Red Hat 7.0 Beta Is Out

Thorkild writes: "The subject says it all. They just opened up the directories on the mirror sites." If you can't find it without me telling you where it is, then you shouldn't be running a Beta Red Hat 7.0 ;)

Comments

Re:What's new

[bero-rh]

What's missing:
sendmail 8.11

Missing from the beta, present in our current tree (and definitely the final).

kernel 2.4test5ac

Actually it's there, on the 2nd CD and not installed by default because it's known to have some critical bugs.

tux 1.0

Needs kernel 2.4

apache 2.0pre4

Chances are 2.0 won't be released in time for 7.0. It'll probably be in 7.1 (and I'll make RPMs for 7.0 available as soon as I have the time).

bind 9.0

Same as for apache - I'm actually using the 9.0.0 release candidate to host bero.org, but it has a couple of problems, like some missing utilities, and requires all master zones to be changed because the TTL stuff is now mandatory (and most people haven't used it with bind 8), so there's no really clean update path. Not something we could do in the couple of days between the 9.0.0rc1 release and the beta.

staroffice

It's still binary-only, they've just announced they'll GPL it by October 13th. We'll include it once that happened, until then, it will be on the Linux Applications CD in the boxed sets.

LVM

It's present in the 2.4 kernel we're shipping.

reiserfs

Too unstable at the moment. They keep changing the journal format, and the recovery tools aren't quite where they should be.
Yes, reiserfs is nice while it works (I'm actually using it on one of my machines), but if something doesn't work and a journal replay doesn't fix it, you're usually in trouble.

I'll make a kernel RPM with the patch available over at people.redhat.com/bero/experimental when I have the time (probably shortly after the 7.0 release) for those who want to play - but for now, we don't feel we can support it.

You have it all wrong!

[MostlyHarmless]

It's Linux 7.0 that's out. See, all my favorite commercial apps say they require "Linux 6.2" to run, so therefore this latest version must be Linux 7.0. And we all know the commercial programs must be right because they can afford to sell the products. If this GNOME thing was any good, they would sell that too.

BTW, what's this "kernel" thing people keep talking about?

(hey mods, it's a joke)
--

Red Hat needs to stay organized...

[Booker]

Red Hat is doing some cool things on the business side of things, but they really need to stay focused on the details... why does their mailing list page only have archives up to 2/2000? And why aren't some of the lists they host (like video4linux) archived at all?

It's little things like that that can really irk your support base... the pointy hairs might not notice, but we do.

---

Re:RedHat

[oingoboingo]

less and less to those who seek to immerse themselves in the goodness of a unix environment (bad).

how does RedHat (or any distributon, for that matter) lessen the potential for total immersion in the unix environment? it's not like the graphical admin tools and scripts that are provided mean that you can no longer go into /etc with vi and hack till your heart's content.

skip automatic hardware detection, don't set up TCP/IP at install time, don't install any windows managers, and certainly don't install GNOME or KDE. there you go...its thin'n'crispy (tm) just like unix 'should be'.

on the other hand, you can install all the bells and whistles if you'd like, and pretend the technical details don't exist

i thought this whole 'choice' thing was what linux was about?

Good for Red Hat :)

[Dan Hayes]

Well, this is great news for the community since like it or not, public perception of Linux comes from what RedHat are doing more than any other organisation - hence this'll be seen as Linux 7.0, which sounds better to the newbie than Linux 2.4.0-test3 :)

It does seem that people who are long-term Linux users don't use RedHat anymore, maybe because it has been geared towards the "newbie", but at the end of the day surely Linux is Linux, and you can set up any distribution how you like given a bit of time.

Still Linux does need something aimed at helping newer users overcome the initial "fear factor" of running Linux. Whether you like it or not, by doing so they're doing everyone a favour in the long run. So although I don't use it, I wish them all the best and hope this release goes well for them.

