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I am surprised they are giving up on the desktop just as it is showing signs of life.

They are not giving up on the desktop. They will be selling support/updates for Red Hat Enterprise Linux WS, which is meant for corporate workstations/desktops. What they are giving up on are the hobbyist and small business markets, who don't want to pay the steep prices for the enterprise versions, but still want timely updates. I think this sucks, because I fall into this category. I don't blame Red Hat, though, because there is not much money to be made there. If I was in their position, I would probably do the same thing.

How long do they guarantee support for on the Enterprise releases? I would expect at least 5 years or they aren't worth the price. We still have NT4 boxes on servers taht don't need an upgrade.

It's right there on the Red Hat Enterprise Linux page:

12-18 month release cycle and five years of support for every version.

The free desktop version is no longer being only developed by Red Hat. It is now a COMMUNITY project that anyone can get involved in. The first release is due out soon named Fedora Core 1. Fedora was a project that provided high quality third party RPM's to the Red Hat community. Red Hat has joined forces with Fedora and now this will be the community version. Infact, Red Hat Enterprise Linux will be based on Fedora Core.

The original Fedora project is here and the new Red Hat/Fedora project is here

I have been using Fedora Core 1 test 3 for a while now and it is really great. The up2date client can now get updates from apt and yum repositories and makes it even easier to get third party products into your Red Hat/Fedora desktop. The release of Fedora Core 1 should be out soon. Go to Fedora and get on one of their meailing lists, they are very active and it will give you a much better idea of what is REALLy going on.

The only real difference now is that if you want paid support, you will have to use one of the Red Hat Enterprise versions since Fedora Core will be community supported.

+5 Insightful? Free RedHat == Fedora

Why is this so difficult for people to comprehend?

It costs a lot of money to backport security/bug fixes to old releases for years on end. RedHat can't afford to be doing that for products that people download for free. So, you get your free community-supported Fedora and your $$ commercial-support-for-five-years RedHat Enterprise. Fedora will be the proving ground for things that end up in later Enterprise versions.

This was announced many months ago - first that the "consumer" RedHat distro would only be supported for 12 months, then that the "consumer" RedHat distro would no longer be sold as such and it would merge with Fedora instead. If this story caught you by surprise then you were asleep at the switch.

The only hitch to this is that Red Hat has a services EULA that forbids redistribution once you buy their services.

It says you can't redistribute the service, but it clearly says,

Most of the Linux Programs are licensed pursuant to a Linux EULA that permits Customer to copy, modify, and redistribute the software, in both source code and binary code forms. With the exception of certain image files identified below, the remaining Linux Programs are freeware or have been placed in the public domain. Customer must review these Linux EULAs carefully, in order to understand its rights and to realize the maximum benefits available with Red Hat Enterprise Linux. Nothing herein limits Customer's rights under, or grants Customer rights that supersede, the terms of any applicable Linux EULA.

So either stop spreading false rumors or provide a link to prove it.

I've just read the posts at +3 and it seems like everyone thinks this is a negative, bad thing -- it's not at all :-)

RedHat have found that a free software project cannot be developed in a close way -- it is too expensive amoung other things. So they have opened up development to the community.

If you just follow some of the mail on the fedora lists you will find that the opening up of the project has led to loads of cool stuff starting to happen, the fedora legacy project to support old versions, people offering to do i18n stuff, people working on a PPC version, support for apt and yum -- none of this would have happened without out the dev being opened up.

Also why is it called Fedora? -- well one reason is so that anyone can duplicate CDs and sell it! Before people doing cheap CDs had to remove the Redhat trademark stuff, now you don't need to :-)

Read people. Read.

First of all you don't have to use up2date to update or install software. Use yum instead which is what I do for several redhat boxes and soon fedora ones. Which brings me to the other point, just because redhat is dropping support for their free version doesn't mean there isn't going to be a free one for you to use. Read http://fedora.redhat.com

Lastly you don't need to waste time "looking for security updates for hundreds of packages" just subscribe to redhat's security errata mailing list instead.

