Slashdot Mirror
Red Hat Interviewed about Red Hat Linux 7
theridersofrohirrim writes "Linuxtoday has a very interesting summary and some interviews with redhat staff, regarding redhat 7, gcc 2.96, and more. It also includes some embarassing (but justified in my opinion) comments for Slashdot's redhat 7 bug story. Linuxtoday's article can be found their site."
Hell, Mandrake 7.0 uses XFree86 3.6 and 7.1 uses 4.0, so X isn't a big enough change...
...and doesn't RH70 have USB support? I don't know for sure (I wash my hands of RedHat), so go ahead and tell me (no, no, not all of you, homo flamiens!)
"Ancillary does not mean you get to rule the world." --U.S. Circuit Judge Harry Edwards, speaking to the FCC's lawyer
I don't doubt it. I ran 6.0 (yeah, that's right, a "buggy, unstable x.0 release") on my machine at work 8-10 hours a day for over a year with no problems at all. If 300+ days of uptime is "unstable", I can't wait until someone finally releases a stable OS.
Oh, really?
What is the difference between this and choosing to use the last point release vs. the current major release? And isn't "brand new, stable and tried version" an oxymoron? Were you suggesting that they should have also released a stable and proven distro that's 2.4 kernel ready, includes XFree 4, etc..?
I'm just guessing here, but this seems something like the pain and suffering switching from the old to the new C libraries. The .0 release gives some warning that something fundamental is different. Expect some growing pains. Red Hat is just there a bit earlier than most everybody else.
As far as a 2.4 release goes we all know that is going to be buggy. There are lots of changes from 2.2 to 2.4. netfilter instead of ipchains. Yes you can use ipchains, but then what is the sense in that. Just convert your rules. I imagine that when they do release 2.4 Redhat will have it in there distro and people will complain about problems. The thing is that from a business perspective it is not good to release unstable products. Look at M$ and how people think about them.
I don't want a lot, I just want it all!
Flame away, I have a hose!
Only 'flamers' flame!
That's a nice ad you have there.
--
Well answer this question. The article claims that there is a kernel compiler that is one of the stabler gcc versions. I still got errors compiling the kernel. Now I didn't try especially hard to make it work. It was a friends machine and the bloated, wanna dymanically load modules like solaris so I can be plug and play like M$ default redhat kernel worked fine. I gave up after gcc -v revealed that the boys at redhat decided to put the buggy version of a compiler that won't compile most rpm's. I use to give newbies Redhat and tell them to learn to hate it on there own and switch to slack or FreeBSD, but Now i think I will be giving those people SuSe. Besides German pages rock!!!
--- Justin Dearing http://www.justaprogrammer.net/ We're just programmers.
Releasing a 6.2.1 would definately be a convenience, but would enough people be interested for Redhat to justify this. I hope most people would update long before something like this were available. BTW, I was running 6.0 updated up until this past weekend.
Look at M$ and how people think about them.
Yeah, but in this case, instability is just the tip of the iceberg. ;)
I've seen quite a transformation for a cute little Linux startup company to a potentally monopoly. What Red Hat should do to prove this wrong, is to um... well NOT SUCK. Seriously, piss on yer Red Hat distro. and go out and buy debian or slackware. These are distributions that will never betray their user base like Red Hat has.
Next thing you know, you'll want us to RTFM!
Nahh - with new releases, it's not RTFM, it's RTFS
Liquor
Liquor
Sanity is a highly overrated commodity.
It's hardly Red Hat's fault that ISO C++ doesn't specify an ABI. Expecting any two C++ compilers to generate the same binary layout, even if they are the same compiler at the same version, isn't right IMHO. Fix the standard, rather than rely on compiler specific "features", I'd say.
RedHat are getting far too much criticism for the 7.0 release. Yes it is buggy, but that's what you'd expect from a .0 release. If people want a less buggy version, simply wait for another to come out. If the whole point of linux for you is to use slightly more imperfect distros and software, and you enjoy seeking out these bugs and informing redhat of them in a helpful manner then you shouldn't complain of the numbers of them. Finding bugs is fun. Yes admittedly slightly annoying if you actually want to do something proper and you find one, but ultimately you cannot expect a perfect system, and many people use linux for the fact you can find bugs and report them, thus helping everyone for future releases. It's like trial and error, and on a .0 version like this there is naturally more error.
I suggest if people can locate these bugs they report them to RedHat in a sensible and uncomplaining fashion, as then they will be more willing to work harder for their users. Simply complaining doesn't help at all. Constructive suggestions will always be welcomed, and it is our duty as linux users to help improve and fix bugs for future, and ultimately better distros.
Well, you might think 7 is better and 6.2, and I might (or might not) agree with you. The point is, what does Red Hat think? The statement by Troan could be interpreted to mean that a .0 release is of lower quality than the previous non .0 release. Especially regarding number of bugs. Sure, 7.0 might have more bugs fixed, but how many more has it introduced? Is there a net improvement in reliability, or is it worse?
.0 and a non .0 release. I guess we should expect this, but ordinary users aren't always going to realize that there's something magic about the .0 in the release -- that this implies risk, possibly more bugs. Since this seems to be the case, and Red Hat seems to be admitting this, why not make it more clear in the labelling of the release? Call it the "experimental, but really up to date" release or something. So people can know what kind of trade offs they're making.
The point is, there seems to be a qualitative difference, in terms of the net number of bugs, between a
Stephen Molitor steve_molitor@yahoo.com
Wow, I am amazed that my response got marked troll. I reread my comments to see if I inadvertantly insulted the pope or RMS or something, but no, I only stated my own beliefs as to why I think that the current redhat release should have been labelled 6.3 rather than 7.0.
I am grateful to those who marked it up as underrated. This has taught me a lot about the underlying fairness of the slashdot site.
I want everyone to know that I use redhat, have for years, I got my information about rh7.0 from several close friends who tried it out and told me what they had found.
I will listen to my friends evaluation of rh7.1 as well and pass it along at the proper time. If they say it is good, I will try it too. I would try every distribution that comes out, but I am too busy actually using my computers to get work done (including GPL projects on source forge) to install a new distribution every weekend.
I saw no one give any convincing arguments as to why this shouldn't have been released as rh6.3. I have used the international security patch for years, And have used both the open SSL and open ssh packages for a while now as well. USB is being included in the 2.2 series of kernels, installing XFree86 4.0.1 on a computer is as easy as downloading the X packages from XFree.org and installing them. I have been running XFree 4.0.x for the past three months on a rh6.1 installation.
The linux2.4.0-test2 kernel worked perfectly with rh6.2, but the later 2.4 kernels have a different structure to their modules directory and you have to run insmod with the path to the module that needs loading. Evidently fixing this problem is as easy as loading a new mod utils package.
All in all this has been a learning experience. But I do think that in the end my voice was heard on this site, even if my voice was labelled as a troll. So I know that I was heard, but have a strange feeling that my voice was promptly ignored.
-- Never make a general statement.
My thoughts exactly. Red Hat, in their official comments (especially the one by Troan saying that 7.0 is much better than 6.0 or 5.0, implying that 7.0 might be worse than 6.2) seems to be implying that there is something special ('innovative') about the .0 releases (in addition to binary incompatibility with the previous major release, which is understandable). That's fine, but they should let users know more explicitly.