Generating .config from current installation

[LordNimon]

Here's a feature I'd like to see in 7.0:

It would be great if the installation routine could create a .config file in /usr/src/linux that would match the current installation and hardware! I can't build a new kernel because I can't figure out what network card I have (/proc/pci says one thing, conf.modules says something completely different, I can't find the chip on the motherboard, and nothing I've tried works anyway). However, the installation itself knows what hardware I have, but if I try to build another kernel, I have to manually figure it all out. There is no reason for this.

The installation routine should generate a .config based on the hardware it has detected and the options the user chose during the installation. In other words, I should be able to build the kernel from /usr/src/linux without specifying any options, and it should work!
--

Talk about making retailers mad..

[Lumpy]

Let's see, most comp-usa's and other retailers that are nervous about selling linux to begin with are going to be stuck with shelves full of 6.2 releases when the 7.0 release comes out ov beta in 30-60 days... Man, if I was a retailer I would really think twice about stocking RedHat on my shelves. First it's not selling as fast as the other (OK Win isn't selling either but 98 is still a current release... millenium isnt expected for another 24 months, and noone likes 2000) so here's this upstart that makes me eat 20 copies of their software every 3 months. Example : I start with 6.0 - 6.1 comes out then 6.2 and now 7.0 beta means 7.0 final is soon. this is all within the past 12 months... As a store manager, I would have to make a decision to not carry redhat on my shelves as it is too "unstable"

I fear that RedHat will drive the penguin out of the retail market faster than any MS generated FUD could .

Re:Talk about making retailers mad..

[bero-rh]

We're normally in a 6 months release cycle - which I think is about right: Making even more releases would sometimes be nice for the technical side, but would definitely be scary for retailers.

Making less releases would put us behind all the others (just imagine the slashdot announcement "SomeDistro 10.3 released, has Kernel 2.4.1 and KDE 2.0, while Red Hat is still at Kernel 2.0.38 and KDE 1.0" - nobody (except for some Red Hat haters, maybe) would like that!) - at the pace of development in Linux, 6 months can be a major change...

We're not talking about 3-years-later-than-95-is-still-almost-the-same-OS. ..

Changing that would be giving up some of the biggest advantages of Linux and (fast) open source development.

Official announcement / download locations

[bero-rh]

Announcing...

Red Hat Linux "Pinstripe"
a Beta release

Red Hat. Inc. presents a beta release of Red Hat Linux for your
hacking pleasure. First, the regular drill:

This is a beta release of Red Hat Linux. It is not intended for
mission critical applications. It's not even intended for
non-mission critical applications. Important data should not be
entrusted to Pinstripe, as it may eat it and make loud belching
noises.

Significant changes have been made since the last version of Red Hat
Linux. We need your help to find and report bugs. Search for
existing bug reports for problems you find by using bugzilla at:

http://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla/

Attach patches if you're motivated!

This beta includes so much cutting edge software, the binary packages
come on two iso images. The installation program now handles reading
packages from multiple CDs.

* Where can I get this release?

Pinstripe can be downloaded from our public FTP site at:

ftp://ftp.redhat.com/pub/redhat/beta/pinstripe

With the support of volunteers ftp site administrators, Pinstripe is
available from several mirrors. The following have complete copies of
Pinstripe, please use a mirror close to you:

North Carolina, USA:
ftp://metalab.unc.edu/pub/Linux/distributions/redh at/beta/pinstripe/
http://metalab.unc.edu/pub/Linux/distributions/red hat/beta/pinstripe/

California, USA:
ftp://ftp.sourceforge.net/pub/mirrors/redhat/redha t/beta/pinstripe/
http://ftp.sourceforge.net/pub/mirrors/redhat/redh at/beta/pinstripe/

California, USA:
ftp://ftp.kernel.org/pub/mirrors/redhat/redhat/bet a/pinstripe/
http://www.kernel.org/pub/mirrors/redhat/redhat/be ta/pinstripe/

