that there is currently now NO upgrade path for Red Hat 7.3, 8, and 9 users still out there.

As for Fedora, I won't hit anything even remotely related to Red Hat with YOUR girlfriend's dick anytime soon.

since I'm sure you know this (initial plans..) but for those who missed it they cover this in their FAQ. Basically if there is enough interest (read $$) to support it they will do it, but they are just testing the waters and would be smart not to invest too many resources until they know we'll pony up (they'll get my $60).

Anaconda has been ported to Debian by Progeny, mainly because Progeny supports both Red Hat and Debian and they want to use the same installer for both distros.

Oh, and yes, Anaconda can be run in text mode, but it doesn't currently work in the Progeny port.

Before getting too enthusiatic about this, please do remember to read the errata before downloading the iso images. Lots of work still needs to be done, but this is a step in the right direction.

Here's the link to building anaconda-based debian ISO images.

Finally a quick, easy way to remaster debian to hand out to friends.

I *REALLY* pains me to say this, but Redhat are harder to do business with than Microsoft. I'd be tempted to go with Debian and get support from someone like Progeny. They can also help with transitions away from Redhat.

Apparently freedesktop.org has devolved from a desktop standards initiative to a home of pointless wheel-reinvention. Here's a list of the projects listed above, followed by their existing, more mature counterparts:

Init Replacements: simpleinit, minit, jinit, runit, daemontools, serel. Progeny also has their own system based on Gooch's need/provide architecture.

D-BUS: CORBA

HAL: Discover

I know everyone says debian has a terrible installation, but for anyone who has run linux for a little while, it really shouldn't be a problem. Probably not exactly what you were looking for but there are lots of commercial distros that have taken this route (xandros, libranet, etc).

Besides then you can use PGI and there is good documentation on starting a debian subproject here and as a debian package

Plus even if you don't want to use debian as a base all the installation code is open so you may just be able to learn something from it and they are still trying to rewrite the installation, so maybe you could help an existing project in the process! That's really the open source ideal isn't it?

Reality check no organisation is going to use Debian or any of the other distro's like it, the thing they really care about is the technical support.

The article claims that since Debian's technical advantages can (and to some extent have been) be "borrowed" by other distributions, and since Joe User doesn't care about the policy advantages of Debian, then Debian is doomed to be marginalized as the Linux market grows with unprecidented numbers of Joe Users. I strongly disagree.

Debian has always had a strong following with Systems Administrators who want a strong, stable, supportable platform for their GNU/Linux based services that can be centrally administered without waisting a lot of time. The same forces will make Debian significant as a corporate desktop. This is a huge market, and while Joe User might be on some of those computers, he's not the one making the decision.

Red Hat wins its share of this market through marketing, Debian wins its share through precisely the same policy superiority that the author discounts. Sure, Joe User doesn't understand the policy advantages, but Joe User doesn't play in this field. Sure, Red Hat and other corporate marketted distros will mean Debian will probably never even get a majority share of this field, as long as there are systems people who are allowed to make systems decisions, Debian will be a player here.

The other two markets are Small/Home Businesses, and Home Users. These are the fields Joe User plays. And no, he's not necessarily likely to gravitate towards Debian (actually, from my experience he is, but all my evidence is anecdotal, and it's irrelevant for my point). What the author misses is a key differentiation distros that borrow from Debian.

Some distros, like the example of Red Hat borrowing apt-rpm/apt-cacher, are alien distros borrowing a tool that was developed by Debian. While they probably will contribute to development of the tool, these don't do much for Debian as a whole.

Other distros are derivative of Debian. They put their own installation and look and feel, do their own marketing and often usability testing. They might not even mention their relation to Debian, but, at their core, they're Debian, and developers developing for these Distros are directly helping Debian development. Some significant distros in this category are: LindowsOS, Progeny and Libranet. They're not Red Hat, but they're growing, and growing strong.

I feel Debian's chances of being marginalized are slim.

My comment was in regards to Ian's own commercial interests. I know it's not an exact comparison to Daniel's motivation with Gentoo, but the point was Debian has it's commercial ties too. Even if those ties are just consulting, the alterior motives are there.

An X server is still an X server. It's still network-transparent, and if you want to start it with only a single xterm and no window manager no one is going to stop you. You can spend as much time as you want configuring everything the way you like it. None of the old applications or environments you reminisce about have un-written themselves. You can do a base Debian install, be left with 80MB of nothing but GNU userspace and the infrastructure to install other packages. You don't even have to know KDE or Gnome exist.

Linux began as almost pure innovation, an OS written from the ground up by GNU and Linus Torvalds.