Stephen Molitor steve_molitor@yahoo.com
The kernel depends on compiler-specific behaviour in many places, which is why e.g. 2.95 isn't blessed as a kernel compiler. Most of these dependencies are removed from the 2.4.0test series, but there might be cases hiding in the code still
We had updated CDs in the past, but it was unpopular with sysadmins etc. who wanted to know exactly what was on a CD: Changes and updates could be applied after install. So we stopped years ago.
Freedom to innovate (through incompatibilities with existing standards), providing the product that the consumer wants even it means releasing buggy beta software, discontinuing support for multiple platforms. I think I've already seen that somewhere.
Thank God for visionaries (or mere realists?) like RMS.
--
Violence is necessary, it is as American as cherry pie.
H. Rap Brown
...Dude
6.2 was annoyingly unstable; GNOME kept crashing, I couldn't makefile anything, smbclient wouldn't logon to my Win2K tower, et cetera, et cetera. I just got sick of it fast.
"Ancillary does not mean you get to rule the world." --U.S. Circuit Judge Harry Edwards, speaking to the FCC's lawyer
There were plenty of reasons to release a new RH major, as others have pointed out, also the release timing of kernel 2.4 has not been pinned down, and with AC there they may have better info than the general public as to realistic release time. I dont want to have to wait for 2.4 to get XFree86 4.0. (Sure I can udate the packages myself, but what about the average user etc.)
Eric Trohan said (quoted in this article as saying, anyway):
"Moving Linux forward is important, however. Doing that requires changes that can make it difficult to move applications from newer systems to older ones. This is inevitable, and every platform vendor has this type of problem (applications built for Windows 2000 apps do not work on Windows 98, for example)"
This, actually, is bullshit. Windows 2000 is fully binary compatible with Windows 98 (and Windows 95). I build software on Windows 2000 all the time that runs perfectly fine on the 'lesser' Microsoft OSes. There are some APIs that by default are only shipped with 2000/NT, and there can be API differences (true 32-bit GDI in NT/2000 as opposed to 16-bit thunked), but Trohan is vastly overstating incompatibilities to cover for his company's boneheaded move.
http://www.mandrakeforum.com/article.php3?sid=2000 1005082533
I'm not exactly sure what kind of I18N support gcc 2.95.2 is lacking, but whether or not it is worth having incompatable binaries requires a wait-and-see approach. Generally, I install things from the source, but it's not always possible to do that. Sometimes the software I want is only available in rpm. The real question is, is everybody going to provide Redhat 7.0 binaries AND normal binaries.
I've run into a few developers who only test their software on the latest version of Redhat and claim it will only run on such a machine when in fact it works just fine using other distros. We will just have to wait and see if this new Redhat causes more people to take this approach.
Because it uses XFree86 4.0 as the default. That's a pretty significant change. .0 release. Basically Redhat has a three step release cycle. Release a buggy .0. Fix it with a .1 and get it almost right with a .2. Then continually support .2 releases with bugfixes three major versions back.
:-)
Well auctually RH 7.0 is designed so when 2.4.0 comes out all they gotta do is add all the patched that they plan on adding make a SRPP compile it and add it to the updates section of there ftp site. The were kinda banking on 2.4, but lived without it.
Its more of a timing issue that X 4.0 got in a
XFree86 4.x is mostly stable although there are major security issues and I only use it with my ATI All-in Wonder because the 3.3.6 driver for rage128 is terribly buggy with that particular card. However, I'm not going to use it on my other machines until OpenBSD includes it in there base distro or says they fully auduted it and are not including it for non-security reasons.
Since the new kernel is significant as well I'm curious to see if they switch to 8.0 when they add that.
--- Justin Dearing http://www.justaprogrammer.net/ We're just programmers.
Ya know, it bothers me that people in the Linux community are acting in this manner. This is America, the most powerful, wealthy nation on the planet. We got this way as a result of something called capitalism. Red Hat, like many other companies, are trying to blend a socialistic software development methodology (open source) with a capitalistic business model. Making money is the name of the game. It ain't easy, give them credit, they're young. Linux, without RedHat, would be nothing more than a geeks after work hobby and would never challenge the great behemoth you all dispise in Redmond.
If you find a bug in the compiler, remember to put it in bugzilla
That way, we can fix it and even put the fix back in the gcc tree.
We're bringing the techonology out for developers and users to use....
Red Hat Linux 7 has the USB backport (done at linux-usb, which seemed to stabilize this summer and is now even going into mainstream 2.2)
We only support mice and keyboard, the rest of the modules are included "as is" - most seem to work, while others have problems (especially usb-storage, which to be really good would need a backport of the 2.4 SCSI layer)
This is redhat. They are known for being more on the edge than other distros. So what. They made a judgement call and they screwed up.
Like windows did with 95. They made a call to release a peice of software that was not ready. Get over it!
First if you did not back up your system and just blindly upgraded. Your an idiot and I would not want to work with you! This means that you do not test your software, and you'd be willing to crash a site before testing it. Rehat is releasing a distribution. x.0 and x.1 releases are almost always pretty buggy. Give them till 7.2 before you gripe.
Second you probably did not try to find out anything about what you were installing. I.E. rpm 4.0 is incompatable with rpm 3.0 which is wh y I am not upgrading. They have lots of software that is not stable in this release. gcc, gtk 1.3, gimp, shall I go on? Yeah someone here will argue that gimp is stable, but the 1.1 is not. That is what 1.1 stands for. Go to www.gimp.org and see for yourself. It is under development.
In reality if Redhat wants to do this and keep a business they are going to have to have 2 distributions. One would be bleeding edge, and the other would be stable and tried. That is what I'd personally do if I were them. Then those that need stable reliable systems could get the tried and stable, while those who wanted the bleeding edge would get the bleeding edge.
Lastly this is Linux and this is a computer. Gee you should be prepared to spend some time figuring out how the things work and what to do. I've been using it long enouth to know that if you manually change a file you are probably advised to back that file up.
Here is what I typically back up: apache conf fules, these don't change that much from 1.3.x revisions, so this is pretty safe; ipchians-save > ipchians is backed up; isapnp.conf, just in case; rc.custom from /etc/rc.d/ which is where I keep anything that I want my system to do on start up. Hey all the init scipts get replaced when you upgrade the initscr package; apcupsd.conf, and several other config files, for sane, etc. I also back up any software I install, if I have the tar I keep that and the srpm and rpm just in case, as well as the /home dirs, and my other dirs.
I don't want a lot, I just want it all!
Flame away, I have a hose!
Only 'flamers' flame!
Or Pay Alan Cox to work on the linux kernel...
everyone just pretends to look the other way while they toss rocks at RedHat
Its spelt "L-I-N-U-X", but pronunced as "Free Beer"
- xmms would hang on exit each and every time
- jdk-1.2.2 (sun) would not run (segfault)
Now, given that pinstripe (redhat 7 beta) was out for a long time and given that redhat is a pretty huge company (for Linux-related companies'standards), why weren't these errors detected? BTW: Those bugs have been just fixed. They were glibc bugs. See http://linuxtoday.com/news_story.php3?ltsn=2000-1every distro is buggy. that's why they have errata pages, update pages, etc.
watch for patches, and install them when they come out. it's that simple.
---- keep it simple.
Why do so many people feel the need to post this crap about about RedHat x.0 releases being notoriously bad. All releases have their problems, hence the updates they release. Sure the x.1 and x.2 releases are usually better, but the x.0 releases are not as bad as people like to point out.
