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New Red Hat Beta: LIMBO
joyoflinux writes: "Red Hat has released a beta version of its distribution, called LIMBO. It includes the latest desktop technology, gcc 3.1, Mozilla 1.0+, OpenOffice 1.0, and much more. You can download it here or use a mirror. Submit bugs here." Here's the announcement.
It seems like every time I blink RedHat is releasing an updated version. Maybe they're beginning to acknowledge (read: "worry about") the surprising popularity of Mandrake?
(Although Mandrake hasn't updated in quite a while; it's still at KDE2.2 over there with a semi-difficult KDE3.0 install option available).
Not that I NEED to upgrade, but I've got a 7.2 ISO I was going to put on another non-critical box (second desktop). Should I forge ahead, and head into beta-land?
Fair question - all the redhat linux releases have names that connect to each other - it's quite a long list and I'm sure someone can recite it for you (or look at the ./ anouncement of the last redhat release).
Personally its not God I dislike, its his fan club I cant stand (bash.org)
I find it refreshing that products from RH - at least those in beta - are named what the developers probabaly use internally. It means that the hackers are running the place and it hasent been taken over by suits quite yet.
See here for a page that goes into more detail than any sane person could possibly want about the Red Hat release names.
All Red Hat code names so far have been connected by a double meaning. This page documents the connections found so far. The link between 'Valhalla' and 'Limbo' should be clear. The link between Valhalla and Skipjack hasn't been posted here yet, though ISTR that they are both islands.
Can someone tell me what version it's running?
$_='while(read+STDIN,$_,2048){$a=29;$b=73;$c=142;
And for those of you who don't recognize it, Valhalla and Limbo are both locations on the Spacer planet Inferno. From Asimov's Caliban, Inferno, and Utopia (written by Roger MacBride Allen)
Of course, there might be other connections, but that's the only one that comes to mind.
Even if I have used RedHat for several years, I have never recommended it to new PC users. The reason is that (even if they probably be satisfied if I set up a Linux ystem for them) they be more happy if I set up something running MS Windows.
To be an alternative for the ordinary user on the desktop, Linux must have:
* A decent office suite
* A decent browser
* A decent e-mail program
* A streamlined desktop
* A sentralized way to change the system settings
A year ago, Linux didnt have any of this. Open Office 1.0, Mozilla 1.0 and Evolution (or KMail) are brilliant programs. I have no problems recommending them instead of MSOffice, IE, Outlook. (To be honest MS Office is a better program then OpenOffice, but MS Office is way to expencive for an ordinary user, and Open Office is GoodEnough(TM)).
With Gnome 2 and KDE 3 the desktop starts to look fairly streamlined. It still some work to be done on Gnome 2, but hopefully Redhat will fix the most annoying bugs before releasing 8.0.
With "a sentralized way to change system settings" I do mean that the most important settings should be reached from a "control panel"-like program. To the ordinary user it is very hard to explain that the desktop resolution have to be changed by editing a text-file, while the desktop backgroud can be changed by right-clicking the desktop. I hope Redhat have a better control-panel in 8.0.
If they fix the last two items, this could be the first Linux distribution I recommend to a novice computer user. Im looking forward to it..:-)
There was a time when Red Hat were seemingly pushing Linuxconf as the system admin tool. Now they have developed their own. Anyone know why?
Try networked install, its real easy but remember to write down the full path to the directory of /i386 on you ftp of choice.
HTTP/1.1 400
If glibc is going to break compatibility for its next version, I think the glibc maintainers should consider removing functions which KNOWN SECURITY RISKS, such as gets(), strcpy(), strcat(), sprintf(), and friends. There are safer alternatives, such as strncpy(), strncat(), and snprintf(). If glibc removes risky functions, then application writers will be forced to improve their applications by use safer functions and coding practices. Shouldn't known "best practises" be encouraged by the libraries we use as the foundation of our software?
Unfortunately, even some of those "safe" functions can be difficult to use safely. OpenBSD, FreeBSD, NetBSD, and Solaris libc libraries include strlcpy() and strlcat(). Theo de Raadt co-wrote an insightful paper about these new functions: strlcpy and strlcat - consistent, safe, string copy and concatenation . Why does glibc insist on not supporting these safer alternatives?
If removing these risky functions is too controversial, then glibc could use a transitional approach. Move the risky functions' prototypes into a separate header file. Name it something scary like "unsafe.h", "securityrisk.h" or "bufferoverflow.h". Application writers who are too lazy to fix their use of risky functions, can simply #include "bufferoverflow.h".
cpeterso
Does anyone know why package LPRng has been removed?