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Oh, you did know that, right? You can download ELILO straight off Intel's EFI section. (An observant reader will notice that it's actually hosted by HP's research lab, although I can't actually find the info there.)

Of course, you can also read about EFI and Linux from RedHat.

I wouldn't worry, somehow. Plus EFI is mostly used with the new Itanium architecture. I'm sure Linux will be able to survive the impending DRM apocolypse.

RedHat has a very legitimate reason for removing MP3 support from their distribution. I really wish that people would look a little farther than their own "gimme" instinct; I guess America's overly consumerist society encourages that kind of selfishness.

- Sam

I think I may be missing something.

you say that you have "administered Linux web servers for several years." but:

- you don't know that the window manager and the underlying OS are different?

- you don't understand how to make the distro install work?

- you were surprised that you had to do some research when you tried to do something in linux that you had never done before?

- you were not sure what distribution you were going to install, based on your own knowledge?

I've only ever used two distros (RedHat 6, then that pissed me off and I installed LinuxFromScratch), but the first three of these are issues that I had figured out by the end of the FIRST week when I started using linux about 4 years ago.

admitedly the last issue took me a good year to figure out, but at that point it was an academic decision, not a research project to choose my next distro.

I did have the same problem when I tried to install my Lexmark Z51 about a month ago. but I knew I was ignorant on how to do what I needed to do, and I knew it was going to take a while to get things working. none of these ever caught me off gaurd.

I have never managed a web server, print server, ftp server, or any other kind of server. in fact, aside from managing my own at-home system, the only computer-related work i have ever done is about two-months of assistant administrator (in a win2k environment) between when I received my BS in CS and when I went off to the Navy's nuclear power school in Charleston, SC about 3 years ago. but the issues you pointed out, together with your surprise that they popped up, does not seem to jive with my experiences.

all that being said, i will agree with you that linux is not ready for prime time, despite what anybody ever will say. it should "just work." it should support most of the hardware that's out there actually in use. I should be able to configure everything via GUI, *if* I so chose. the big-ticket items (priting, networking, and major applications) MUST ABSOLUTELY WORK (printing is NOT there yet, the other two are close enough to be viable). we have some work to do. we are not there yet. but we are improving -- when I first started with linux, networking was just coming up to speed and office applications were cumbersome at best. and in only 4 years, we're at least close.

weylin

Did you know that? Yeah, it's true, Google is running Red Hat Linux.
However, Google remainds me Slackware (simplicity).
And n0dez's page www.n0dez.com is running Red Hat Linux on most systems and on some Slackware (no Debian). They're also thinking about install FreeBSD on some workstations. FreeBSD is running on many systems at Yahoo!

Visit all those sites and don't forget to visit this one as well: Microsoft

Red Hat 9 includes a new threads implementation that breaks compatibility, most notably with things like Java VMs and WINE. So, they bumped the major version.

See this mailing list post by RH manager Matt Wilson for more on the reasoning behind the numbering.

Red Hat Linux 9 Technical Changes (or when the RELEASE-NOTES are just not enough) by Dax.Kelson@GuruLabs.com
Copyright 2003 Guru Labs, L.C.
Intro Over the past eight years or so, I've been excited each time a new version of Red Hat Linux gets released. During the past few years, people have even been writing reviews of each release. As a general rule, I've been dissatisfied by the superficialities, inaccuracies, and irrelevancies in the reviews often times performed by someone who does not have intimate knowledge of Red Hat Linux. A systems administrator needs an in-depth review that covers relative to the previous release:

• Architectural & behavioral changes
• Installer changes
• Changes to included software packages

Normally, with each new release of Red Hat Linux, someone here at Guru Labs combs through it looking for the above changes to update the Guru Labs Linux courses. This time it was my turn, and I decided to simultaneously write a technical review for the system administrators out there. I hope that the results are satisfactory.