And why do so many slashdot people feel the need to bash RedHat and insult their users? Is there a reason other than it being a commercial company that is trying to make money in addition to put out a good Linux distribution? Or is it because they are on top and it has become fashionable to bash the people on top? All it is doing is making me lose almost all respect for Debian and their users. And that is a shame since I am sure it is probably just as good as any other distro in certian respects. So why do all you Debian losers (and I am just refering to those vocal ones who spread FUD about RedHat and insult their users) out there feel the need to do this? Can someone point to some real facts instead of worthless anecdotal stories?
~Jazbo
"they changed the kernal hacking icon in the graphical install"
yeah, who is that now? I don't recognize the picture....
...but that it's just a Very Hard Thing to get a quality release out at the same time as doing new things. When your customers will be running hardware you don't have (and you *can't* test all possible PC hardware combos) and using the programs you provide in ways you didn't intend, it's all but impossible. Give 'em a break -- it happens to the best of us.
Linus has blessed an old version of gcc (ala egcs) as the stable version of gcc to build kernels, so RH includes it as "kgcc". But if you compile your own kernel, you knew that, right?
The big GCC complaint is that object files, *.o, won't be compatable between 2.95.2 and 3.0 - except for C (and Fortran?), so basically C++.
This means you can't distribute *.o files made in C++ from one OS to another.
Maybe some of you have had to do this before in your life, but I never have. And if you do, older versions of GCC are freely available for you to downgrade to (but if you're the type that sends C++ object files around, you knew that).
The ELF binaries that GCC makes are still 100% portable.
RH7 looks like it was made for 2.4.x kernels, but when they realized that 2.4.x was still down the road they decided to release it with 2.2.x.
If I were RH, I would have released it for two reason: (1) there comes a time when you must freeze something for QA and only do bug fixes, and from that point on there are no new features. If RH sat on 7.0 too long it would have been completely out-dated by the time 2.4.x came along.
And (2) releasing now means that they can drop 2.2.x support and start focusing properly on 2.4.x, and getting DRI/AGPGART/GLX/etc/etc worked in properly.
There have been 613 bugs logged against RH7 in Bugzilla (as of earlier today). Something like 287 of them are "NOTABUG" or "DUPE", and another 300 or so are "FIXED".
This says to me that out of everyone calling Red Hat unstable, and unusable, etc, etc, less than 600 people have taken the time to do something productive about it.
6.2 was annoyingly unstable
.. works fine for me.
.. and what crashed GNOME?
.. you mean you couldn't compile anything? .. egcs works and has worked fine for me for ages.. you don't say what you had problems with..
.. and did you read the SAMBA FAQ? :)
.. and that's good enough for me. Not like that takes a long time either with autorpm from Kirk Bauer .. just run it as often as you like and that'll help you keep things up to date. It's all nice and simple IMHO.
eh?
GNOME kept crashing
Did ya get the latest GNOME RPMS?
I couldn't makefile anything,
You what?
smbclient wouldn't logon to my Win2K tower,
Did you get the latest SAMBA RPMS?
et cetera, et cetera. I just got sick of it fast.
Sorry you had that experience.. 6.2 has been running great for me. I of course keep all the packages that I use up to date
--
Delphis
Bing Foo
---
taken! (by Davidleeroth) Thanks Bingo Foo!
They DIDN'T use a 2.4 test kernel. They used 2.2.16. They did however make sure all the libraries and support programs are up to date enough that a 2.4 kernel will drop in with an rpm.
No, instead all you ever hear is how Redhat sucks and Debian is the best thing in the world
Redhat may not compare to Debian in many aspects, however has anyone ever looked how redhat may actually be BETTER than Debian??
think about it ...
its sad to see that much of the lInux/BSD community are nothing but Anti-Microsoft and Anti-Redhat bigots?
maybe its just me .. or does it seem politically correct to hate the "winner"
Sunny Dubey
dubeys at bxscience dot edu
Most significantly, they have changed the kernel header files (to support the 2.4 version). That in itself should be enough to warrant a major version number increment. (That was how we did it in the good old VMS days!)
Red Hat lists the enhancements as
Hi!
frustrated that by the time I post this will have been moderated up as "interesting" instead of down as flamebait
Yeah, I guess all differences of opinion from your should be considered flamebait.
--
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
I used to like Redhat - long ago. Back when 4.2 was the latest version, and the Powertools distro was cheap. It had alpha + sparc + x86 in the one 6 CD set. It had scadloads of useful software (LyX / Gimp (motif!) / gimp (GTK!) / Lesstif / cbb ) . It had some simple but useful and documented GUI config tools - a simple installer. A semi decent package manager, and a good front end to it (glint)
RANT ON
It all went sour at 5.0 for two reasons. The libc 5 / glibc 2 switch, and another broken compiler. 1st of all, the libc5 compat libraries were not installed by default, and were too old anyway - StarOffice even then had binary problems on Redhat - wanting the current libc5 version. The glibc 2.0.5 version was also unstable - other distros held off longer for stability reasons.
Secondly, they managed to ship a gcc version that failed to compile anything on any cyrix cpu based system. Nice. They also moved their GUI tools to using a snapshot GTK version - and it wasn't replaceable with a subsequent version - needed for tracking the GIMP releases.
5.1 was just as bad. Broken image libraries, non standard file locations, and more. As well as Redhats travesty of a desktop - anyone remember fvwm-95?
When Linux 3rd party binaries become common, some are for Redhat, some are for SuSE. some Debian, some Corel etc, and some target all. Making a binary work on more than one distro is hell - StarOffice is a large example - anything in C++ is another, WordPerfect 8. RPM is not a good package manager - it doesn't handle auto upgrades well, and is widely used in incompatible ways. Try a SuSE or Mandrake RPM in Redhat. Or rather, don't. RPM is fubared, and the only compatibility method is to track Redhats latest and (ahem* greatest) version - and let the rest follow. This is redhats stealth move to monopolise the market for users running Linux - who wish to also run purchased third party prepackaged binaries - such as an Office Suite, DTP package, Industrial quality scalable DB, whatever.
Redhat's shoddy quality control has always been a problem for KDE users, never mind there erratically principled stance against KDE / Qt ( We want a friendly Linux / We won't distribute KDE / We will in Germany, cos our competition do / Its OK now, but we really want you to use our sponsored desktop (GNOME), We'll test the install so much that we don't notice that installing KDE installs Gnome Instead (6.1 - nice bug, in spiffy rushed GUI installer), and we mess the QTDIR variables to point to the wrong Qt to stop you compiling Qt based software) , and we now mass with the C++ compiler and libs needed, for say, C++ opensource, KDE the most prominent example?
In short Redhat claim to be user friendly.
In truth, they have several major faults.
To summarize - Redhats QA, Compability with outher Linux distros and itself, scheduling, admin tools, packaging system, and software selection suck. (planetary bodies through straws)
RANT OFF
I no longer use Redhat or Linux, did you guess?
FWIW, FreeBSD 4.1.1-STABLE
gcc 2.96 (C++) crashed on me, twice. Once was when it was compiling code with errors, which was mildly worrisome, and once while it was compiling perfectly good code, which was very worrisome.
One has to wonder if this is a compiler problem or a hardware problem. RedHat says they used this version *a lot* before sending it out and I've used it a bit and haven't had a lick of trouble. Something tells me that is a memory problem, as GCC (and other compilers) will find them and crash on them before most other applications.
No, we made a consciuous effort (that is, QA, testing, fixing) to include the best tool currently available. It's way better than egcs or gcc 2.95.2 which was why we did it in the first place.