Although, I cannot find any mention of the sort on the Fedora website.

As has been stated in previous posts, see Fedora.

It looks as if Red Hat is tipping its fedora to the Debian way. They will, I'm sure, continue to put quality free software out, but they are going to leave it to other people to distribute it. In fact, lots of great Red Hat tools have been finding their way into Debian already and it did not cost Red Hat a dime. Fedora will give you your free beer and keep you in the Red Hat family. Red Hat, it seems, is going to rely on you. Go make it happen.

Who do I know that uses Redhat?

Some random strangers on Slashdot? ;-) I installed Red Hat 4.1 before Mandrake existed (and before I knew that Debian existed), and never found any reason to switch since. Helping out at Linux installfests gave me some incentive not to switch: Mandrake 7.1 surprised us with some serious problems (of course, so did every x.0 version of Red Hat, but at least they were consistent about their numbering so you knew which versions to avoid), and the Debian installer was atrocious.

I may be switching to Debian depending on how Fedora turns out, though. I just got bitten by my second major RPM bug yesterday (you can see people with similar problems here and here), and I'm not happy about it. This time it's a bleeding-edge version of rpm that got me, but the last time it was the stock rpm that was distributed with Red Hat 8! (for which there were a few workable rawhide updates but no official fix) I'm starting to fear that Red Hat 8 (and to some extent 9) were the start of a transition from their prior "get all the bugs worked out in x.0, then release solid updates and a solid x.1" habits to a new "get all the bugs worked out in Fedora, then release a solid Enterprise Linux" policy. If that turns out to be the case, I guess I could keep Fedora on my home computer, but there's no way I'd recommend a bleeding-edge distribution to others. Right now I can recommend Red Hat to friends and family, then run apt-rpm myself to keep a bleeding-edge system that's extremely similar to their stable systems; if Fedora isn't solid enough then the only other pairing I know that would work that way is Debian unstable/testing and Debian stable.

Who do I know that uses Redhat?

Some random strangers on Slashdot? ;-) I installed Red Hat 4.1 before Mandrake existed (and before I knew that Debian existed), and never found any reason to switch since. Helping out at Linux installfests gave me some incentive not to switch: Mandrake 7.1 surprised us with some serious problems (of course, so did every x.0 version of Red Hat, but at least they were consistent about their numbering so you knew which versions to avoid), and the Debian installer was atrocious.

I may be switching to Debian depending on how Fedora turns out, though. I just got bitten by my second major RPM bug yesterday (you can see people with similar problems here and here), and I'm not happy about it. This time it's a bleeding-edge version of rpm that got me, but the last time it was the stock rpm that was distributed with Red Hat 8! (for which there were a few workable rawhide updates but no official fix) I'm starting to fear that Red Hat 8 (and to some extent 9) were the start of a transition from their prior "get all the bugs worked out in x.0, then release solid updates and a solid x.1" habits to a new "get all the bugs worked out in Fedora, then release a solid Enterprise Linux" policy. If that turns out to be the case, I guess I could keep Fedora on my home computer, but there's no way I'd recommend a bleeding-edge distribution to others. Right now I can recommend Red Hat to friends and family, then run apt-rpm myself to keep a bleeding-edge system that's extremely similar to their stable systems; if Fedora isn't solid enough then the only other pairing I know that would work that way is Debian unstable/testing and Debian stable.

One consequence of the move to 'Fedora' seems to be that companies like Cheapbytes may (if I'm interpreting this correctly) be allowed to produce Fedora-branded CDs from the ISOs without having to jump through hoops to avoid calling them 'RedHat' .

$60*12 = $720/year

Enterprise, according to you, will cost:

2*379=$758/year.

If the extra $38 breaks your bank, go with Fedora or Debian. It should not be very hard to move your simple needs to either. You could totally screw yourself trying to get anything done with M$. You might just be better off taking the extra charge and enjoying better service.

If you move to Fedora, that's beter than the money you were paying. They were losing money on the services you were using. A happy move to Fedora would be good for Red Hat's reputation and it will keep you familiar with how to get things done the Red Hat way. Is there anything more to a software Brand than that?