Abbreviation notes:
RHL = Red Hat Linux
RH = Red Hat Inc.
Architectural & behavioral changes There were many changes between RHL7.3 and 8.0, for example, the use of root=LABEL=/ in the /boot/grub/grub.conf file, the replacement of Xconfigurator with the redhat-config-xfree86 program, and the new dhclient DHCP client daemon. There are not nearly as many behavioral changes from RHL8.0 to RHL9, yet the ones that exist are significant. Kernel 2.4.20-8 The kernel in RHL8.0 was based on the 2.4.18 kernel. Despite the name, the RHL 2.4.20-8 kernel is based on 2.4.20 plus bug fixes identified up through 2.4.21-pre4-ac4. During the past couple years, the RHL kernels have included back ported functionality from development kernels that has proven stable. The new RHL9 kernel is no exception. Major changes since RHL8.0 include:

• Addition of Native POSIX Thread Library (NPTL) for standards based threading support with impressive performance. This is definitely a nice addition, however, I anticipate that sys admins who add patches on-top-of the RHL kernel from 3rd party (UML, FreeSWAN, etc) sources will have a more difficult time getting the patches to apply and work cleanly. Presumably when the 2.6 kernel comes out, the divergence of the RHL kernel will drop substantially.
• • Certain applications using the old LinuxThreads API in a certain manner may no longer work (was that vague enough?)
  • In particular if using Java, update to the latest version from Sun at:
  • http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.4.1/download.html
  • The WIN32 API translation software, WINE, suffers from this problem. Proper fixes are in the works, however, workarounds exist.
  • Installing and running Oracle 9i R2 has major issues since it includes two different older embedded Java JVMs that don't work with NPTL. The solution is stick with RHL8.0 or the officially supported Red Hat Linux AS edition.

ACPI support appeared in a beta (as well as in a 8.0 beta), but was removed for the final shipping kernel.

Filesystem ACL and EA support appeared in the betas, but was pulled for the final shipping kernel. I was really looking forward to ACLs and EAs support in RHL (Solaris had support since 2.5.1), maybe an errata kernel will re-add the feature.

• To see what software specifically supports

• Architectural & behavioral changes
• Installer changes
• Changes to included software packages

Normally, with each new release of Red Hat Linux, someone here at Guru Labs combs through it looking for the above changes to update the Guru Labs Linux courses. This time it was my turn, and I decided to simultaneously write a technical review for the system administrators out there. I hope that the results are satisfactory.

Abbreviation notes:
RHL = Red Hat Linux
RH = Red Hat Inc.
Architectural & behavioral changes There were many changes between RHL7.3 and 8.0, for example, the use of root=LABEL=/ in the /boot/grub/grub.conf file, the replacement of Xconfigurator with the redhat-config-xfree86 program, and the new dhclient DHCP client daemon. There are not nearly as many behavioral changes from RHL8.0 to RHL9, yet the ones that exist are significant. Kernel 2.4.20-8 The kernel in RHL8.0 was based on the 2.4.18 kernel. Despite the name, the RHL 2.4.20-8 kernel is based on 2.4.20 plus bug fixes identified up through 2.4.21-pre4-ac4. During the past couple years, the RHL kernels have included back ported functionality from development kernels that has proven stable. The new RHL9 kernel is no exception. Major changes since RHL8.0 include:

• Addition of Native POSIX Thread Library (NPTL) for standards based threading support with impressive performance. This is definitely a nice addition, however, I anticipate that sys admins who add patches on-top-of the RHL kernel from 3rd party (UML, FreeSWAN, etc) sources will have a more difficult time getting the patches to apply and work cleanly. Presumably when the 2.6 kernel comes out, the divergence of the RHL kernel will drop substantially.
• • Certain applications using the old LinuxThreads API in a certain manner may no longer work (was that vague enough?)
  • In particular if using Java, update to the latest version from Sun at:
  • http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.4.1/download.html
  • The WIN32 API translation software, WINE, suffers from this problem. Proper fixes are in the works, however, workarounds exist.
  • Installing and running Oracle 9i R2 has major issues since it includes two different older embedded Java JVMs that don't work with NPTL. The solution is stick with RHL8.0 or the officially supported Red Hat Linux AS edition.

ACPI support appeared in a beta (as well as in a 8.0 beta), but was removed for the final shipping kernel.