FWIW, the compiler was used in compiling the entire Red Hat Linux 7 - this is quite a testbed.
[gelinas@theory gelinas]$ cat /etc/issue
Red Hat Linux release 7.0 (Guinness)
Kernel 2.2.16-22 on an i686
[gelinas@theory gelinas]$ man kgcc
No manual entry for kgcc
[gelinas@theory gelinas]$
I found little documentation regarding the second
compiler and had to do a deja search to find out
what the Redhat folks were up to WRT kernel
compilation.
As a long time Redhat user and supporter, I have
to admit that I'm really unhappy with RH 7.0
because of the inclusion of a patched compiler
and libc off the gcc main tree. Really, I want
my x86 binaries to be compatible with the
other distributions. I want a compiler that's
being actively supported by the gcc community.
I definately want a compiler that won't be
completely obsolete by the time RH-7.2 rolls
around. Anyone want to bet on whether a RH
distribution with gcc-3.0 is going to be a major
release up? Betcha it will...
...for debian, linus, and the others who would rather release a late, quality product than just wrestle with the market.
RedHat 7.0 cost me hours of grief. It's an absolute piece of shit -- worse than 5.0, worse than 6.0, worse than the horrid 2.0-2.1 debacle.
This was released for one reason only -- to try and stem the losses to Suse in the exploding european market. The number one seller of PCs in europe ain't dell, compaq or HP, it's Fujitsu, and they are selling millions through grocery stores.
So they needed better internationalization. BFD. How many will stick with RH when it goes south on all their projects?
AFAIK, the latest Suse has a lot of bugs, too. Y'all need to stop beating on each other and start serving the consumer.
This is not to say I don't strongly appreciate RHs return to the community. Just go look at some of the Cynus and native java stuff they are funding -- that's great. But by continually releasing horrid product, you aren't helping anyone.
But this release should have been pinstripe for a bit longer. And how dare you use the word "Innovate" to defend this POS.
A new low for RHAT.
Wanna fix your issues? Make a helixcode gnome release based on Debian, switch over to it at V8, and douse every magazine and university in free/freely distributable cds.
But don't call it innovative.
Treatment, not tyranny. End the drug war and free our American POWs.
See my user info for links.
We run quite a variety of Linux machines here. Binary incompatibilities waste everybody's time and complicate management because multiple releases have to be compiled and maintained. The change from libc5 to libc6 a few years ago was a right pain for a lot of people, and we certainly don't want to repeat it unnecessarily. Yet, we do want to evolve our systems progressively as new distros are released. No Big Bangs if they can be avoided, just gradual change.
This puts us in a bit of a dilemma. Ordinarily we'd be installing new machines with RedHat 7, but if the object format is not backward compatible then this is impossible to do in an evolutionary way. It would be a major transition, roughly on a par with the libc5/6 one. I think I'll wait for RH7.2 before embarking on that kind of headache.
Meanwhile, what's the most modern non-RH distro out there that is still object-compatible with the binaries in the pre-7 RedHat releases?
"The question of whether machines can think is no more interesting than [] whether submarines can swim" - Dijkstra
C'mon, Slashdot posters on crack?? Nah! That unposible!
the market debugging windows for free is helping to fix their tightly held closed private property, whereas debugging a distro of open software is helping out the entire community of GPL users, including oneself. XFree86 ver 4 isn't RH 'property', nor is their own GPL'd creations. I'll help debug Msft property for free the day BG comes over and mows my grass and paints my windows for free. That's one of the secrets of their vast riches and there's still a lot of MS suckers out there working for nothing, or maybe for the priviledge of an early preview of upcoming products.
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
You can't be serious. How many 3rd graders do you know that don't already know worse language then this? Who is honestly offended by this game? I am so tired of this PC attitude in the world today (especially in the US) that says we have to sanitize our society for the sake of protecting the children, who already know every curse word there is by the age of 6 or earlier. I for one like being an adult and enjoy the freedom that comes with it. I don't want to live in a crippled and censored world just because some parents are too lazy to do their job if they want to try to protect their children from our decadent world and pretend to live in some imaginary, boring and perfect little PC world.
~Jazbo
Agreed! All are newbies originally. This newbie started by downloading Debian (wanted my first one to be FREE), and I was compiling things the first day.
The problem was repeatable. Hardware problems usually aren't.
When I was compiling good code and it crashed, I was making use of a g++ specific feature, named return values. I expect this feature to disappear and be made into an automatically done optimization instead, but, until then, it makes vast improvements in code in the right places.
I think the bad code that crashed the compiler was using deeply nested classes in combination with templates. This is also not commonly seen.
Need a Python, C++, Unix, Linux develop
Oh, I remember...
It was using a forward declared nested class. The crash happened when I forgot to put in the include file that defined the nested class.
Again, I've not seen forward declared nested classes used much. Most of STL uses typedefs to rename a top level class to a nested type name, so the class definition itself is top level.
Need a Python, C++, Unix, Linux develop
Yes, and thanks for letting me run it again.
--
Slashdot was on crack that day.
11*43+456^2
I, for one, am very happy to see that *someone* is still compiling and releasing bleeding-edge distros.
"Release early, release often" should be burned onto the foreheads of every single distro manager. It's the whole engine that powers Open Source.
And as for "GCC 2.96"... That's a great idea. The GCC folks have a really nasty-bad habit of living behind their ivory walls, and tossing a release over the gate once every *year* or so. Rubbish! Get it out there, let us use it, let us find the bugs!
And if the widespread adoption of a GCC newer than 2.7.8 finally convinces Linus to fix the hackery in the kernel that exploits non-standard GCC behaviour in older versions of the compiler, well, then so much the better.
Hey, newbies! One of the whole points of this "Linux" thing is to actively find and report software bugs, so that they can be fixed. Linux is a participatry experience, not a "product". Red Hat's "product" is the service of gathering up all the bleeding-edge stuff, testing it for a certain level of usability, and then packaging it in a convenient format for you to get at. To expect a distro- any distro - to be bug-free is to miss the whole point!
I *strongly* recommend starting with a RedHat *.0 release - you get to see the newest stuff, and you get to actually contribute to the process.
Go Red Hat! The distribution for people with balls!
Want to learn about race cars? Read my Book
This is not a bug. They made a fundamental design decision to include a buggy development version of gcc and glibc. It was not as though this was some unknown bug that they couldn't do anything about. They made a conscious effort to include the buggy and compatibility-breaking development release of gcc. There is a BIG difference.
"The price of freedom is eternal vigilance." - Thomas Jefferson
RedHat 7.0 only poses a "problem" for those people interested in backwards compatibility. And I hate to break it to you folks, but backwards compatibility eventually goes the way of the dodo. It dies out. It goes away. And Linux far more strenuous about removing old cruft than Microsoft is. See going from 2.0.x kernels to 2.2.x kernels and libc5->libc6 as some recent, balatant examples. Going from good ole egcs to gcc is another step up the evolutionary ladder. It's not like the other distributions aren't going to move to it when it's released. RedHat is just leading the pack to adopt it, and will have support for it already in the distribution when it comes out. Along with support for 2.4.x. kernels waiting as well. All of these things benefit the newbie at the cost of backwards compatibility. The newbie gets to run the shiny apps. The newbie gets the spiffy performance figures. The newbie gets stuff that works because the newbie isn't trying to walk against the wind.