Your math is awful - log in to your account, and look at the prices for RHEL3, esp. WS:
$89.50 per system, and it includes an update slot. that's $179, not $379.

Why pay for wasted boxes and Tier-1 techs?

Don't be a whiny fag.

Beta-test Severn (what you might call 9.1) NOW!

Fedora is the replacement for the free Red Hat.

BUT They still have and fund the Fedora Project. This is essentially Red Hat linux. It's just no longer commercially supported. Just like debian.

This info has been around for a long time. Red Hat Fedora Core 1 was due to be released today, but they found an issue so it's delayed, as you can see from the Fedora schedule. You can read the mailing list post about it here.

This info has been around for a long time. Red Hat Fedora Core 1 was due to be released today, but they found an issue so it's delayed, as you can see from the Fedora schedule. You can read the mailing list post about it here.

Just glancing at that, it seems that Red Hats RHN, would be prior-art. When the machines are registered with the network, you can have them upload information about the box; RAM, Processor, packages installed, name, etc.

IIRC, you can also create reports from the data, but I haven't looked at it in a while.

-J

Can anyone recommend a good non-symantec antivirus and software firewall?

There you go.

sorry to burst your bubble, but...

How can people say BSD is dying when it has a mascot like this?! Linux needs to get its act together if it's going to compete with the kind of hot chicks and gorgeous babes that BSD has to offer!

You just can't take Linux seriously when its fronted by losers like these. Would you buy software from them? I don't think so! You Linux groupies need to find some sexy girls like her ! I mean just look at this girl ! Doesn't she excite you? I know this little hottie puts me in need of a cold shower! This guy looks like he is about to cream his pants standing next to such a fox . As you can see, no man can resist this sexy little minx . I mean are you telling me you wouldn't like to get your hands on this ass ?!

With sexy chicks like the lovely Ceren you could have people queuing up to buy open source products. Could you really refuse to buy a copy of BSD if she told you to? Come on, you must admit she is better than an overweight penguin or a gay looking goat ! Don't you wish you could get one of these ? Personally I know I would give my right arm to get this close to such a divine
Join the campaign for more cute open source babes today!

Very useful indeed, unlike your link...
Here's another one: RedHat

Nice link... ... doofus
It was a type, correct link here

Apple is, to put it bluntly, a beleaguered company. Unlike Microsoft, whose cash reserves were last estimated at $73 billion, Apple doesn't have the luxury to support its operating system for seven years. Even Red Hat's policy of three-year support has landed them in financial despair.

Frankly, I like to see my annual $129 upgrade fee going towards truly innovative software. It's much better than Microsoft's extortionate "licensing" program, in which unfortunate companies pay upwards of $800 per seat per annum to receive whatever upgrades are available for Windows and Office. This year, for example, they paid $800 for a new version of Microsoft Outlook, when Mozilla Mail is clearly superior anyway.

Apple is leading the way. Linux and Microsoft can't come close.

Microsoft Windows(TM) might be able to run on intel emulation, that will allow Microsoft Windows to run on it, but frankly, who cares except Microsoft, Intel, AMD and maybe a few others?

If windows doesn't port to this processor, I am sure some other OS will take over, and everything will be rewritten for that OS. Alternately, you might go with an existing OS easier to port, like Mac OS, NetBSD or GNU/Linux. (URLs in the of this post)

A silly OS and its platform dependence isn't gonna stop development that much.

Kind regards,

/Spam .

URL's for possible alternatives goes here, I am sure I miss a lot of them:

Mac OS:

Mac OSX

GNU/Darwin

NetBSD:

NetBSD

GNU/Linux:

Red Hat GNU/Linux

Debian supports several platforms.

SuSE GNU/Linux

Mandrake GNU/Linux is a distribution from France.

Slackware GNU/Linux is a classic.

Some will charge you for GNU/Linux, and give you support or written manuals, silver-CDs or something in return. I probably missed a lot of links, but to mention some of the commercial distributions I missed, here is a comparison on price.