Filesystem ACL and EA support appeared in the betas, but was pulled for the final shipping kernel. I was really looking forward to ACLs and EAs support in RHL (Solaris had support since 2.5.1), maybe an errata kernel will re-add the feature.

• To see what software specifically supports ACLs and EA

Microsoft have released a beowulf distro.

It's Microsoft has, and Beowulf is capitalized.

Linus has joined redhat.

The name of the company is Red Hat, Inc.

Slackware is closing down.

Not true.

Linux now runs on single entangled electrons at MIT

I don't know what this means, so I'm going to conclude that it is wrong.

Thinking of switching to RPM? That's great! RPM is the best anyway. It never crashes, especially not in RedHat 8.0. It never hangs half-way through important installations like glibc. (I know this because the bug reports all get marked as "closed".) Thankfully, I must have only been imagining that this was actually a bug that has plagued all five of my RedHat 8.0 installations since day one.

And that RedHat Developer network? Man. Why would I ever download that free "Apt for RPM" when I could just as easily fork over my monthly $$$ subscription to RedHat. Phhht ... useful, free command line tools ... they're for wussies anyway. ;)

I'm starting to feel the same way as you, especially after checking this the other day. Seems as if they're cutting support on all versions prior to 8.0 this December, and cutting support on 8.0 in March of 2004. So basically, in order to keep the boxes up to date you need to either compile everything from source, or constantly upgrade to their newest distribution -- not really cool for people like me who would happily run 7.1 as long as patches are released.

As soon as I get an extra box I'll probably start migrating some more important things off of Redhat and to another Linux distro. (maybe even BSD).

Check out the list of packages included with Red Hat Linux 9. You'll find exactly zero non-free software. There is one file (the README, perhaps? It's been a while) that states that while you have the right to copy it (the file), you do not have the right to modify it (the file). If you have a problem with that, dump the GPL now, because the GPL (the document itself) has the same proviso as does the BSD license. FreeBSD even has a whole document devoted to how various degrees of restrictive licensing interact in the ports system.

But you are probably thinking of the Office and Multimedia Applications CD which is not part of Red Hat Linux 9, but rather an add-on 7th or 8th disk included with Red hat Linux 9 Professional and you will find that the licensing on all of that software includes specific language that allows for duplication of the Red Hat Linux 9 Professional ISOs. These packages are also not required (in fact, I don't even think they're referenced) by the base installation of the software.

What I don't understand is how there can be such wild misinformation as there has been about Red Hat.

This move has the obvious intent of invoking one of the more useful properties of the Internet: it interprets restraint (I'm generalizing the concept of censorship, which is usually what is cited in this particular quote) as damage and routes around it. Red Hat was spending more and more money per release on providing ISO downloads. What to do? Stop providing a download for the ISOs and let the community create a better solution. If they didn't think the community would do so, they certainly would not be in the free software business (I say free software only because Red Hat as a company pre-dates other terms for this business model, not be cause "open source" would not have applied equally well).

Check out the list of packages included with Red Hat Linux 9. You'll find exactly zero non-free software. There is one file (the README, perhaps? It's been a while) that states that while you have the right to copy it (the file), you do not have the right to modify it (the file). If you have a problem with that, dump the GPL now, because the GPL (the document itself) has the same proviso as does the BSD license. FreeBSD even has a whole document devoted to how various degrees of restrictive licensing interact in the ports system.

But you are probably thinking of the Office and Multimedia Applications CD which is not part of Red Hat Linux 9, but rather an add-on 7th or 8th disk included with Red hat Linux 9 Professional and you will find that the licensing on all of that software includes specific language that allows for duplication of the Red Hat Linux 9 Professional ISOs. These packages are also not required (in fact, I don't even think they're referenced) by the base installation of the software.

What I don't understand is how there can be such wild misinformation as there has been about Red Hat.

This move has the obvious intent of invoking one of the more useful properties of the Internet: it interprets restraint (I'm generalizing the concept of censorship, which is usually what is cited in this particular quote) as damage and routes around it. Red Hat was spending more and more money per release on providing ISO downloads. What to do? Stop providing a download for the ISOs and let the community create a better solution. If they didn't think the community would do so, they certainly would not be in the free software business (I say free software only because Red Hat as a company pre-dates other terms for this business model, not be cause "open source" would not have applied equally well).