Yes, backwards compatibility is nice. It's wonderful. You just have to be willing to pay the price to get it.
It also includes some embarassing (but justified in my opinion) comments for Slashdot's redhat 7 bug story.
I know that the slashdot Editors/Hemos/etc say they're overworked & don't have time to check their facts, but just how much damage do you think that the original story that slashdot posted did?
The mainstream media (who don't know any better) often look to slashdot as a source for stories - I just wonder how much trouble it stirred up for no apparent reason? Isn't that FUD?
I've been using RH7 for a few days & have found it to be a good, if not a little bloated, distribution.
Please, please, please start checking the stories before you post them.....
Can you show me the server-side code release for their fancy little Update-Agent?
The last time I checked, there was no code available (although the protocol used is documented).
I'm actually a RedHat user and have been quite happy with their releases. But since you issued the challenge, I couldn't resist answering it.
I'm a leaf on the wind. Watch how I soar.
Hrm, good point.
The included KDE1 libraries (which are C++) were built with the backwards compatable egcs C++, so at least KDE is okay.
Posted by polar_bear:
.0 release, do it as a developer's release. Make subscriptions available for those who want to live on the bleeding edge, but stick to one boxed version a year, max.
...with the assertion that Red Hat's release cycle isn't too quick. From a commercial, never mind technical, standpoint it is a nightmare. In the Windows world, the idea of a new OS every two or three years is hellish for IT managers and folks who maintain production systems and desktops. For the home computer user it's annoying to have to upgrade (because you have to in order to use the latest and greatest version of program x) every two to three years. However, Microsoft has found people will put up with upgrades on a cycle of every two or three years, and that drives sales.
To ask users to contend with new versions every four months is insane! It drives retailers nuts, almost as soon as you have Linux distro 7.0 stocked and promoted, version 7.1 is out. So, you're doing returns every couple months and consumers who are fence-sitting about Linux continue to do so because they perceive that there's never a right time to jump in. People who produce books and materials for Linux are finding it's extremely difficult to coordinate. Try writing a book, getting it through the editorial process and published before a distro goes through at least a point revision. It's nearly impossible. Even if you accomplish it, if you label it "Using Red Hat 6.2" you're nearly doomed because 7 will be out before the book has been on the shelves for six months. And who is going to buy "Using Red Hat 6.2" when 7.1 is out?
I'm not arguing they shouldn't provide updates - the way the Debian project handles it is optimum, in my opinion. They do official releases slowly, but updated software and bugfixes are only an apt-get away. Slackware handles it pretty well too, by releasing very stable releases only once or twice a year. (I believe 7.1 has been the only
release this year...)
Since Red Hat is the market leader, and they've supposedly got all this marketing might behind them now, I'd hope they'd see the problems they're creating. If they must do a buggy
Nah, please save the flamage. RH7 came up fine, "gcc 2.96" even compiles a decent kernel. (Though some of those CPP warnings are clearly kernel source bugs...) X11 update, Gnome update, ... lots and lots and lots of updates, it feels better than 6.2 already.
You know, I've been wondering when the heck the GCC team would move past the 2.95.2 release ... considering that I've been wanting SOME release with GCJ support for a really long time. I know a lot about the C++ ABI problems, as does anyone who's developed production code in C++; and I just don't see RedHat as having worsened any of those problems. Frankly, more conformant C++ is a major step forward ... and didn't just a few compiler optimizations get out of the "research" world (of gcc developers) this way? We've been wanting better GCC code generation a LONG LONG TIME.
Why is RedHat getting flamed, instead of the GCC folk? GCC created a problem ... and hasn't been seen to be fixing it. Where's even a draft schedule for "GCC.next" releases? Say, bugfixes to the 2.95.2 release of last year??
I know why RedHat's getting flamed. Slashdot, and the flamers that keep the LKML noise content too high for me to tolerate. However, the signal in those flames is pretty much invisible.
Hey, newbies! One of the whole points of this "Linux" thing is to actively find and report software bugs, so that they can be fixed.
But then we might have to actually contribute code to open source and actually work, rather than profit off the code of others!
Next thing you know, you'll want us to RTFM!
--- Will in Seattle - What are you doing to fight the War?
Well I have to return to my experiences with
RH 5 and the many many bugs I endured. I put the
worst one that was totally killing me (severity 1)
on the bug tracking RH database. It sat there like
many of the rest. Zero. No replies , zilch.
As in the past I started searching for others who
had the problem and finally got the source and
found the problem.
Weeks had gone by. My report was still untouched
so I sent them the resolution. Guess what! They
duped it to something else off the wall. BTW I found that they basically let reports stew a loong
time then dup a bunch out. This is what you get
when you don't really give a shit about your
customers who are debugging your product for free.
I lived and worked in RTP for many years as a pgmer/consultant. I knew the area well and thought
that some of the high tech atitude and methods would ensure that RH would field worthy products.
Wrong.
I like RPM. I like Gnome. I don't like the way
RH does biz with the users who buy their distribution.
I see chickens winging in...tired chickens...chickens looking for a roosting pole.
You people are totally missing the point of the Linux creed. The GNU/Linux operating system is an operating system for people who like to tinker and hack and play around with operating systems! It's free software. There are certain freedoms that come with it. Say....the freedom to modify source. If you don't like some of the things that Red Hat does...use the force and change the source. It's totally customizable. rpm -e still works. Replace packages, downgrade to RH 6.2, I don't care. Just quit complaining about it. If your car needs some sort of modification, and the mechanic that you take it to tells you that he is going to do some innovative things...they haven't been done before; you should make the decision whether or not to let him do it. If you let him make these modifications, you were the one who made that decision. You are at fault. Either take your car to another mechanic, or god forbid, do it yourself.
I don't have a single problem with RH 7. Any incompatibilities that I have found, I have fixed. I have modified source, and made it work.
Face it, no form of Linux was designed around binary compatiblity. Leave that for Windows and their bug-compatible mandate.
If users can't handle binary distribution in a open source environment, it's a fault of the tools, not the users. There's no reason why somebody couldn't design a nice GUI tool that compiles and installs SRPMs or other source packages. On current hardware, that would be perfectly acceptable for 99% of the user-installed stuff. Big commercial packages can workaround the problems.
When I hear the word 'innovation', I reach for my pistol.
What is everyone complaining about? I recently installed RH7 on a freinds computer, and it was the most pleasant and painless installation I've ever gone through. It's great!
Best distro ever!
It seems that the Slashdot crowd has become an angry herd of cattle. Microsoft story. Watch the Slashdotters stampede over there. RedHat 7.0 has a few bugs. Watch them stampede over to the other side. Want an instant argument? Toss a few Linux users in a room and ask the which distro is best. Just be ready to duck! Grow up people! It is a free OS. You didn't have to pay anything for it! If it breaks, fix it! At least RedHat is willing to help fix it. They aren't Microsoft.
Not quite. More like "all opinions that clearly demonstrate that the poster has not taken the time to research the question at all" are ignorant. And all ignorant posts that deliberately enflame passions (like, say, the anti-RH crap that abounds around here)* are flamebait. That I'm the one who points out that it is flamebait is irrelevant.
~luge
*Not that there aren't plenty of reasons to dislike RH, but the ones frequently cited around here ("they are the next MS""they want to fork Linux""they want to rule the world") are irrational. I challenge you to find the last piece of non-GPL'd code that RH wrote...
IAAL,BIANLY
This isn't new. Every RHL *.0 release breaks binary compatibility with the previous version. That's why they upped the major version.