Linux began as nothing but a straightforward implementation of POSIX. It was x86 only, and Linus initially had no plans for portability to other architectures. GNU was just reimplementation of UNIX userspace. Pure innovation? Linus just wanted to have the same environment at home on his x86 box as he had at the university.

I would say it's self-evident that the direction that companies like RedHat are going represents what most people want. They're making money, and I assume they're doing market research to find out what people want. Maybe you're just frustrated that it's not the same as what you want. There's always Debian for you, which given enough time can be whatever you want it to be. Or you could pay Progeny to make this kind of customization easier with their Linux Platform Manager.

It looks like a man walking in front of a burning oil well.

Is it just me, or is this picture pretty similar to Ximians logo?
Just mirrored.

It actually thought that I saw a code monkey :)

Please use a mirror, yeah, har har. Thanks, buddy. As of now, of course, none of the mirrors have updated, possibly because people post links right to the master.

Australia (Canberra, .au only) http://mirror.aarnet.edu.au/pub/OpenBSD/songs/song 32.ogg
Australia (Melbourne) http://www.openbsd.aba.net.au/ftp/songs/song32.ogg
Australia (Sydney) http://ftp.planetmirror.com/pub/OpenBSD/songs/song 32.ogg
Australia (Sydney) http://the.wiretapped.net/OpenBSD/songs/song32.ogg
Austria (Vienna) http://gd.tuwien.ac.at/opsys/OpenBSD/songs/song32. ogg
Belgium (Ghent) http://openbsd.rug.ac.be/ftp/pub/OpenBSD/songs/son g32.ogg
Canada (Edmonton) http://sunsite.ualberta.ca/pub/OpenBSD/songs/song3 2.ogg
Canada (Sherbrooke) http://gulus.usherb.ca/ftp/OpenBSD/songs/song32.og g
Finland http://ftp.fi.debian.org/OpenBSD/songs/song32.ogg
Finland (Jyvskyl) http://ftp.jyu.fi/ftp/pub/OpenBSD/songs/song32.ogg
Germany (Esslingen) http://ftp-stud.fht-esslingen.de/pub/OpenBSD/songs /song32.ogg
Germany (Frankfurt) http://pandemonium.tiscali.de/pub/OpenBSD/songs/so ng32.ogg
Germany (Stuttgart) http://ftp.uni-stuttgart.de/pub/OpenBSD/songs/song 32.ogg
Italy (Napoli) http://ftp.openbsd.it/OpenBSD/songs/song32.ogg
Sweden (Uppsala) http://ftp.sunet.se/pub/OpenBSD/songs/song32.ogg
Sweden (Uppsala) http://mirror.pudas.net/OpenBSD/songs/song32.ogg
Taiwan http://openbsd.nsysu.edu.tw/pub/OpenBSD/songs/song 32.ogg
TamSui, Taiwan http://ftp.tku.edu.tw/pub/OpenBSD/songs/song32.ogg
USA (Batesville, AR) http://gandalf.neark.org/pub/distributions/OpenBSD /songs/song32.ogg
USA (Sunnyvale, CA) http://east.dl.sourceforge.net/mirrors/OpenBSD/son gs/song32.ogg
USA (Tallahassee, FL) http://mirror.csit.fsu.edu/pub/OpenBSD/songs/song3 2.ogg
USA (Lake in the Hills, IL) http://rt.fm/pub/OpenBSD/songs/song32.ogg
USA (Indianapolis, IN) http://archive.progeny.com/OpenBSD/songs/song32.og g
USA (West Lafayette, IN) http://ftp7.usa.openbsd.org/pub/os/OpenBSD/songs/s ong32.ogg
USA (Cambridge, MA) http://openbsd.mirrors.netnumina.com/songs/song32. ogg
USA (State College, PA) http://carroll.cac.psu.edu/pub/OpenBSD/songs/song3 2.ogg
USA (Fairfax, VA) http://mirrors.rcn.net/pub/OpenBSD/songs/song32.og g
USA (Fairfax, VA) http://openbsd.secsup.org/songs/song32.ogg
USA (Springfield, VA) http://www.tux.org/pub/bsd/openbsd/songs/song32.og g
USA (Madison, WI) http://mirror6.cs.wisc.edu/pub/mirrors/OpenBSD/son gs/song32.ogg

Yes there is. vim. ;)

Debian's installer isn't designed to be hard, nor is it Debian policy to screen out idiots using the installer. More the point, Debian is designed by people who know Linux, and swayed in general by people with a clue. They have never had a problem with their current installer. PGI was designed by Progeny, a company founded by Ian Murdock to sell Debian as a (desktop?) solution to the sort of people that would want to see a graphical installer on it. (It has now become a solutions provider - "The Linux Platforms Company".)

