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Red Hat Network for the Masses
Outland Traveller writes: "A few months ago I sent some feedback to RedHat concerning their then $30/month RHN subscription service. I asked them to consider offering a $5/month low end version more suitable for home users with multiple computers. I'm sure that a plenty of other people offered the same suggestion, but I was still surprised when I opened my email this morning and found that the exact service I asked for is not only being offered, but that fast access to iso images has been added as well, among other improvements. I guess I now have to put my money where my mouth is :) Seriously though, this should be good news for people who download RedHat's .iso images but want to financially support RedHat in a way that makes sense."
If I want fast downloads, I'd paypal them a buck or two for a day or two of access to high-speed servers with ISOs. But a monthly fee whether or not I get anything of use to me?
was "Outdated Systems View". Looks cool, you hit a button and your floppy drive starts spitting out ticker tape and the screen shrinks and displays in monochrome "Insert card, face down, 9 edge first"
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Instead of a small LAN with a few computers at home, I have a Beowulf cluster. Would this service be of value to me?
Thank you.
Mandrake has something similar. It is called Mandrake Users Club and you can sign up as low as $5/month. I bet this is where RedHat got the idea.
http://mandrakelinux.com/en/club/
Why do slashdot editors feel the need to undermine the stories they post with comments such as "real-men-use-apt". If a user posted a comment with that title it would rightly be moderated as flamebait.
I don't know what the current costs of bandwidth are for RedHat, but assuming everyone who pays the $5 downloads all four CD iso's of 7.2, that's a good 2.6 GB. Sure, it's better than not getting anything for it, but the increase in traffic their going to have might hit them pretty hard. I've NEVER downloaded anything from the RedHat servers simply because the mirrors are so much less busy and a whole lot faster.
Personally, I'd much rather see the in-store retail versions of RedHat drop in price to the $10-15 range for the latest version. I'd be more than happy to pick up a copy (can't have too many Linux install CD's lying around). Most of the documentation can be found online, and there are probably a lot of people like many that just want the CD's and don't really care so much about support. Right now, the current list price for RedHat 7.2 is $59.95, and it can be bought for $48.95 at buy.com. This company really ought to think their strategy. The distro market is pretty competitive right now, and 59.95 is a hell of a lot of money to spend on a free OS.
The future isn't what it used to be.
I wonder when someone will reverse enigeer up2date and make an open source up2date server. So you could just pay $60 to redhat to download the update full speed, then turn around and at as a server to your lan to update all the others. The source is avaiable for rhn_register and up2date, both GPL, so it wouldn't be that hard.
Havoc Penington, the bane of my Linux desktop.
I use debian. I love apt. But I'm considering moving some of the machines I support to red hat. For $5/mo/machine, it is really nice to have a single place where I can check on the status of packages and patches for every machine I manage. I don't know of a way to do this (currently) in debian.
Of course, I imagine it's only a matter of time before someone writes a post-install plugin to apt that will allow for an installation update to be written to a db or web page. So it's not inconceivable that debian gets a similar feature. But for now it doesn't exist, and it makes red hat very attractive for managing a non-small numbers of linux boxen.
Key to financial independence: Spend less than you earn. Save and invest the difference. Do it for a long time.
This seems like a very solid move on redhat's part. The RHN is a well run system that fits in perfectly with the open source philosophy, and the only thing that kept me from getting all my machines on it was the cost. But now, I'll probably go ahead and subcribe. Also seems like a good financial move, since locking people into a monthly subscription-for-service type contract is a great way to make a lot of money, and seems to be what most companies are striving for nowadays (especially MS). Hmmm, I wonder what kind of transfer rate I can get now on the ISO images from the T3 at work?
You hate M$, you love Open Source, you think Linux Roolz, you probably have $60 bucks somewhere. Just send them the money,
RH puts out a decent product and will probably be the last Linux standing tall at the end. Just give'em the $60 bucks and prove that you are more than a 1337 h4x0r and someone who actually cares about this whole Open Source, anti M$ thing.
This
It's unfortunate that Red Hat has not offered this service sooner. I moved my home systems to FreeBSD only last week as it's much easier to upgrade to the latest release version (or even to the latest CVS version) or to get a package of a recently-released application. Similar benefits can be obtained from Debian GNU/Linux as well. Both can be upgraded at no cost.
From my experience of Red Hat, even if I did want to upgrade to a more recent version of Red Hat Linux, I wouldn't trust it to an automated system. I upgraded a Red Hat 6 production server to Red Hat 7 last year, and so many things broke I was quite disappointed.
I guess this service will be useful for those home users who want to automatically pull down the latest security patches, tho.
(For those who don't know, the quote is from Red Dwarf, a British comedy.)
Just bought my subscription today, didn't even know about the recent price reduction. The system views are nice. One of the features I like the best so far is the ability to compare systems.
Update the dev server, test, compare with production, and schedule an update...
mmmm.. nice.
On the other hand, I haven't even been able to *start* a download from the supposed fast servers. I wonder if everybody is download extraneous isos for fun now.....
Read the site.