Maybe I'm missing something but doesn't the piece you quoted explicitly say that there _are_ "certain image files" that may not be freely redistributed?

Red Hat's logo and bluecurve theme are protected under trademark law and their use is mentioned on Red Hat's site. But distributing them is okay under fair use so long as the distro isn't modified from the original (in which case you'd have to call it something other than "Red Hat").

And anyhow, RH 9 actually does include something much more than "a little gloss" - NPTL (warning - link is to a pdf)

Now if you've ever tried to debug a core file of a multi-threaded app, or dealt with signal propagation with the old... aw, shucks never mind, but take my word for it, NPTL - woot woot

Oh, woot woot BT too by the looks of things...

In the past, Red Hat has ensured compatibility and supportability within product families. With the recent introduction of Red Hat Enterprise Linux and that family of products, we are now able to integrate stable and mature new technology developments as they are released instead of having to delay their incorporation until the next major release, following a few point releases. The accelerated numbering reflects Red Hat's move to speed the adoption of open-source technology.

this Redhat advisory from a couple weeks ago already addressed this issue?

Hi, we suggest you use one of these patches to solve all your problems...

Sincerely,

All Advocates of Linux

This is why people need to switch over to Gentoo Linux, it's so much easier than RedHat, Debian, and OpenDarwin.

You're right, it is so much easier to go through the process of
configuring and compiling the entire system from the command-line than it is to point and click through an installer that auto-detects everything and gives you a desktop right out of the box. Tell me with a straight face that you would recommend Gentoo to a novice friend before RedHat.

By always compiling locally, the apps on your machine are optimized the platform they run on, rather than the lowest common denominator.

An oft-repeated claim made by people who are never able to produce any evidence that it matters. But they swear up and down that it feels faster. I wonder if you also mark up all your CDs with green pen because it sounds so much better.

The kinds of applications that really benefit from this kind of arch-specific optimization are often available in several forms, one for each major arch.

This helps Sun as very few apps are compiled for Sparc architectures when distributed, so leveraging Gentoo this way will really help them.

Every single package in Debian is compiled for SPARC (provided it will actually compile successfully). There are more Debian packages than Gentoo ebuilds.

Of course you can.

Its called Windows + Cygnus + Lynx. Cygnus is also a good way to make a Windows server more friendly to admins who like the GNU environment, increase interoperability with UNIX platforms, and do some admin of the Windows server with XFree86 is you so desire.

Really? Red Hat is in the black.

Hercules is the answer to getting quality time in a Big Iron environment:

http://www.conmicro.cx/hercules/

Almost worthy of its own discussion ! votes ?

Hercules is an open source software implementation of the mainframe System/370 and ESA/390 architectures, in addition to the new 64-bit z/Architecture. Hercules runs under Linux, Windows 98, Windows NT, and Windows 2000.

You may also wish to download the original open source mainframe operating system, IBM OS360 ...

There also are a number of versions of Linux you can run on theIBM Z series Mainframes or the Hercules Emulator

Nothing like getting hot with some Big Iron running in your Pentium in the Study :^)

Presumably you've seen this Red Hat 5.1 installation screen shot? I don't know whether they still offer that as one of the installation languages, however; I wouldn't be surprised if it was no longer offered.

(See the footnote - click the "2" - for the reason why that particular language choice was offered.)

Here's the reply I got:

Ben,

While evidence suggests that RHCEs who stay professionally involved can evolve their skills in pace with new releases of Red Hat Linux OS
technology, it is important for Red Hat to maintain a policy for determining whether an RHCE or RHCT certificate can be considered current. Thus, verification services provided for all RHCEs at Certification Central have always included which version a certificate was earned on, and whether the certificate is considered current or no longer current.