Connecticut, USA:
ftp://ftp.uselinux.org/pub/redhat/beta/pinstripe/

Indiana, USA:
ftp://csociety-ftp.ecn.purdue.edu/pub/redhat/beta/ pinstripe/
http://csociety-ftp.ecn.purdue.edu/pub/redhat/beta /pinstripe/

Michigan, USA:
ftp://mrhankey.bizserve.com/pub/linux/redhat/ftp.r edhat.com/redhat/beta/pinstripe/

New York, USA:
ftp://ftp.ee.cornell.edu/pub/linux/redhat/beta/pin stripe

Pennsylvania, USA:
ftp://carroll.cac.psu.edu/pub/linux/distributions/ redhat/redhat/beta/pinstripe/

Pennsylvania, USA:
ftp://cronus.res.cmu.edu/pub/linux/ftp.redhat.com/ beta/pinstripe/

Tennessee, USA:
ftp://sunsite.utk.edu/pub/linux/redhat/redhat/beta /pinstripe/
http://sunsite.utk.edu/ftp/pub/linux/redhat/redhat /beta/pinstripe/

Australia:
ftp://mirror.aarnet.edu.au/pub/redhat/beta/pinstri pe/
http://mirror.aarnet.edu.au/pub/redhat/beta/pinstr ipe/

Germany:
ftp://ftp.gmd.de/mirrors/redhat.com/redhat/beta/pi nstripe/

Germany:
ftp://ftp.uni-bayreuth.de/pub/linux/redhat/beta/pi nstripe/
http://ftp.uni-bayreuth.de/pub/linux/redhat/beta/p instripe/

Norway:
(ISO images only)
ftp://carroll.cac.psu.edu/pub/linux/distributions/ redhat/redhat/beta/pinstripe/

Peru:
ftp://sajino.terra.com.pe/pub/linux/redhat/beta/pi nstripe/

Japan:
ftp://ftp.kddlabs.co.jp/Linux/packages/RedHat/redh at/beta/pinstripe/

* What's new in this beta?

General system improvements:
o FHS compliant packaging of files
/usr/man is now /usr/share/man
/usr/doc is now /usr/share/doc
/usr/info is now /usr/share/info
See http://www.pathname.com/fhs/ for more information

o Document roots for Apache and anonymous FTP are removed from
/home so it may be automounted.

o Packages with services are automatically restarted on live
upgrades

o Expanded LDAP integration

o Expanded Kerberos integration

Core system components:
o glibc 2.1.91
o XFree86 4.0.1, XFree86 4.0.1 runtime environment
o XFree86 3.3.6 X servers included for maximum hardware compatibility
o GNOME 1.2
o kernel 2.2.16
o GCC 2.96

Expanded hardware support:
o Basic USB support (mouse and keyboards)
o Expanded hardware accelerated 3-D support

System service changes:
o inetd replaced by xinetd
o BSD lpr replaced by LPRng

A sampling of package upgrades:
o GIMP 1.1.24
o Perl 5.6.0
o Tcl/Tk 8.3.1

A sampling of Package additions:
o SDL, smpeg
o SANE
o gphoto
o MySQL
o AbiWord
o dia
o ispell has been replaced by aspell
o XEmacs

Next generation development library previews included:
o pango: Unicode font rendering
See http://www.pango.org/
o Inti: C++ foundation libraries including GTK+ GUI toolkit classes
See http://sources.redhat.com/inti/

Enjoy!

The OS Development Team
Red Hat, Inc.

What's new

[pyrotic]

Here's what's new about RH 7.0:

perl 5.60
php 4.01 - speed boost over version 3
mysql - now open source, no longer just in power tools
XFree86 4.01 - speed boost over version 3
enterprise kernel - raw filesystems and other performance patches
kde 1.91 - beta for 2.0, includes new browser
kde office 1.91

And what's missing:

sendmail 8.11 - crypto smtp
kernel 2.4test5ac - decent smp performance
tux 1.0 - very fast RedHat kernel web server
apache 2.0pre4
bind 9.0 - major rewrite
staroffice - now it's open source
LVM
reiserfs


Sendmail and staroffice aren't beta and should have gone into this release, the rest are probably too bleeding edge. Anyone think of anything I've missed?