The new Debian desktop distribution will mark a change to all of this, I'm sure. It will provide a place for documentation writers and usability experts to become Debian developers. This is the distribution that will see work done on an installer, which will probably either replace or modify Debian's current installer. But I don't want to see it removed entirely.

Yes there is. vim. ;)

Debian's installer isn't designed to be hard, nor is it Debian policy to screen out idiots using the installer. More the point, Debian is designed by people who know Linux, and swayed in general by people with a clue. They have never had a problem with their current installer. PGI was designed by Progeny, a company founded by Ian Murdock to sell Debian as a (desktop?) solution to the sort of people that would want to see a graphical installer on it. (It has now become a solutions provider - "The Linux Platforms Company".)

The new Debian desktop distribution will mark a change to all of this, I'm sure. It will provide a place for documentation writers and usability experts to become Debian developers. This is the distribution that will see work done on an installer, which will probably either replace or modify Debian's current installer. But I don't want to see it removed entirely.

Presumably, Libranet, Xandros Desktop, and the PGI installer image for Debian 3.0. All of those are drool-proof ways to get onto Debian 3.0 i386, providing preconfigured access to many of the desired "desktop" tchotchkes. The first two even prepackage the most-requested proprietary stuff (Acrocrap, Macromedia Flash, MS Core TrueType fonts, etc.).

Rick Moen
rick@linuxmafia.com

PGI does support ia64 as well as i386, and developers outside of Progeny are working on powerpc. The design is modular, to minimize the work required to make it functional on other architectures (although "minimize" should not imply that it's easy).

We hope to have ia64 CDs available shortly, but given the relative market shares of the two platforms, we wanted to make the i386 images available without waiting for ia64.

Other recent developments at Progeny include the release of Discover 2.0, a cross-platform extensible hardware identification library and tool; Progeny Graphical Installer (PGI) 1.0, which contrary to its name is properly an installer creation system; and the announcement of Platform Services, a subscription service that makes it easier for companies to develop and maintain Linux-powered products and services.

PGI does support ia64 as well as i386, and developers outside of Progeny are working on powerpc. The design is modular, to minimize the work required to make it functional on other architectures (although "minimize" should not imply that it's easy).

We hope to have ia64 CDs available shortly, but given the relative market shares of the two platforms, we wanted to make the i386 images available without waiting for ia64.

Other recent developments at Progeny include the release of Discover 2.0, a cross-platform extensible hardware identification library and tool; Progeny Graphical Installer (PGI) 1.0, which contrary to its name is properly an installer creation system; and the announcement of Platform Services, a subscription service that makes it easier for companies to develop and maintain Linux-powered products and services.

PGI does support ia64 as well as i386, and developers outside of Progeny are working on powerpc. The design is modular, to minimize the work required to make it functional on other architectures (although "minimize" should not imply that it's easy).

We hope to have ia64 CDs available shortly, but given the relative market shares of the two platforms, we wanted to make the i386 images available without waiting for ia64.

Other recent developments at Progeny include the release of Discover 2.0, a cross-platform extensible hardware identification library and tool; Progeny Graphical Installer (PGI) 1.0, which contrary to its name is properly an installer creation system; and the announcement of Platform Services, a subscription service that makes it easier for companies to develop and maintain Linux-powered products and services.

So the same information can't be conveyed with a 'curses style interface?
It seems to me that the problems people are having is with the information presented not how it is presented.
This demand for a GUI is just fucked and places requirements on the system that is being installed to that are not necessary in many cases. This let's "keep up with the Joneseses" attitude is not useful.
Now, granted I haven't had time to digest all of hackers.progeny.com apart from the screenshots so I may be just shooting my self in the foot here.
Yeah, it looks nice. But what others merits does this have? Do we really need to cater to the lowest common denominator with every distro on the planet?
Why does the burden always have to be shifted from the user to the people with the most work to do? In this case it's not too bad as the code is already there, but integration still takes time.
My point? GUIs are not the answer to the world's (or at least poorly presented information's) problems.

A clickable version of the above link. (Posting as a coward since I am no karma whore.)

Try these.

Progeny has just released a new ISO for a woody install using PGI. You can find it at http://archive.progeny.com/progeny/pgi/.

We heard your plea.

Why, is your copy of wget broken?

FWIT, Bob

The article does discuss the Progeny Graphical Installer, which is being included in the next release. The last time I used this installer was roughly a year and a half ago. I could install a progeny 1.0 system in 25 minutes flat with this installer.