But for the lazy, the $30 is really targeted at Enterprise customers. It offers support for things like multiple admins, grouping systems to perform updates on a group, etc... It's suited for running more than 4 or 5 machines in your apartment. Think hundreds, or even thousands, in the workplace.
I`m using Ximian Red Carpet for almost half a year now, and I`m wondering what`s the difference between these. Seems to me that all the advantages (fast servers, package control,...) are also available in Red Carpet, for free. PLUS when you use RC, you don`t only have the RedHat Channel, there`s also Ximian Gnome`s own channel, Staroffice, Loki Games, Codeweavers, ... I`d like to support RedHat in some way, but there must be something I can`t get elsewhere.
I upgrade RedHat twice a year - I always run the most current. I look at the $60/machine as 2 purchases of a $30 edition (do they even make the $30 edition still). To have the machine update itself with a click of the mouse, even if I am away from the box out of town is a nice benefit as well.
Also the Instant ISO program. I hope they have the bandwidth, because I intend to take full advantage of it on release day. Saves me from a trip to the store, 2 or 3 weeks later.
I've come to love RedHat over the last 4 years of using it since switching from Slackware at RH 5.1. I'm pleased with the convenience this service offers, and I am quite happy to give them $5 a month to keep my server running well.
Open source is not about being anti-Microsoft (OK, for some people it is). I have no love of Microsoft but Open Source is more than that, it's a whole new way of doing things. I expect to see Microsoft and Open Source co-existing for quite some time yet. They are not direct competitors.
Suck figs.
60 dollars per year *IS* 5 dollars per month. The 240 dollars per year is the old service. The improvement is the fact that some people know how to manipulate units.
(Note: This isn't a flame. It *would* have been a flame if I had added that last night I showed his girlfriend that I also knew how to manipulate digits.)
Done
350 machines. Need to track the package status of 350 machines. How exactly, are you going to tell me the status of 350 machines using that technique without going to each of the individual machines? Right now, you either:
The point is that the red hat network (allegedly) manages large numbers of machines better than debian. Of course, this is untested by me, right now. But it's an attractive feature.
Key to financial independence: Spend less than you earn. Save and invest the difference. Do it for a long time.
At home though, I have a 10 machine lab, most of which run Redhat on them. But still, if I want to get RHN, that's $240 per year. Like I told Redhat, I can get a Windows license cheaper than that, and that includes free use of the Windows update service. So if I have a two year upgrade cycle, I've paid $440 to Redhat, while paying about $200 to Microsoft. The difference being that if I remember correctly, that $240 annually to Redhat covers up to 10 machines, while the Windows fee only covers one. Still though, it's not like I grant myself a large IT budget for home.
Now that the cost for a home user to sign up has come down, I can definitely see myself using it. It makes updating much easier, and it allows me to do my part in supporting the Linux distribution that I prefer.
Where do I submit the "stable is taking forever to release, why don't you guys just give up" bug report on bugs.debian.org? Seriously, Debian isn't a viable alternative for an up to date linux server which many people need. If a stable release comes out every 5 years what is the point? I like running Debian unstable on my laptop but stable on servers? No way...
Simple - I can install RedHat for free. I have to buy M$ at a cost of $100-$200 every year or two for each machine. Too expensive for me for what I get.
Thats why I never used RHN - too expensive for my little LAN of 5 or 6 machines. But $60/year for the service seems like a great deal. And I can't help but feel lik ewhen $ goes to RedHat its almost a donation where money sent to M$ feels like gettin grobbed - can't explain why though :)
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I've used both Ximian's redcarpet updater and RHN. Ximian's client is very slick looking, and I like how you can subscribe to different channels. I also like you there's an option to install RPMs from a directory- this makes Redcarpet useful as a general RPM frontend.
Red Hat Network doesn't look as elegent, but it has more functionality overall. RHN gives you emails of critical updates and errata tailored to your actual systems. It gives you a single point of management for multiple computers. One thing that I tried yesterday was to schedule the install of new RPM packages on one of my tower systems from my laptop. It worked great! Also, I love how you can exclude packages from being upgraded. It's very annoying to have to click on every individual update manually in red carpet just because if you hit "update all" it will update a package you want left alone (usually replacing a more up to date version with a downgraded ximian version).
I'm used to periodically checking for updates manually, and then pushing them down to each system as needed. This saves a lot of time if you can spare 60$ a year for each additional system (you get one system free).
what's the difference between this kind of subscription and Microsoft's ?
If you don't pay Red Hat, you can still use the software you have, and you can get new software off rpmfind. If you don't pay Microsoft, on the other hand, you lose your right to use the software because under a rental agreement, you are not the owner of a copy, and in the United States, 17 USC 117 states that the owner of a copy can dictate terms of use.
Will I retire or break 10K?
1) RHN would NOT store my machine configuration on their servers. I see no reason this can't be stored on my machine.
2) Red Hat would coordinate with Ximian so that their releases coincide. Let's say $9/mo for Red Carpet and RHN combined. This would cover all system and basic desktop updates; both RH and Ximian might want to keep a level or two of premium service beyond this basic service.
Maybe even offer different desktop subscriptions, so that $9 might get you RH+GNOME, or RH+KDE.
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