For Red Hat Linux 5.2 through 7.3, certification as RHCE remained current for the two (2) immediately subsequent major releases after the
major release on which certification was earned. This worked out to an RHCE being considered "current" for approximately 2.5 to 3 years. Around the time of Red Hat Linux 7.3 Red Hat began the enterprise product release cycle with Red Hat Linux Advanced Server 2.1, a more stable code base derived from the 7.2/7.3 tree. The RHCE training and certification program concentrates on job role tasks and competencies, and while the consumer release has been used in class as the educational OS, all the skills learned and tested apply to managing servers with the current Advanced Server release which is derived from the same codebase as the consumer release. Starting with Red Hat Linux 9 the numbering system for the consumer release will be stated only as an integer. The Red Hat Enterprise Linux AS/ES/WS product line will retain traditional decimal release numbering.

Therefore, all RHCEs earned on Red Hat Linux 7.3 or prior will be considered current until after the release of Red Hat Enterprise Linux
AS/ES/WS 4.x. All RHCEs and RHCTs earned on Red Hat Linux 8.0 and 9 will remain current until after the release of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.x. Validity and current status of an RHCE certificate will continue to be verified at Certification Central.

Thanks
Jay

--
Jay Novello
Red Hat Global Learning Services

I'm going to take up the challenge here of explaining why this is interesting. Since November of 2002, OpenBSD's pf has had support for load balancing. RedHat's $2499 Premium Edition of their Enterprise distro features Piranha load balancing which was derived from the Linux High Availability project.

So what the OpenBSD pf project is giving you is enterprise-class high availability and load-balance clustering for a tiny fraction of the price. With a handful of cheap dotcom-throw-away x86 servers, a small company or mildly well-capitalized individual can personally build a multi-datacenter-fault-tolerant clustering setup that will rival Fortune 500 uptime ratings.

In other words, the pf project's list of accomplishments is starting to read like a ToDo list for RedHat's Enterprise Linux development team.

I'm going to take up the challenge here of explaining why this is interesting. Since November of 2002, OpenBSD's pf has had support for load balancing. RedHat's $2499 Premium Edition of their Enterprise distro features Piranha load balancing which was derived from the Linux High Availability project.

So what the OpenBSD pf project is giving you is enterprise-class high availability and load-balance clustering for a tiny fraction of the price. With a handful of cheap dotcom-throw-away x86 servers, a small company or mildly well-capitalized individual can personally build a multi-datacenter-fault-tolerant clustering setup that will rival Fortune 500 uptime ratings.

In other words, the pf project's list of accomplishments is starting to read like a ToDo list for RedHat's Enterprise Linux development team.

This is quite true. The strategy that RH is planning is a constant release pool of "home/hobby" versions with no point releases. {Far be it from me to now condemn the .0 releases as I have in the past...} RH is pouring most of their resources into their broken apart Advanced Server line -- there will be an Enterprise Server line seen here, a WorkStation Server line seen here and the Advanced Server line seen here. These will have point releases along the way, but will lag behind that of the hobby/home use version because of ISV certifications. They believe that they will get stronger ISV certification if they stop mucking with the code base in such a short time (recall that 7.0 - 7.3 has all been released in roughly a year span) It often takes some ISV's six months to certify a piece of software.

This is quite true. The strategy that RH is planning is a constant release pool of "home/hobby" versions with no point releases. {Far be it from me to now condemn the .0 releases as I have in the past...} RH is pouring most of their resources into their broken apart Advanced Server line -- there will be an Enterprise Server line seen here, a WorkStation Server line seen here and the Advanced Server line seen here. These will have point releases along the way, but will lag behind that of the hobby/home use version because of ISV certifications. They believe that they will get stronger ISV certification if they stop mucking with the code base in such a short time (recall that 7.0 - 7.3 has all been released in roughly a year span) It often takes some ISV's six months to certify a piece of software.

This is quite true. The strategy that RH is planning is a constant release pool of "home/hobby" versions with no point releases. {Far be it from me to now condemn the .0 releases as I have in the past...} RH is pouring most of their resources into their broken apart Advanced Server line -- there will be an Enterprise Server line seen here, a WorkStation Server line seen here and the Advanced Server line seen here. These will have point releases along the way, but will lag behind that of the hobby/home use version because of ISV certifications. They believe that they will get stronger ISV certification if they stop mucking with the code base in such a short time (recall that 7.0 - 7.3 has all been released in roughly a year span) It often takes some ISV's six months to certify a piece of software.