I am not an experienced sysadmin, but I have found sysadmin tasks to be pretty easy with Debian. Here is how to run a server with Debian:

0) install using the Debian "stable" branch. (Use the pgi to install; it's easy.)

1) once a week or so, run the commands:

apt-get update; apt-get upgrade

These will go out and get all the latest updates to your packages.

If you update your packages, worms like Slapper will not be able to get into your system.

Debian also provides a really excellent howto. Any Debian server admins should study it:

http://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/securing-debian- howto/

P.S. I'm sure Windows systems can be made secure, but it has to be more work than securing a Debian system. There is nothing as cool as "apt-get upgrade" on Windows.

steveha

If your problem with Open Source software is the brief support and releace cycles, then you don't want Red Hat, you want Debian.

If you want to pay somebody to support it, I suggest you look at Progeny, who are very experienced with Debian, and used to support their own distribution... unless you prefer LibraNet's customized Debian distribution. Either way, I believe that Progeny will support any Debian derived OS, and they have much experience and history with the Debian Project.

If you aren't looking for flashiness, but for solid performance and reliability, then go with standard Debian Stable - their release cycle is paced much better, they really are Stable, and they support their releases much longer than other Open Source OSes. Either look into Progeny or find something else here.

[Sorry, repost. I had cookies turned off in this browser so my login didn't work. Please mod down the Anonymous Coward version as redundant, not this one; thanks.]

Progeny Linux comes to mind as a commercial Linux distribution company whose Linux product met with good reviews, but couldn't remain in business.

I guess I have Santa Claus to thank for the paychecks I've been getting every two weeks for the past 2 years plus, then.

Progeny did discontinue its Progeny Debian product, but we remain in business and continue to do interesting things, IMO.

Progeny Linux comes to mind as a commercial Linux distribution company whose Linux product met with good reviews, but couldn't remain in business.

I guess I have Santa Claus to thank for the paychecks I've been getting every two weeks for the past 2 years plus, then.

Progeny did discontinue its Progeny Debian product, but we remain in business and continue to do interesting things, IMO.

Not Linus Torvalds, the original creator of Linux.

See their about page

--mandi

With all likelihood the next Debian release (Sarge) will come with a new installer that's currently in progress. Hopefully, that will solve most of the problems that people have with the current installer, e.g. lack of hardware detection.

Beta PGI ISOs are available at http://archive.progeny.com/progeny/pgi/

Progeny as a distro may be gone, but the installer is still going strong. There is a debian package for creating Debian install CDs retrofitted with the Progeny Installer, as well as customizable user docs, and other extras.

Progeny Installer

If someone whipped up a progeny iso, I wonder if all the anti-debian trolls would settle down a little.

I still use my last burned copy of Progeny to do initial installs when I want a Debian system, then follow the conversion instructions to upgrade to the latest Debian, restoring from my own apt-cache archives when possible to avoid unnecessary use of bandwidth. The Progeny installer has just given me less hassles on a broad range of hardware, from old to new, although this may change with the next Debian 3.x update. Never did give Libranet a try, but it looks like that'll have to change.

• ftp://gd.tuwien.ac.at/infosys/browsers/mozilla/sou rces/
• http://gd.tuwien.ac.at/infosys/browsers/mozilla/so urces/

• ftp://mozilla.mirror.pacific.net.au/mozilla/
• http://mozilla.mirror.pacific.net.au/
• ftp://ftp.planetmirror.com.au/pub/mozilla/
• http://planetmirror.com.au/pub/mozilla/

• ftp://ftp.belnet.be/packages/mozilla/

• ftp://ftp.ntrl.net/pub/mirror/mozilla/

• ftp://sunsite.ualberta.ca/pub/Mirror/mozilla/

• ftp://sunsite.cnlab-switch.ch/mirror/mozilla/

• ftp://ftp.ibiblio.org/pub/packages/infosystems/WWW /clients/mozilla/
• http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/packages/infosystems/WW W/clients/mozilla/
• ftp://ftp.tux.org/pub/net/mozilla/
• http://www.cise.ufl.edu/ftp/mirrors/mozilla/
• ftp://ftp.yggdrasil.com/mirrors/site/ftp.mozilla.o rg/pub/
• ftp://sunsite.utk.edu/pub/netscape-source/
• ftp://archive.progeny.com/mozilla/
• http://archive.progeny.com/mozilla/
• rsync://archive.progeny.com/mozilla/
• http://mirrors.xmission.com/mozilla/
• ftp://mozilla.teleglobe.net/ftp.mozilla.org/pub/