And, among the problems that newbies will be likely to see, there are some big ones and some small ones:
These are all pretty similar to the problems with 6.0 (Remember Star Office and realplayer headaches?) and are to be expected when you have a distribution using software released after commercial software. But even still, the vast majority of software I've used (including old binaries hanging around) have worked fine. I don't compile things on my RHL7 box and expect to run it on older boxes, but then... I never did.
Don't real geeks download source and compile everything themselves? I mean, it's a hotrod OS, so why would I go buy the Chrysler wannabe muscle car when I can build my own from a classic frame, body, and engine block, fitting the other parts myself? And RPM/apt-get? What a wuss way to get "packages"! You people make me sick! Is tar broken? Has years of reinstalling Micros~1 binaries softened your brains?
I do not have a signature
O.K. so someone gave a full bug count for all products instead of taking the time to make sure they were Red Hat 7 bugs. Then slashdot posts about it giving plenty of fuel to the anti Red Hat brigade. So now that its known that it wasnt all Red Hat 7 bugs you would expect an Update: We jumped the gun on this one, the original poster got his query wrong. message to be added to the original message, but no slashdot just links back to it without updating.
Once you see a slashdot article was mistaken it should be updated so that even though the original article was wrong the archives contain the truth. It is never too late for journalistic integrity so please correct the original article.
Slashdot: Proof that a million monkeys at a million typewriters can create a masterpiece
Despite this statement, several members of the discussion list would not back away from charging that because of its inclusion of a compiler that was not binary compatible with anything else, Red Hat was beginning an attempt to create a proprietary distribution.
Cox denied these charges in the discussion, reiterating his point that Red Hat's efforts were innovative, and not divergent.
When further questioned, Cox began mumbling about the DOJ, .NET, and FIN. It suddenly became clear that we were actually talking to Bill Gates in disguise. When the truth was revealed, Gates said, "Well, ya gotta admit, I had ya goin' there..."
All joking aside (And that was a joke. Laugh.), it seems to me that this is simply a case of over-zealousness getting the best of the situation.
Not until they prove to me that I can spend more than $20 on their product and be 100% satisfied. Until then, I stand as an RHCV (RedHat Certified Victim).
"Ancillary does not mean you get to rule the world." --U.S. Circuit Judge Harry Edwards, speaking to the FCC's lawyer
>> Perhaps Redhat should consider labelling them RedHat 6.2 and RedHat Experimental?
Caldera had an interesting idea here with their "Technology Preview." Unlike RedHat 7.0, however, with its 2,500 alleged bugs, Caldera's Preview offers an estimated 38% functionality, and no innovation. And Caldera charges $20.00 (redeemable) for it. Caldera may have been good enough to call it what it is, but at least RedHat offers updates more frequently than once every five years, and demonstrates at least an element of creativity.
P.S. - As a resident of Utah, I am granted license to say what I wish about Caldera with impunity.
First, in your statement:
Let me try to clear this up a bit. Taking a snapshot, heavily testing it, and releasing it with a slightly changed version string ("experimental" -> "RH 7.0") isn't a major problem by itself. Yeah, it's binary incompatible, but GCC 3.0 was going to be so anyway.What annoys many of us on the gcc-bugs mailing list is that RH did not also change the bug reporting email address, or anything else, to indicate that this is a technically unstable release. So the list gets all these messages complaining about an unstable release that should have gone to Bugzilla instead. The GCC team is not RedHat's front-line helpdesk system.
Second problem, from the article itself:
*boggle* Which ones do you think they were addressing?!? There's only been one distribution so far to do this...You cannot apply a technological solution to a sociological problem. (Edwards' Law)
I could care less about C++ binary compatibility. It largely doesn't exist now. C++ is a moving target from that perspective, and is likely to remain so for awhile longer.
I do care about my compiler's stability. I expect my compiler to work. Any hint that it does not work worries me deeply. It makes me wonder if any bug I find is a code generation error, or my problem.
gcc 2.96 (C++) crashed on me, twice. Once was when it was compiling code with errors, which was mildly worrisome, and once while it was compiling perfectly good code, which was very worrisome.
Above all else, I want a stable compiler I can trust. gcc-2.96 has lost my trust. I want gcc-2.95.2 back, and kgcc is not gcc-2.95.2, it's gcc-2.91.66 (which I bet has much worse C++ support).
Need a Python, C++, Unix, Linux develop
Im going to get right to point on this one since I'm itching to play some Diablo 2:
How dare any SINGLE ONE of the Slashdot community do what they have done today. You people are an absolute disgrace. If it wasnt for redhat, linux wouldn't even be shadow of what it is today.
And I love it how some of you people can say things like, "Oh well its a *.0 release - of course its going to be buggy." The people saying that are the VERY same people who tried to crucify Microsoft for all those nonexistant 65,000 bugs in Windows 2000.
You guys want to know why the mainstream computer industry doesn't respect Linux? Because Linux has yet to earn it. Windows has been there and back along with the Macintosh - both have changed the face of computing today for the better - like it or not. Both platforms deserve my respect. This is probably why I have my Athlon 750 Windows 2000 pro box sitting right beside my Dual G4/450 Mac OS X box - they have both EARNED my respect and serve a distinct and useful purpose in the grand scheme of things.
Why as I remember just last week everyone here was praising Redhat for their TUX webserver software and how it beat out IIS on those Dell benchmarks. Oh how so quickly that changed...
What purpose does Linux serve? Nothing notable from what I can tell. Most users of Linux are fueled by one of two things: (1) An immense hatred for Windows (grow up) or (2) This childlike urge to get something for nothing and then have the nerve to scream your ass off when it doesn't work as expected.
My advice to the Linux community: Find a purpose. Find it quickly. Oh and one other thing...... don't be so quick to turn on each other when given the chance - it just proves more and more to the computer industry that you are just a bunch of kids with serious attitude problems to boot.
Gam (darkgamorck@home.com)
Flame at will.
I love idealists not because I am one, but because they make life bearable for pragmatists such as myself.
Are you talking about xBoing? that's the only app I know of that does that. I agree that the programmer was either pretty dumb to put that sound file in there, or just some immature jerk that thinks that profanity is required for fun.
I always do family Linux installs and delete xboing. (but then I know that it does that) But I do agree that either it should bedropped form the distro or a warning label should be applied to the redhat box "warning:possible offensive language inside". It is a sad example of how linux is not ready for mainstream. People are guarenteed that Windows 98 will not swear at their children, even though it will probably give them seizures from the constant BSOD's.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Half the people seem to want "innovation" (or bleeding at the edges -- what you call it is a matter of opinion) and the other half want "stability" (or lagging behind the times, ditto). It's just not possible to satisfy both factions at the same time.
.0 releases if they knew that in a couple of weeks' time there would be a .0.1 patch to deal with some of the running wounds.
Instead of compromise, how about adopting a 3-digit release scheme instead? Ie. let the label "7.0" be the thing that appears on pretty RH box fronts, but let it be 7.0.X in reality, depending on the date of production. If the X is available as a patch upgrade on the RH website, nobody loses.
This would satisfy the release early and often brigade, while at the same time it would reduce the software sellers' nightmare of carrying rapidly obsoleting stock, and production houses would be more likely to upgrade to new
"The question of whether machines can think is no more interesting than [] whether submarines can swim" - Dijkstra
Can you show me the server-side code release for their fancy little Update-Agent?