A comment at Linux Weekly News links to Matt Wilson's explanation:

In the past we would never have tackled something as massive and invasive as a new threads implementation just after a ".0" release (in this case, 8.0). ... With the introduction of the full family of Red Hat Enterprise Linux product we now have the flexibility to incorporate the best technology ... when they're ready.

I've always viewed Red Hat's extensive patches as a risk. The kernel package, for example, typically includes hundreds of patches. Now that the core distribution is essentially being treated as a perpetual beta, I just can't see myself staying on Red Hat much longer.

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Learn more about the benefits of being a Red Hat Network Subscriber:
http://redhat.chtah.com/

To purchase a Red Hat Network subscription:
http://redhat.chtah.com/

For more information about the benefits of being a Red Hat Network Subscriber, go to:

http://www.redhat.com/software/rhn/offerings/

If you would like to purchase a Red Hat Network subscription, go to:

https://rhn.redhat.com/network/sales/

If you would like to contact us regarding this e-mail, the services offered by Red Hat Network, or with feedback, please go to:

https://rhn.redhat.com/help/contact.pxt

Learn more about the benefits of being a Red Hat Network Subscriber:
http://redhat.chtah.com/

To purchase a Red Hat Network subscription:
http://redhat.chtah.com/

For more information about the benefits of being a Red Hat Network Subscriber, go to:

http://www.redhat.com/software/rhn/offerings/

If you would like to purchase a Red Hat Network subscription, go to:

https://rhn.redhat.com/network/sales/

If you would like to contact us regarding this e-mail, the services offered by Red Hat Network, or with feedback, please go to:

https://rhn.redhat.com/help/contact.pxt

You don't have to conjecture anything. Redhat has been selling "Redhat Entreprise Linux WS" (WS = Workstation) here for a few weeks now.

Quoting from the page linked above:

Red Hat Enterprise Linux WS is the desktop/client member of the Red Hat Enterprise Linux family. Red Hat Enterprise Linux WS is ideal for client-server deployments, S/W development environments and targeted ISV client applications (such as EDA and Oil/Gas applications). Red Hat Enterprise Linux WS is fully compatible with other members of Red Hat's Enterprise family of products and maintains complementary technology and services suited specifically for client application use.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux WS provides support for workstation/desktop systems with up to two CPUs and 4GB of main memory. Designed with the desktop environment in mind, Red Hat Enterprise Linux WS does not include many server applications found in Red Hat Enterprise Linux AS and Red Hat Enterprise Linux ES.

If you want to know the rationalle for the new major version from the horses mouth (a RedHat employee) here is the mailing list post that explains it.

Yes, the next major release of Red Hat Linux will be Red Hat 9, but:

Something that nobody so far has picked up on, is that this is just the start of an entirely new versioning scheme. Red Hat's operating systems manager, Matt Wilson, has suggested that the release following 9 may not be 9.1 or 10, but rather something entirely different. This makes sense in the light of Red Hat's recent announcement of its Enterprise range. I guess Red Hat Linux may no longer exist in its current form, but rather branch into Red Hat Linux Enterprise and Red Hat Linux Personal, with a new version numbering scheme to boot, maybe starting again at 1, or maybe even based on the year it was released in.

Yes, the next major release of Red Hat Linux will be Red Hat 9, but:

Something that nobody so far has picked up on, is that this is just the start of an entirely new versioning scheme. Red Hat's operating systems manager, Matt Wilson, has suggested that the release following 9 may not be 9.1 or 10, but rather something entirely different. This makes sense in the light of Red Hat's recent announcement of its Enterprise range. I guess Red Hat Linux may no longer exist in its current form, but rather branch into Red Hat Linux Enterprise and Red Hat Linux Personal, with a new version numbering scheme to boot, maybe starting again at 1, or maybe even based on the year it was released in.