• ftp://ftp.cvut.cz/mozilla/
• http://ftp.cvut.cz/mozilla/

• ftp://ftp-stud.fht-esslingen.de/pub/Mirrors/ftp.mo zilla.org/pub/mozilla/
• ftp://ftp.fh-wolfenbuettel.de/pub/www/mozilla/
• ftp://ftp.uni-bayreuth.de/pub/packages/netscape/mo zilla/
• ftp://sunsite.informatik.rwth-aachen.de/pub/mirror /ftp.mozilla.org/pub/
• ftp://ftp.leo.org/pub/comp/general/infosys/www/bro wsers/mozilla/
• ftp://ftp.rhein-zeitung.de/mirrors/mozilla.org/
• ftp://ftp.uni-erlangen.de/pub/mirrors/mozilla/
• http://ftp.uni-erlangen.de/pub/mirrors/mozilla/

• http://mirrors.sunsite.dk/mozilla/
• ftp://mirrors.sunsite.dk/mozilla/
• rsync://mirrors.sunsite.dk/mozilla/

• ftp://ftp2.mbp.ee/pub/mozilla/

• ftp://ftp.rediris.es/mirror/mozilla/
• http://ftp.rediris.es/mirror/mozilla/
• ftp://ftp.etsimo.uniovi.es/pub/mozilla/
• http://www.etsimo.uniovi.es/pub/mozilla/

• ftp://ftp.funet.fi/pub/mirrors/ftp.mozilla.org/pub /

• ftp://ftp.univ-lille1.fr/pub/mozilla/
• ftp://ftp.oleane.net/pub/mozilla/
• http://ftp.oleane.net/pub/mozilla/
• ftp://ftp.free.fr/pub/Networking/www/Mozilla
• ftp://fr2.rpmfind.net/linux/mozilla/
• http://fr2.rpmfind.net/linux/mozilla/

• ftp://ftp.ntua.gr/pub/www/Mozilla/ ftp://ftp.duth.gr/pub/mozilla -->

• ftp://ftp.comp.hkbu.edu.hk/pub/mozilla/
• ftp://sunsite.ust.hk/pub/mozilla/

• ftp://ftp.c3.hu/pub/mirrors/mozilla/
• http://mozilla.szentimre.hu/

• ftp://ftp.EUnet.ie/mirrors/ftp.mozilla.org/pub/

• http://mozilla.fresh.co.il/

• ftp://ftp.cin.nihon-u.ac.jp/pub/net/www/mozilla ftp://his.ktarn.or.jp/pub/mirrors/mozilla/ --->
• ftp://ring.aist.go.jp/pub/net/www/mozilla/
• ftp://ring.crl.go.jp/pub/net/www/mozilla/
• ftp://ring.etl.go.jp/pub/net/www/mozilla/
• ftp://ring.exp.fujixerox.co.jp/pub/net/www/mozilla /
• ftp://ring.nacsis.ac.jp/pub/net/www/mozilla/
• ftp://ring.so-net.ne.jp/pub/net/www/mozilla/
• ftp://ftp.jaist.ac.jp/pub/Mozilla/
• ftp://ftp.lab.kdd.co.jp/Mozilla/
• ftp://ftp.kddlabs.co.jp/Mozilla/
• http://mirror.nucba.ac.jp/mirror/mozilla/
• ftp://mirror.nucba.ac.jp/mirror/mozilla

• ftp://ftp.hpcnet.ne.kr/pub/Mozilla/
• ftp://linux.sarang.net/mirror/network/client/web/m ozilla/

• ftp://ftp.uninett.no/pub/network/www/mozilla/

• ftp://sunsite.icm.edu.pl/pub/mozilla/
• http://sunsite.icm.edu.pl/pub/mozilla/
• ftp://ftp.task.gda.pl/pub/mozilla/

• ftp://ftp.global-one.pt/pub/Packages/Mozilla/

• ftp://ftp.chg.ru/pub/WWW/mozilla/

• ftp://ftp.sunsite.kth.se/mirrors/ftp.mozilla.org/
• ftp://ftp.fredan.org/mozilla/

• http://mirror.averse.net/pub/mozilla/
• ftp://mirror.averse.net/pub/mozilla/

• http://www.mozilla.sk/pub/

• ftp://ftp2.sinica.edu.tw/pub3/www/mozilla/
• ftp://ftp.nctu.edu.tw/WWW/mozilla/
• rsync://ftp.nctu.edu.tw/ftp/WWW/mozilla

• ftp.mirror.ac.uk/sites/ftp.mozilla.org/pub/ ftp://ftp.gbnet.net/pub/mozilla/
• http://www.gbnet.net/public/mozilla/ -->
• ftp://mozilla.teleglobe.net/ftp.mozilla.org/pub/