They should combine lots of vouchers to consider it.

http://www.redhat.com/training/

"So, please take this as kindly as possible when I say: Go fuck yourself."

This troubles me from the top of their web site:

"It is also a proving ground for new technology that may eventually make its way into Red Hat products."

So it's now going to be a big test distro like Debian Unstable? I always thought RedHat CE was an excellent balance between bleeding edge and stability, but it appears now they will focus on bleeding edge. :(

How can people say BSD is dying when it has a mascot like this?! Linux needs to get its act together if it's going to compete with the kind of hot chicks and gorgeous babes that BSD has to offer!

You just can't take Linux seriously when its fronted by losers like these. Would you buy software from them? I don't think so! You Linux groupies need to find some sexy girls like her! I mean just look at this girl! Doesn't she excite you? I know this little hottie puts me in need of a cold shower! This guy looks like he is about to cream his pants standing next to such a fox. As you can see, no man can resist this sexy little minx. I mean are you telling me you wouldn't like to get your hands on this ass?!

With sexy chicks like the lovely Ceren you could have people queuing up to buy open source products. Could you really refuse to buy a copy of BSD if she told you to? Come on, you must admit she is better than an overweight penguin or a gay looking goat! Don't you wish you could get one of these? Personally I know I would give my right arm to get this close to such a divine beauty!

Join the campaign for more cute open source babes today!

How can people say BSD is dying when it has a mascot like this?! Linux needs to get its act together if it's going to compete with the kind of hot chicks and gorgeous babes that BSD has to offer!

You just can't take Linux seriously when its fronted by losers like these. Would you buy software from them? I don't think so! You Linux groupies need to find some sexy girls like her! I mean just look at this girl! Doesn't she excite you? I know this little hottie puts me in need of a cold shower! This guy looks like he is about to cream his pants standing next to such a fox. As you can see, no man can resist this sexy little minx. I mean are you telling me you wouldn't like to get your hands on this ass?!

With sexy chicks like the lovely Ceren you could have people queuing up to buy open source products. Could you really refuse to buy a copy of BSD if she told you to? Come on, you must admit she is better than an overweight penguin or a gay looking goat! Don't you wish you could get one of these? Personally I know I would give my right arm to get this close to such a divine beauty!

Join the campaign for more cute open source babes today!

How can people say BSD is dying when it has a mascot like this?! Linux needs to get its act together if it's going to compete with the kind of hot chicks and gorgeous babes that BSD has to offer!

You just can't take Linux seriously when its fronted by losers like these. Would you buy software from them? I don't think so! You Linux groupies need to find some sexy girls like her! I mean just look at this girl! Doesn't she excite you? I know this little hottie puts me in need of a cold shower! This guy looks like he is about to cream his pants standing next to such a fox. As you can see, no man can resist this sexy little minx. I mean are you telling me you wouldn't like to get your hands on this ass?!

With sexy chicks like the lovely Ceren you could have people queuing up to buy open source products. Could you really refuse to buy a copy of BSD if she told you to? Come on, you must admit she is better than an overweight penguin or a gay looking goat! Don't you wish you could get one of these? Personally I know I would give my right arm to get this close to such a divine beauty!

Join the campaign for more cute open source babes today!

Have you reported this? I've never heard of this bug. File the bug report, then whine all you want...but in that order.

3) Red Hat corrupts its own RPM database when other e-mail clients are installed, then just hangs.

Yeah, that's bug 73097. I (and several others) reported it during the beta period. I don't understand why they shipped with this bug or why they haven't issued an errata advisory. But there are fixed packages available; look at the bugzilla comments near the bottom. RedHat has a nice system, this bug aside.

4) mutt will take four months to configure correctly.

Probably true, but I don't really mind. My bigger complaint is that it lacks IMAP cache support, so it's really slow on big mailboxes.

Then I look at Mac OS X mail and I have to ask: why is there, after FIFTEEN YEARS, no reliable, working, nice, up-to-date e-mail client outside of Mac OS X?