But there's something a bit more fundamental that I want people to be
aware of. In the past we would never have tackled something as
massive and invasive as a new threads implementation just after a ".0"
release (in this case, 8.0). We were able to do this, and bring this
great new technology to a mass audience, because we've changed the way
we consider technology to incorporate in Red Hat Linux. In the past
we would have felt it necessary to wait a while for a ".0" release
because we had to support a series of releases for years.

With the introduction of the full family of Red Hat Enterprise Linux
product we now have the flexibility to incorporate the best technology
that both the Open Source communities and Red Hat have to offer when
they're ready, instead of having to hold back.

Enterprise Service Entitlement 10 $96/yr

Basic Service Entitlement 0 $60/yr

Red Hat Enterprise Linux AS Developer Edition n/a $60/yr

Red Hat Enterprise Linux WS Basic Edition n/a $179/yr

Red Hat Enterprise Linux ES Basic Edition n/a $349/yr

Note that if you have a bunch of servers at 7.2/7.3, not only do you have to have them offline for many hours each for the update/install process, you have to go from paying $60/96 a year, to paying $349 a year (yes, I called them to verify the $349 was the only option for ES to be on the RHN).

MY GOD. I asked what the option was to get just updates - there is none. You have to get support. I don't want support. Note that the $349 only covers installation and hardware support anyway, so...in subsequent years, its useless (cause what the hell hardware support are they going to give, esp beyond installation?).

Having RHN costs jump from 3.5-6 times as much as current, with no added value...that's a problem. Does M$ charge $349 a year to download updates? Nope. Note that its still the same set of tools, same everything. Redhat isn't reinventing the wheel here, they're just putting it in a different box.

Again, I'll just probably set up my own update server, or move to another service. Its just odd to be forced to do that.

because it requires a 2.5.x kernel to function.
See this newsgroup for details. (don't worry about the expired https certificate)

Please don't start comparing RedHat to Microsoft... There are some truths that can clear up a lot of these misconceptions...

1) RedHat releasing this as a major version number is consistent with their numbering schemes in the past and is likely not a marketing plot. RedHat does major number versioning when binary compatibility is broken between versions. The Native POSIX Thread Libraries used in the latest beta Phoebe broke binary compatibility with a lot of applications. Thus, a new major number is warranted.

2) RedHat has an interesting challenge in that it must balance the "release early, release often" philosophy to satisfy those of us who like having cutting edge distros with the need for corporations to have some longevity in their releases. RedHat has found a good balance here. These consumer releases are going to continue to be released every six months to satisfy those who want its raw power. They will continue to be free, and RHN update services will continue to be free (though recently they've asked for about ten seconds of your time to complete a five question marketing survey). These six-month releases will continue to have same QA process as always. RedHat is willing to continue to invest so much into these freely downloadable versions because the feedback they get from them helps them work on the slower release versions. Redhat has said this more than once during a recent thread on the phoebe list.

Please don't start villifying RedHat. They do a lot of good for the whole Linux community, pay many of the best developers of our favorite projects, and give Linux a wider acceptance in the RealWorld (tm) which helps all of us.

-jag

Please don't start comparing RedHat to Microsoft... There are some truths that can clear up a lot of these misconceptions...

1) RedHat releasing this as a major version number is consistent with their numbering schemes in the past and is likely not a marketing plot. RedHat does major number versioning when binary compatibility is broken between versions. The Native POSIX Thread Libraries used in the latest beta Phoebe broke binary compatibility with a lot of applications. Thus, a new major number is warranted.

2) RedHat has an interesting challenge in that it must balance the "release early, release often" philosophy to satisfy those of us who like having cutting edge distros with the need for corporations to have some longevity in their releases. RedHat has found a good balance here. These consumer releases are going to continue to be released every six months to satisfy those who want its raw power. They will continue to be free, and RHN update services will continue to be free (though recently they've asked for about ten seconds of your time to complete a five question marketing survey). These six-month releases will continue to have same QA process as always. RedHat is willing to continue to invest so much into these freely downloadable versions because the feedback they get from them helps them work on the slower release versions. Redhat has said this more than once during a recent thread on the phoebe list.

