RedHat "Fisher" 7.1 Beta Out Now

Cranky Spice (and everyone, and everyone's brother) writes: "Get it here: ftp://ftp.redhat.com/pub/redhat/beta/fisher They've moved to mainstream the 2.4 kernel (surprise), there's an IA64 set of .iso files, the installer can wizard you up a basic firewall config, all the usual minor tweaks and enhancements. Though they say PCMCIA support is still flaky, meaning my VAIO Z505 slimline might not be running Fisher anytime soon. :/" The flood will only increase now -- even PocketLinux was demonstrating 2.4 on their iPAQs today at LinuxWorld.

Comments

Mirrors

[DaSyonic]

Fisher, is it is *STILL BETA* is only available on a few mirrors, those of which are:
Indiana, USA:
http://csociety-ftp.ecn.purdue.edu/pub/redhat/beta /fisher
ftp://csociety-ftp.ecn.purdue.edu/pub/redhat/beta/ fisher

Minnesota, USA:
ftp://ftp.mn-linux.org/linux/redhat/beta/fisher

Buffalo, New York, USA:
ftp://ftp.cse.buffalo.edu/mirror/Linux/redhat/beta /fisher

Pennsylvania, USA:
http://carroll.cac.psu.edu/pub/linux/distributions /redhat/redhat/beta/fisher
ftp://carroll.cac.psu.edu/pub/linux/distributions/ redhat/redhat/beta/fisher
rsync://carroll.cac.psu.edu/redhat-beta/fisher

Anyone going to use Fisher should of course, goto Bugzilla.redhat.com and give plenty of bug reports and other issues while using this beta version of RedHat.

Do they turn unnecessary services off?

[Wakko Warner]

It really makes me cringe when a distro ships with stuff like lpd, ftpd, and the r-services turned on by default, especially when it's a distro aimed at novice users. Please tell me they've wisened up in 7.1?

- A.P.

--
* CmdrTaco is an idiot.

Re:Do they turn unnecessary services off?

[jerky]

Yes, they've wised up. From their announcement:

Workstation installs are network-secure (services are off by default)

Re:some of the features (if you care)

[bero-rh]

It's an improved version of 2.96, using the same ABI. We don't break ABI compatibility in a minor release.

There are many reasons why this decision was right:

• With all the bugfixes we have now, 2.96 is more stable than 2.95.3. Almost all of the compiler "bugs" reported in the last couple of months were actually buggy code that older gccs accepted because they are not standards compliant.
• It's more standards compliant (maybe not in terms of what most others are shipping, but definitely in terms of ISO C99 and ISO C++98)
• The ABI issue is not as much of a deal as some people would want you to believe. It affects C++ only, and can be circumvented by linking libstdc++ statically or simply including the libstdc++ from Red Hat Linux and installing it if it isn't already there. This won't break anything - different soname, no conflicts
• The generated code quality is much better, especially optimizations
• ia64 is supported

If you have any objections to the compiler, report the problems you are seeing rather than complaining without having tried it, the way many people seem to do lately.

Re:Have they integrated ReiserFS into the install?

[bero-rh]

It's not integrated in the install (yet), but the kernel modules and userspace tools are included.

This is because we don't consider it stable enough for real production use at this time (though it's slowly starting to get there). Right now, it works quite reliably (unless you're NFS-exporting it) as long as everything can be fixed with journal replays.
If you're using reiserfs and you have a hardware or driver problem leading to a corruption that can't be fixed by a simple replay, you're pretty much on your own. ext2/ext3 can recover from some of this.

"Fisher" - Evolution of a Name

[IntelliTubbie]

RedHat name evolution: (Most of this is stolen from this post)

Version - Name - Tie-together
3.0.3 - Picasso
3.0.4 - Rembrandt - Painters
4.0 - Colgate - Toothpastes
4.1 - Vanderbilt - Universities
4.2 - Biltmore - The Vanderbilts lived in Biltmore Estate
4.8 - Thunderbird - Hotels near the San Jose airport
4.9 - Mustang - Ford automobiles
5.0 - Hurricane - WWII fighters
5.1 - Manhattan - Mixed drinks
5.2 - Apollo - Theaters
5.9 - Starbuck - Battlestar Galactica characters
6.0 - Hedwig - Starbuck MN & St Hedwig TX are small towns
beta - Lorax - Hedwig Godiva & the Lorax are Dr Seuss characters
6.1 - Cartmann - MS Word macro-viruses (or cartoon characters)
beta - Piglet - Cartoon characters
6.2 - Zoot - Dr Piglet & Sir Zoot are occupants of Castle Anthrax
beta - Pinstripe - Types of suits
7.0 - Guinness - Beer (Guinness is a stout, Pinstripe is an ale)
beta - Fisher - Star Wars actors
7.1 - ? - ?

Maybe 7.1 final release will be named after a chess player ... Any other guesses?

Cheers,
IT

some of the features (if you care)

[jacobito]

• General system improvements:
• Itanium(tm) architecture support is included
• Installer has many improvements and fixes, including basic firewall configuration
• Workstation installs are network-secure (services are off by default)
• Japanese support fully integrated
• Graphical kickstart configuration program included

• Core system components:
• kernel 2.4.0 + many fixes
• glibc 2.2.1
• XFree86 4.0.2
• XFree86 3.3.6 X servers included for maximum hardware compatibility
• KDE 2.1 beta release snapshot
• GNOME libs 1.2.8, core 1.2.4
• GCC 2.96-RH

• Expanded hardware support:
• Improved USB
• IDE UltraDMA 66/100
• IEEE1394 (FireWire(tm))
• ATM networking
• WiFI wireless ethernet cards
• ESS Maestro3 and newer Crystal audio

• System service changes:
• New network-transparent configuration subsystem
• Configuration tools for BIND, Apache, and printing

• A sampling of package upgrades:
• GIMP 1.2.1
• Tcl/Tk 8.3.2
• BIND 9.1.0
• Pine 4.32
• Vim 6.0 prerelease
• XMMS 1.2.4

• A sampling of Package additions:
• OGG/Vorbis audio encoder/decoder
• Mozilla