RedHat 7.3 beta (skipjack) is out

Just saw in Red Hat's FTP's - Redhat 7.3 (codename:skipjack) is available for download. There aren't lots of changes there, but you'll find that RedHat 7.3 comes with KDE 3.0 (rc3 is on this beta), you'll need to remove the Ximian Gnome before upgrade, and in general - read the release notes before testing this release. As always, don't try it on your main Linux partition, and use the mirrors. Annoucment is here (thanks to Linux Weekly News)

Comments

Re:X.3 ??

[dattaway]

This 7.3 is good. I wanted to see a more refined 7.2 before a new approach was reborn. This is one step toward perfection before they release a new offspring.

size=ease of use

[oo7tushar]

I find it particularly disturbing that Red Hat is growing "exponentially" in size. I'm pretty sure that they don't have to include all the options but they don't make it easy to disable them.
Now many of you may jump on the bandwagon and say "Wait, Linux is not meant to be easy". I'll retort by saying: Red Hat should be easy. If you're going to target users with a desktop application then you don't make things harder. Desktops were invented to make things easier or more efficient to use.
So it seems that if they do make it bigger, perhaps they should make it easier?
size=ease of use

KDE3

[CanadaDave]

That's nice that they have KDE3. I wish Mandrake had slowed down their 8.2 schedule so that KDE3 final could be included. But they don't like changing release dates, so I can wait.

What are the cool new features included in 7.3? I guess it's mostly a bug fix release, but their must be some changes. Any improvements to the Redhat configuration tools? I've always liked Redhat better in general, I'm not sure why...but I liked Mandrakes drak tools so much, I switched to MDK.

Re:Where is CUPS?

[Sc00ter]

Why don't you just go install cups? Why must you not use something just because it doesn't come with the dist? I agree, CUPS rocks, and I use it, on my RH7.2 box.

Re:X.3 ??

[wray]

Since the 4.0, release RedHat has done a .0 -> .1 -> .2 -> .0 release. I cannot comment officially on how this happened, but I was watching Rawhide, and up until about 3 weeks ago, RedHat had gcc 3.1 as their primary/only compiler, then all of the sudden, they reverted back to a gcc-2.96 and gcc 3.0.4 combo. I assume this was the point where they decided to release a 7.3 instead of an 8.0. Perhaps it had to do with the maturity of the 3.1 compiler, perhaps something else, but it is surely a deviation from their established timeline.

As a sidenote, though I am very excited about gcc 3.1 which branched on Feb 28, I think that RedHat's move is a good one. They can use this time to perhaps plan an 8.0 release that will support x86-64 (Hammer) architecture.

Re:Where is CUPS?

[garcia]

this is a common problem w/the up and coming Linux users and goes to show why distributions like Mandrake continue to exist even when *I* (being of middle ages Linux) can't stand bloated shit.

Users feel that everything should come standard w/each distribution. Just b/c a distrib is not using X does NOT mean its broken. In fact RH is known for its excellent testing.

Stop being so lazy. Sheesh.

The youngins just need to learn ;)

gcc 3.x

[Pr0xY]

i was just curious when the gcc in redhat will be updated to 3.x, now that the multiple inheritance issues seem to be solved in the latest version, what is holding things back?

Re:gcc 3.x

[bero-rh]

Mostly the fact that 3.0.x -> 3.1 will break binary compatibility yet again, and will be out soon.
Releasing a .0 release with gcc 3.0.x would mean having to do gcc 3.0.x throughout all .x releases, even after it's obsolete.

It's better to just skip 3.0.x and get a 3.1 or 3.2 based distribution out when it's ready.

Keeping your machine 'pure'

[jmorris42]

> I try to keep my laptop pure redhat with no
> self compiles.

There is a way to have your cake and eat it too. Build your own RPMS with anything you want that didn't ship on the CD or rebuild their packages with different options. If you build it yourself you can know it will run with your libraries and such. Keep the SRPMS around and you can quickly rebuild anything that breaks after the next OS upgrade. Since you are keeping everything managed with RPM your packages get managed in the same way as RH supplied software and everything 'just works."

It isn't that hard anymore. If you can't find a SRPM on rpmfind.net grab the tar.gz and look inside for a .spec file. A growing number of projects include one. A tarball with a .spec file it better than a SRPM file for all practical intents and purposes. Just do "rpm -tb .tar.gz instead of "rpm -i .srpm ;rpm -bb /usr/src/redhat/SPECS/.spec"

Re:No Webmin!

[damiam]

It might not have a command line interface

Course it does:

$ lynx localhost:10000

Re:6.2 was the last clean release (for me, at leas

[mabinogi]

What 'Illegal' gcc?...

You mean the 'breaks less packages than 3.x and supports more standard C++ features than 2.95.X', compiler that was released from a snapshot of a PUBLIC CVS repository.....

The only thing that the gcc people were annoyed at was the fact that people might think that 2.96 was an official gcc release, as opposed to a RedHat release.

There's nothing wrong with the compiler itself, in fact, RedHat do a very good job of stabalising a product, since they are the ones that REALLY get it out on people's machines.

And regardless of that, they're stuck with it until 8.0 anyway, as they can't break binary compatibility until then.

Now he tells me......

[jmorris42]

Looked earlier, didn't find em. Ah well, Disc 2 is about halfway down already so no sense in not letting it complete.

But it is good to see how fast that the grumbles from the natives got all the way up the chain of command and the problem fixed for the future. Way to go!

Kernel 2.4.18?

[FooBarWidget]

I thought kernel 2.4.10+ doesn't conform to RedHat's quality tests because of the new VM.
What's going on here? Is 2.4.18 stable enough or did RedHat ported the old VM to 2.4.18?