The GPL doesn't specify that you have to give the source to anyone who ask for it, only to those who you distribute your software to. So, you distribute a piece of software, you distribute the code too.
As far as we know, the server-side Update-Agent could be GPL, and RedHat would still have no obligation to give out the source code.
Je ne parle pas francais.
6.2 seems pretty stable for me too.
Someone you trust is one of us.
Agreed. The whole "RedHat sucks" thing is more of a form of mild elitism than anything else. If you want a UNIX variant that only you and a half dozen others can make work, use SCO. If you want the opposite extreme, don't use UNIX, buy a Mac. In between, let's get off our high horses. It's UNIX, and just because we can make it work well; it doesn't make us geniuses who deserve the right to throw our noses in the air at everything that might make it just a little easier. Personally, I think the best UNIX ever produced is AIX. Everything else is second fiddle.
This is nearly the same release as RH 6.2 with the updates added. Why not just call it 6.3? The only thing new is that they released a buggy non standard version of gcc that they labled 2.96 themselves. In the real world, GNU hasn't released a production version of their compiler called 2.96. If they do then this will cause all sorts of weird conflicts.
I think that the only reason that RH7.0 was released is because the marketing department saw that other companies where releasing 7.x versions of their Linux distributions and RedHat didn't want to be left behind in the computer super stores.
I wish that they had waited two more months and released Redhat 7.0 with a more reliable installation program, Linux 2.4 and KDE 2.0. But they will probably have to fix these defects with the release of RedHat 7.1.
-- Never make a general statement.
"Linuxtoday's article can be found their site."
Maybe the trolls are wasting so much space with their posts, Hemos is having to resort to leaving words out to save space
;-)
Stop over-analyzing your analizations
Perhaps Redhat should consider labelling them RedHat 6.2 and RedHat Experimental?
RedHat + #.0 = a bunch of stuff they downloaded off the net the night before and burned onto a cd.
RedHat + #.1 = usable product
RedHat + #.2 = something to be proud of.
Someone you trust is one of us.
The key buzzword is "innovative" to impress the big boys. Got critics? Who cares, don't even bother to fix, just babble in the media about your forthcoming Next Big Thing(TM).
Either that, or just be satisfied waiting for 7.1 or so. It's fresh, it's not gonna be perfect. Isn't that what open source is all about? Companies who can release a product that's less than perfect and admit it (ahem, micro$oft, ahem)?
Kat -- Alcohol and calculus don't mix. Never drink and derive.
historicaly haven't redhat's .0 releases been buggy? I installed 7.0 the other day and am pleased to see some new small things like a graphical lilo menu (hey it's prettier then nt's boot loader menu)and they changed the kernal hacking icon in the graphical install (hehe i know it isn't important) i'll deffinatly wait to use it on anything important.
one thing i am dissapointed in is the lack of sparc support for 7.0 but i guess you can't have everything.
i've noticed that some readers of slashdot have stuck there noses up at redhat because of various reasons shouting things like "Debian is better" or "slackware is superior", but i have to admit that i was weened off of windows with redhat, and alot of my skills came from useing and tinkering with redhat. and it will always have a place on one of my boxen.
sorry about the fragmented comment, but i'm tired
who sez death can't be funny....www.endlesssorrow.com
No doubt the RedHat 7.x series is of higher quality than the 6.x series.
6.2 is the most stable of the 6.x series.
7.0 is the least stable of the 7.x series.
The prerelease of 7.0 beta was "experimental", maybe. 7.0 is not experimental.
If you want stability, the last of the FreeBSD 3.x series is probably what you want. If you want the cutting edge, RedHat Linux 7.0 or maybe FreeBSD 5.0-CURRENT is preferable. For most middle of the road, FreeBSD 4.1.1 or RedHat 7.0 with patches should do nicely.
What does RedHat think? Obviously that 7.0 is better, that 7.0 has the best available technology at the time.
Throughout the article, the Red Hat representatives keep talking about how they're "innovating". While it wouldn't matter if it sounded like Microsoft if they actually were innovating, they're not. They're merely including a Development version of gcc (and glibc, although that's not what they're talking about in the article) in the Red Hat release. How is that innovation?
"The price of freedom is eternal vigilance." - Thomas Jefferson
Uh, object files are also '.so'. That stands for "Shared Object". That means that any C++ functions in a shared library will not be usuable when compiled by another version of GCC. This is kind of serious, since no one in their right mind does static linking anymore.
Red Hat's release of "gcc 2.96" will provide wonderful ammunition for those who claim that Open Source software is too unpredictable for prime time.
What's to prevent some other distro from releasing a snapshot of Apache, or Gnome, or of any other package? Not one d@amned thing is the answer... and as distros diverge in the packages they include, it becomes harder and harder to develop *one* solution that runs on "Linux" (whatever that happens to be!)
I'm a developer; I don't have time to be debugging the d@mned compiler when I'm trying to get real work done. I don't want to fight bleeding-edge, beta-level software; my customer need solid solutions, not experiments.
Red Hat is no longer an option for this coyote...
All about me
Aww come on AFC, leave Bob Abooey, you tried to get his UID revoked, or at least you said you were going to.
He subtly alters the messages enough to prove he is most likely not a script bot Either you are being facetious in saying these things or not.
Check out his message the body of them alters slightly from post to post.
Jeremy
"...Red Hat 7 is undoubtedly of higher quality then Red Hat 6.0 or 5.0."
-- Eric Troan, RedHat VP.
Does this mean that Red Hat 7 is of lower quality
than Red Hat 6.2? I think that is what the original poster was getting at. Not (just)
that 7.0 is binary incompatible with 6.2. That is to be expected, as you pointed out.
As a matter of fact, the Red Hat *.0 releases have been of lower quality (more buggy) than other
releases. But if this is now Red Hat's official policy, then they should say so on the box. Call
it "Red Hat Buggy Experimental Release 7.0 with Nifty New Features" or something. One (anyone,
not just a newbie) would assume that a higher
release number indicates higher quality; Troan's
statement seems to suggest otherwise.
Stephen Molitor steve_molitor@yahoo.com
I am currently using Mandrake 7.2 beta at home. I like to live on the edge. It does lots of weird stuff like not rebooting, etc. and so on. It plays Quake3 great though. Is RH 7 any worse than Mandrake 7.2 beta? I ordered RH 7 from Cheapbytes last week, should I stick with Mandrake and wait for the production release or try out RH 7?
I don't know what the ruckus is all about. With the release of 7.0, more posts were made about "I hope it's not as buggy as 6.0!" and "I'll wait for the .1 release!" then most others, yet people still insist on installing and then complaining? (loudly, rudely)
The introduction of gcc was justified to me. Perhaps not to you, but I understand their reasoning. The inclusion of kgcc should have been enough; RTFM.
I understand that without complaints problems may not get solved, but there's probably better ways to spend your energy - utilizing Bugzilla and the like. If all you do is cause the RedHat crew to expend energy to answer allegations of abuse and bugs, then you're taking them away from SOLVING the problems.
And in either case, it simply goes to prove that you should *ALWAYS* wait for a service pack or release greater than 0.. *grin*
The LinuxToday article just goes to prove that those of us who post on Slashdot have greater impact than we may realize, for good or ill.
-- Talonius
My reality check bounced.
I think that the real message that RedHat folks are trying to send is that:
"our x.0 releases are always bleading edge software, stay away from it.
It is buggy and unstable and we use beta/alpha code in them that no one else has used before. If you need a stable production system, use our *.2 releases instead."