For the link-impoverished:

[Chyeburashka]

From the redhat-announce email:

With the support of volunteers ftp site administrators, Pinstripe is available from several mirrors. The following have complete copies of Pinstripe, please use a mirror close to you:

North Carolina, USA:
ftp://metalab. unc.edu/pub/Linux/distributions/redhat/beta/pinstr ipe/
http://metala b.unc.edu/pub/Linux/distributions/redhat/beta/pins tripe/

California, USA:
ftp://ftp.sourc eforge.net/pub/mirrors/redhat/redhat/beta/pinstrip e/
http://ftp.sou rceforge.net/pub/mirrors/redhat/redhat/beta/pinstr ipe/

California, USA:
ftp://ftp.kernel.org /pub/mirrors/redhat/redhat/beta/pinstripe/
http://www.kernel.o rg/pub/mirrors/redhat/redhat/beta/pinstripe/

Connecticut, USA:
ftp://ftp.uselinux.org/pub/redhat /beta/pinstripe/

Indiana, USA:
ftp://csociety-ftp.ecn .purdue.edu/pub/redhat/beta/pinstripe/
http://csociety-ftp.e cn.purdue.edu/pub/redhat/beta/pinstripe/

Michigan, USA: ftp://mrhankey.bizserve.com/pub/linux/redhat/ftp.r edhat.com/redhat/beta/pinstripe/

New York, USA: ftp://ftp.ee.cornell.edu/p ub/linux/redhat/beta/pinstripe

Pennsylvania, USA: ftp ://carroll.cac.psu.edu/pub/linux/distributions/red hat/redhat/beta/pinstripe/

Pennsylvania, USA: ftp://cronus.res. cmu.edu/pub/linux/ftp.redhat.com/beta/pinstripe/

Tennessee, USA: ftp://sunsite.utk.edu /pub/linux/redhat/redhat/beta/pinstripe/
http://sunsite.u tk.edu/ftp/pub/linux/redhat/redhat/beta/pinstripe/

Australia: ftp://mirror.aarnet.edu.au/pu b/redhat/beta/pinstripe/
http://mirror.aarnet.edu.au/ pub/redhat/beta/pinstripe/

Germany: ftp://ftp.gmd.de/mirrors /redhat.com/redhat/beta/pinstripe/

Germany:
ftp://ftp.uni-bayreuth.d e/pub/linux/redhat/beta/pinstripe/
http://ftp.uni-bayreuth .de/pub/linux/redhat/beta/pinstripe/

Norway: (ISO images only) ftp ://carroll.cac.psu.edu/pub/linux/distributions/red hat/redhat/beta/pinstripe/

Peru: ftp://sajino.terra.com.p e/pub/linux/redhat/beta/pinstripe/

Japan: ftp://ftp.kddl abs.co.jp/Linux/packages/RedHat/redhat/beta/pinstr ipe/

Re:2 CD's?

[bero-rh]

s/needing/supporting/g

For a normal install, you won't need the second CD. It's just there for some extra packages that most people probably won't need.

Re:Some Packages Of Interest

[bero-rh]

Interesting that they wouldn't include a beta of the kernel but of KDE

We are actually including a 2.4 kernel package (I think it's on the 2nd CD), it's just not installed by default.

The reasons are simple - you don't want a mission critical server to crash because of a broken kernel.
While a UI segfaulting is not very nice, it's hardly as critical.

Re:Some Packages Of Interest

[bero-rh]

Do any distros have palns to ship nVidia's official drivers with their distros?

We'll start doing that as soon as they release the source. If anyone at nVidia is reading this, please cause the right consequences. ;)