Please don't start villifying RedHat. They do a lot of good for the whole Linux community, pay many of the best developers of our favorite projects, and give Linux a wider acceptance in the RealWorld (tm) which helps all of us.

-jag

Please don't start comparing RedHat to Microsoft... There are some truths that can clear up a lot of these misconceptions...

1) RedHat releasing this as a major version number is consistent with their numbering schemes in the past and is likely not a marketing plot. RedHat does major number versioning when binary compatibility is broken between versions. The Native POSIX Thread Libraries used in the latest beta Phoebe broke binary compatibility with a lot of applications. Thus, a new major number is warranted.

2) RedHat has an interesting challenge in that it must balance the "release early, release often" philosophy to satisfy those of us who like having cutting edge distros with the need for corporations to have some longevity in their releases. RedHat has found a good balance here. These consumer releases are going to continue to be released every six months to satisfy those who want its raw power. They will continue to be free, and RHN update services will continue to be free (though recently they've asked for about ten seconds of your time to complete a five question marketing survey). These six-month releases will continue to have same QA process as always. RedHat is willing to continue to invest so much into these freely downloadable versions because the feedback they get from them helps them work on the slower release versions. Redhat has said this more than once during a recent thread on the phoebe list.

Please don't start villifying RedHat. They do a lot of good for the whole Linux community, pay many of the best developers of our favorite projects, and give Linux a wider acceptance in the RealWorld (tm) which helps all of us.

-jag

Ok, so now I know:

From A Redhat Memo, this is the EOL schedule for Redhat's current products:

Red Hat Linux 8.0 (Psyche) December 31, 2003
Red Hat Linux 7.3 (Valhalla) December 31, 2003
Red Hat Linux 7.2 (Enigma) December 31, 2003
Red Hat Linux 7.1 (Seawolf) December 31, 2003
Red Hat Linux 7.0 (Guinness) March 31, 2003
Red Hat Linux 6.2 (Zoot) March 31, 2003

I had a feeling that EOL for some products could be coming soon, so I qualified my statement with "I don't think".

I don't think Redhat has EOL'd rh7 or rh8 yet.

You don't think? RedHat Linux 7.0 is EOL in 6 days from today. And RedHat Linux 8.0 will be dead at the end of this year.

What it means is, starting with RH9, you have 12 months of errata. You'll be able to use RH9 until March 31st, 2004, a year after release.

This *is* inconvenient, because it means, at minimum, taking a machine down to kickstart it every year. THAT is annoying as hell, especially since you aren't going to deploy RH9 site-wide for at least 2-3 months (shortening the releases "lifetime" by 3 months).

I thought this was a huge problem until I looked at their ES level enterprise solution. Since enterprise entitlements are $120 anway, paying $230 for an OS that doesn't expire for 3-5 years seems perfectly reasonable.

If your systems are mission-critical enough to NEED to be left stable for *years*, then going with Advanced Server makes more sense than any other distro - they stabalize the platform for 18 months between releases, minimizing your QA and upgrade time significantly.

Nope, but I'll wager that they want to encourage you to purchase one of their new Enterprise offerings.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux AS
Red Hat Enterprise Linux ES
Red Hat Enterprise Linux WS

Nope, but I'll wager that they want to encourage you to purchase one of their new Enterprise offerings.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux AS
Red Hat Enterprise Linux ES
Red Hat Enterprise Linux WS

Nope, but I'll wager that they want to encourage you to purchase one of their new Enterprise offerings.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux AS
Red Hat Enterprise Linux ES
Red Hat Enterprise Linux WS

No, they figure that anyone doing that can afford the $349 for the basic version of RedHat Enterprise Linux ES, which has a guaranteed five-year lifetime.

This page is kind of a shock to me, too[*], but they aren't abandoning enterprise people at all.

[*] - this is surprising in at least three ways:

• They've never preannounced releases before
• They've never not had a .1 release
• They've only changed major numbers with binary incompatibility - I'm not sure what would be incompatible here. Maybe the new threading stuff in glibc.

That's what Red Hat Enterprise Linux is for.