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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's got Gnome 2, KDE 3.01, GCC 3.1. Pretty good deal...
:)
But I will stay with Gentoo Linux.
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).
New gcc version means this is most definitely destined to be Red Hat 8.0.
They will probably change glibc versions in a major way also.
I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
Code naming software has really annoyed me. Jaguar for OsX. Longhorn for Windows. Palladium for the upcoming hardware software venture. AMD Corvette (before it was renamed). Does this kind of naming have any point or relevancy? What does naming an upcoming code base LIMBO mean?
We had to destroy the sig to save the sig.
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?
Unfortunatly, RH needs to wait for another broken version of GCC to come out, to base 8.0 on... so don't hold your breath
The mirrors link in the writeup is all the mirrors, I checked and most of them havn't updated yet.
/ limbo/ (http and also rsync access)s /redhat/redhat/linux/beta/limbo// linux/beta/limbo/l imbo/i nux/beta/limbo/ (also rsync access)l inux/beta/limbo/ Europe:h at/linux/beta/limbo/m bo/l imbo/u x/beta/limbo/i nux/beta/limbo/ (http and also rsync access)r edhat/linux/beta/limbo/ (also rsync access)i mbo/
These mirrors are from the announcement link, so they all have the beta:
- ftp://redhat.dulug.duke.edu/pub/redhat/linux/beta
- ftp://carroll.aset.psu.edu/pub/linux/distribution
- ftp://ftp.cse.buffalo.edu/pub/Linux/redhat/redhat
- ftp://mirror.hiwaay.net/redhat/redhat/linux/beta/
- ftp://limestone.uoregon.edu/redhat/beta/limbo/
- ftp://ftp.shuttleamerica.com/pub/mirrors/redhat/l
- ftp://mirror.cs.princeton.edu/pub/mirrors/redhat/
- ftp://ftp.tu-chemnitz.de/pub/linux/redhat-ftp/red
- ftp://ftp.linux.cz/pub/linux/redhat/linux/beta/li
- ftp://alviss.et.tudelft.nl/pub/redhat/linux/beta/
- ftp://ftp.nluug.nl/site/ftp.redhat.com/redhat/lin
- ftp://gd.tuwien.ac.at/pub/linux/redhat.com/dist/l
- ftp://sunsite.mff.cuni.cz/MIRRORS/ftp.redhat.com/
- ftp://ftp.uni-bayreuth.de/pub/redhat/linux/beta/l
I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
The notes just mention "the latest desktop technology". Does anyone know whether that means it includes gnome 2?
Opus: the Swiss army knife of audio codec
I imagine some of them are SRPMs or something but they aren't labeled as such. They have open office and a bunch of stuff on there though, maybe not. I am afraid that if I don't d/l and burn all five I'm going to get half way through an install and need disc 5 for some silly package. The last time I installed 7.3 on a server I needed all three, the install size was only 400 MB too.
Why can't Red Hat build thier disc images with Disc 1 being the base, disc 2 being X and Gnome, 3 being Open Office, etc. I can't imagine any benefit to spreading things out so much.
Can someone tell me what version it's running?
$_='while(read+STDIN,$_,2048){$a=29;$b=73;$c=142;
If you want to know what package versions various distros and betas are using go to distrowatch.com. A list of packages for the top 10 distros can be found here
Saying Java is nice because it works on all OS's is like saying that anal sex is nice because it works on all genders.
I was just thinking today, as I was compiling Apache 2.0 and Mozilla 1.0.1 from Rawhide SRPMs, how nice it would be to have a Red Hat 7.3.999 with the new KDE and Gnome (actually, I'm hoping Gnome 2.0 will be nice enough for me to switch back from KDE, or at least have a KDE with more of these little bugs fixed).
And of course I'd want Apache 2.0, Mozilla 1.latest, and whatever else. I guess since the gcc is upgraded this will be 8.0? I hope they change some more stuff besides Gnome, Apache, and GCC to justify a point-oh.