Must be about time to install 6.2, since 7.0 has been out for a while, can I assume 6.2 has all the bugs fixed? ;)
Seems to me I read a lot of grousing about M$ using the market to debug Win* releases, how does this compare with RH? I've had pretty good luck with RH 4.1 and 5.2, although I sometimes wish I had just stuck with 4.1, as it was an absolute rock.
--
Chief Frog Inspector
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
"So we didn't do so well on quality control. Sorry, just keep waiting for 7.1." I would have expected as much from a software company which is overly concerned with product launch execution. When will we have a distro that will place its concerns on a bug-free distro? Oh yeah, now I remember the answer: NEVER.
"Ancillary does not mean you get to rule the world." --U.S. Circuit Judge Harry Edwards, speaking to the FCC's lawyer
In a perfect world, a .0 release of any software could be trusted to be correct. So far, my world is far from perfect. As a sysadmin running production on linux boxen, I would never consider putting a .0 release of ANYONES distribution on a production machine. At the very least, I would wait a few weeks till all the most obvious flaws had been addressed with patches etc. If I were force ^h^h^h^h^h strongly encouraged to use a .0 release somewhere, I would sure as hell put it on a test box as long as possible before moving it onto production. I will not say either good things or bad things about RedHat or any other vendor. As far as I am concerned, like the IRS, they just are. I deal with their existance and try to keep my life easy and stable - I have found ways to use their efforts and products to my advantage and so far have not been burned too bad. When I do have problems, with an honest apprasal of the situation I realize that there was something I could have done ( some might even say should have done ) to avoid the problem in the first place.
enough is too much
As someone close to the product cycle of a large software product, I can say these guys are going in the right direction.
:-)
Their techies are fighting a losing battle: to include a feature, or not. You see, the product/build/whatever manager has to commit to a delivery date so that the marketing, delivery, and sales efforts can come together at a reasonably coherent time.
The techies then have to get nose to the grindstone to match up with the expectations of the product/build/whatever manager, and get the features they promised out the door in time. Even if they have an even cooler feature that didn't make the list, but they feel makes the grade.
By seeing them releasing a "2.96" version of GCC, one which GNU would obviously like to see waiting until a more publicly acceptable major release, they're showing they have a structure in place that favours "release early, release often" more than "wait for the proper product". We're seeing here the coming together of all the best ideas of Open Source, with the best management control. Alan Cox approves, he's even allowing the inclusion of a patch that hasn't made it into the mainstream kernel...
Having said that though... I can't wait for version 7.1
/prak
--
We may be human, but we're still animals.
I hate to feed a troll like this but I will respond to this 3 year old.
Bad words in a Business suite is not ok. Big business will not take things seriously that swear. Remember little buy, swearing is bad and doesn't impress anyone other than other immature children like yourself.
So be a good boy and eat your oats.
There, I dumbed it down so someone with an IQ of 73 (like yourself) can understand it.
Gawd, Why is it that slashdot is filled with 13 year old wannabes?
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Anyone ever reccomend to a family member Linux? gave them Red-hat to install or installed it for them? then to get a call a week later that the computer is spewing "oh shit" at their 12 year old son?
Oh man this is funny. I hope they do leave in "ho shit" messages. Hell, put more in there. Last thing I want is a pussy os like you. Troll.
KidSock
See subject. The Slashdot story was blatent FUD, like it or not.
I lust for a distro with kernel 2.4 , gcc 3.0 , kde 2.0 until then however i'll use whatever the hell i can buggy or not that is as close as possible to heaven for me. bugs are part of coding deal with it or fix em yourself , contribute or back off.
Can you find one quality hacker that wouldn't put the latest gcc up on their own system, disregarding what it might do until it does it -- and then telling you that knowledge of the fix is just part of what any self-respecting admin should know anyway?
The upset stomach that /. has had over 7.0 is just fanatical kiddies trying to put down one distro over another. Too bad their wanking is going to hurt the entire Linux community. Red Hat trading at $5/share doesn't mean anything to these jokers, until they graduate and are forced to slave over a Win2003 "console".
And the value of /. is diminished by such ranting. I agree with Taco's recent chat denying any actual level of responsibility. But that means all the rest of us have to be *very* responsible. *Mostly* moderators and meta-moderators.
If the community is going to reward anti-Red Hat group-think, or even anti-MS group-think, the community will pay dearly. People, please moderate and meta-moderate well...
--
Who said anything about business installs? Why would you be installing games on a box in a business anyways? Are you the idiot? If you want to compare IQs then lets compare education levels, shall we? Maybe you should find out some facts before you start posting crap you know nothing about. RedHat isn't the only distro that includes this package.
I said nothing to insult you asshole! So fuck you! Who is the one acting like the troll? I would rather have RedHat give me the option to install this package then listen to an idiot like you who feels smarter and above everyone else. I hate assholes like you who feel like they have the right to censor others and decide what is appropriate! If you don't want that package then don't install it, that is your opinion and your prerogative. Why do you feel the need to bash RedHat for including this package and insult the author of that game calling him immature? Then when I try to defend his freedom to do what he wants you start insulting me. You are the immature troll who should grow up and respect others and their right to choose.
P.S. Do you remove the BitchX package also? That one sure offends me. How could those immature hackers create a nice app like that and give it such an offensive name? Shame on them! Grow up asshole!
1 out of 4 machines is not a good record (or even 1 out of 3, if you exclude the last one).
Secondly, the gcc thing was, I think, a clear mistake on RedHat's part. It's not binary-compatible with previous or future compilers for C++. So I guess you're going to have to recompile or obtain fresh binaries for lots of stuff when the official 3.0 compiler comes out. Great. Maybe that's not too bad for the standard GNU utilities, and the gnome stuff, which is all overwhelmingly C code. But KDE code is almost exclusively C++. That's going to be a serious bother. And despite what someone else here said, it's not just a problem with .o files. It's a problem with binaries that are dynamically linked with libraries (in other words, pretty much every executable binary in existence).
Pushing the future is an admirable goal, but they screwed up in how to do it: in the 7.0 distribution there is a separate place for "preview technologies" (it's got a 2.4 kernel preview, and stuff like that). That is where a temporary, experimental version of the compiler should have gone. Not in the default installation.
Anyway, enough ranting for now. I'm staying away from 7.0 after my experiences. I'll upgrade when I see something a little more stable that sticks with official (or at least compatible) releases of important software like gcc.
Seems that the folks at RH have some very good reasons for what they did. The gcc bit is still a bit bothersome though. They should have communicated better with the GCC dev team, otherwise...
/. According to Troan First of all, the 2,500 number was all of the open bugs in our ticket system for all releases of all products. It includes engineering requests as well as our engineers internal todo lists for future releases. Although I didn't follow the original slash posting (thought it was pretty low S:N ratio) and haven't checked the bug list personally, if what he says is true then the poster and in part the /. community has done a disservice to RH. Sensationalistic journalism is all to prevelant elsewhere we shouldn't support it here. Unfortunately too many people, especially the other news mongers out there dont delve very deep into comments (if at all) which just spreads the misinformation.
The thing that gets me is the bit about 2500 bugs etc. Especially the reporting on
It's true: Bob Abooey is nothing more than a posting script. How else could that comment body stay the same week after week, month after month?
"Ancillary does not mean you get to rule the world." --U.S. Circuit Judge Harry Edwards, speaking to the FCC's lawyer