Well, OS X didn't have one either until recently. Mail.app was barely usable until Panther added good thread support. It's still missing some features I want, like support for forwarding messages as attachments.

Specifically if you send a flush cache command to the specific LG drives or their compaq rebadged ones they become factory returns. Scary stuff indeed.

These Anaconda Screenshots look good and could make Debian a lot easier to approach for Joe Average.

--
I have a truly marvellous reason to post this as an AC, which however the margin is not large enough to contain.

How can people say BSD is dying when it has a mascot like this?! Linux needs to get its act together if it's going to compete with the kind of hot chicks and gorgeous babes that BSD has to offer!

You just can't take Linux seriously when its fronted by losers like these. Would you buy software from them? I don't think so! You Linux groupies need to find some sexy girls like her! I mean just look at this girl! Doesn't she excite you? I know this little hottie puts me in need of a cold shower! This guy looks like he is about to cream his pants standing next to such a fox. As you can see, no man can resist this sexy little minx. I mean are you telling me you wouldn't like to get your hands on this ass?!

With sexy chicks like the lovely Ceren you could have people queuing up to buy open source products. Could you really refuse to buy a copy of BSD if she told you to? Come on, you must admit she is better than an overweight penguin or a gay looking goat! Don't you wish you could get one of these? Personally I know I would give my right arm to get this close to such a divine beauty!

Join the campaign for more cute open source babes today!

it will be interesting to see how Red Hat goes about publishing updates since I somehow don't see some of their larger customers downloading and compiling source code and then rdisting ....

Um,.... how about Red Hat Network

Okay, I see that Red Hat are selling their Cluster Suite as a separate product for Enterprise customers only. But I don't see where the code is.

After a read of the various manuals, and after grepping through the list of SRPMS, I see no evidence of support for clustering systems, as with AS2.1. Has Red Hat dropped support for shared storage dual cluster systems? I hope not, we just bought one!

No one seems to have mentioned the Red Hat Professional Worstation product that will also be released. Of course, you'd never know from their front page. It's supposedly the same as RHEL 3 WS, but no support and RHN (not RHEN) update access for a year. Targeted at Home power users. I've only so far found it listed on buy.com.

Not totally clear what the product is or what the support life will be. If it's in fact RHEL 3 WS and totally compatible that will be a good thing.

Gee, I believe you 're right!

Look at their Subscription Agreement.

Some choice snippets:

4. REPORTING AND AUDIT. If Customer wishes to increase the number of Installed System, then Customer will purchase from Red Hat additional Services for each additional Installed System. During the term of this Agreement and for one (1) year thereafter, Customer expressly grants to Red Hat the right to audit Customer's facilities and records from time to time in order to verify Customer's compliance with the terms and conditions of this Agreement.

Where is the line drawn? Surely I can rebuild the freely available SRPMS and put them wherever I want. What if I use their binary RPMs with apt to upgrade an RH9 system? Hm....

yes but to buy the CDs costs between $1500 and $18,000, that's alot of money for free software :) lol

Technically, I believe the cheapest option is to buy IA32 Red Hat Enterprise Linux WS basic for $179. This includes a one-year subscription to the RHEL WS channel. If you don't renew after a year, it may be difficult to get updates.

Legally, I don't know. The EULA contains scary words like "audit," "termination," and "confidentiality." I suspect that Red Hat is on shaky legal ground, but I haven't really examined it in depth.

I don't mean to sound like some astroturfer, but RedHat has definitely brought Linux to the fore of server operating systems.


I'm with you as far as this goes.

With the rapid decline of AIX and Solaris, Win2K and RedHat Linux are making steady gains in the server market.


Ok, I can still agree with that. When most people think linux, they think redhat linux.

What's more, with Linux you don't need to have a server farm like NT requires, so in the long run you save your company money by choosing to go with RedHat.


This is where your post breaks down. Redhat is DAMNED EXPENSIVE. The server stuff is like $699 for even the cheapest variety, and that's with limited support (which is what I thought you were paying for).
Of course, this was no big deal when you were content to do your own tech support. HOWEVER, now, they're not even supporting their own stuff!

I remember, does anyone else remember, when Microsoft stopped supporting windows 95 in 2000? That caused a big stir in the slashdot community about all those millions of computers out there still running windows 95 who are going to have no support! Well, I advise you to take a look at the end-of-the-line dates for RedHat. Redhat 8 was release, what, about a year ago? Mabey 14 months? And it's end of the line is December 31st of this year?

See, another problem that's going to hit redhat is that, until now, they had planned on releasing a free product called redhat and a pay-for-support-in-order-to-get-the-CD's product, also called redhat (enterprise). But, the way I understand it now, it's looking like the enterprise product is going to be called redhat and the free one is going to be called something else (fedora?). Well, that's just great for redhat, but what about me? I'm in the webhosting business. What do I say when customers call and ask about the $119/month dedicated server? Does it come with redhat? And I have to tell them No, becuase it quite simply costs too much. In fact, sir, it's more expensive that windows server 2003, if all you want to do is webhosting.

Redhat is the sleaze of the Linux community. They are the windows of linux. They have come into the business and made a name for themselves by making a great product, regardless of it's cost. But, then, they got greedy. It's been a while since they put out a good version of RedHat (7.3 being the last useable one for a server platform), and now, in order to get the stuff that actually works, they expect you to pay not $100, but $1499??

But, we can't jump ship from redhat because that's what everyone wants. When you think linux, you think redhat. So, they'll manage to squeek by for another few years selling a product that they used to give away, because they've got people hooked on the name.

Just because it brought linux into the public eye doesn't mean it's out to pet your dog and buy you christmas presents.

~Will

I don't mean to sound like some astroturfer, but RedHat has definitely brought Linux to the fore of server operating systems.


I'm with you as far as this goes.

With the rapid decline of AIX and Solaris, Win2K and RedHat Linux are making steady gains in the server market.


Ok, I can still agree with that. When most people think linux, they think redhat linux.

What's more, with Linux you don't need to have a server farm like NT requires, so in the long run you save your company money by choosing to go with RedHat.


This is where your post breaks down. Redhat is DAMNED EXPENSIVE. The server stuff is like $699 for even the cheapest variety, and that's with limited support (which is what I thought you were paying for).
Of course, this was no big deal when you were content to do your own tech support. HOWEVER, now, they're not even supporting their own stuff!

I remember, does anyone else remember, when Microsoft stopped supporting windows 95 in 2000? That caused a big stir in the slashdot community about all those millions of computers out there still running windows 95 who are going to have no support! Well, I advise you to take a look at the end-of-the-line dates for RedHat. Redhat 8 was release, what, about a year ago? Mabey 14 months? And it's end of the line is December 31st of this year?

See, another problem that's going to hit redhat is that, until now, they had planned on releasing a free product called redhat and a pay-for-support-in-order-to-get-the-CD's product, also called redhat (enterprise). But, the way I understand it now, it's looking like the enterprise product is going to be called redhat and the free one is going to be called something else (fedora?). Well, that's just great for redhat, but what about me? I'm in the webhosting business. What do I say when customers call and ask about the $119/month dedicated server? Does it come with redhat? And I have to tell them No, becuase it quite simply costs too much. In fact, sir, it's more expensive that windows server 2003, if all you want to do is webhosting.

Redhat is the sleaze of the Linux community. They are the windows of linux. They have come into the business and made a name for themselves by making a great product, regardless of it's cost. But, then, they got greedy. It's been a while since they put out a good version of RedHat (7.3 being the last useable one for a server platform), and now, in order to get the stuff that actually works, they expect you to pay not $100, but $1499??

But, we can't jump ship from redhat because that's what everyone wants. When you think linux, you think redhat. So, they'll manage to squeek by for another few years selling a product that they used to give away, because they've got people hooked on the name.

Just because it brought linux into the public eye doesn't mean it's out to pet your dog and buy you christmas presents.

~Will