Anyway, I'm anxious for the offical release of whatever this is.
Yup, there's a nice little app called "up2date" which you should take a look at. This allows you to get the latest rpms from the Red Hat Network. It's pretty good actually.
In the ISO dir there are 5 images. Now I'm fairly sure that the final version of RH 8(?) will still keep the 3CD binary RPMS + 2CDs of SRPMS format from RH 7.3. But there is one thing that really bothers me about that setup. Even for a fairly basic install, I was still required to use all 3 CDs.
/usr, and I believe I could get a lot under that. But the problem is, it's still too much, and it's too hard to keep the installation small and easily manageable. If I chose any of the preconfigured instalation methods (I think server, kde, gnome workstation, custom system), none of them worked for me. The only one that did the job was custom, but it took a very long time to select individual packages. All the other options left me without some devel tools, or without some servers (e.g apache) or without some smaller apps.
I know I included too many packages in the instalation, and if I were to do a clean install, I could trim it down a lot. Right now I have 2Gb in
I've been using RH since 4.2, and I used to like the fact that it was an easy to install, configure, and maintain distribution. But ever since they moved to 3CDs of binaries, it doesn't feel like that anymore. It's cumbersome to install (with the individual package selection). It's not very easy to configure, especially for more esoteric configurations like mine (I need a bit of server, workstation and devel stuff). The config files are becoming more fragmented, moved into several directories. Sometimes the only way I can make sense of them is by using linuxconf and the other setup tools, which I don't like.
And maintainance, well, that's a story in itself. The couple of times I used the up2date were a nightmare. The first time it installed amanda, and that thing filled up my 400Mb / partition to the brim before I figured out what was going on, and I managed to clean up the mess. The second time, many apps (including X) got broken. I suppose it works just fine with standard instalations, but with modified ones, it just doesn't. So I gave up on up2date. But there are so many packages that I don't know what they do exactly, that it's impossible to update them all manually.
I'm not pretending to be a great RedHat admin. But I have been using that distro for 5 years, and I'm becoming lost. This is not happening to me with Slackware or gentoo (my other 2 distros) or with OpenBSD. While I'm getting much, much better in these other ones, I feel I'm getting worse in RH.
I would really appreciate any ideeas, any help I can get with this problem. Maybe I'm doing it all wrong, but it feels that RH is getting far too complex to run. Is it just me, or does anyone else share this feeling?
For those people who are moaning about 5 disks, all you really need is the net install disk image, which conveniently fits on a 1.44 floppy. Then you can spend 4 hours downloading the beast, 3 hours configuring, 2 hours cursing, then reboot and continue playing MoH:AA on the other system which we wont mention ;-)
Revolution = Evolution
Debian has already started using a DVD installer in addition to the more traditional CD installers.
Most Debian users hardly ever use DVD or CD installations... as they somehow get Debian installed once, and after that, Debian's robust package management system makes updating the OS fully automatic.
Anonymous because karma is meaningless, but changelogs are not. This took a lot of hand editing to get past the lameness filter, thanks Malda and thanks crapflooders.
/usr/lib/rpm/RPM-GPG-KEY
/proc filesystem to report numbers as if using the default HZ=100, but it is possible that issues could arise -- please test and report bugs, as always. Adaptec's latest hardware that supports the new Ultra 320 SCSI standard is now supported. It is a new driver, so if you have the hardware, test and report any issues that you encounter.
u mp/index.html
u mp/index.html
The Netscape Web browser has been removed.
The RPM Package Manager (RPM) verifies digital signatures when reading packages during installation. In order to verify signatures for packages after installation, the package's public key must be imported into the rpm database. For example, to import the Red Hat public key, type the following as root at a shell prompt:
rpm --import
After importing the public key, you can verify package digest and signature information using the following command:
rpm --checksig package_name
RPM will also suggest package(s) that will satisfy unresolved dependencies if the rpmdb-redhat package is installed. For example, if you are attempting to upgrade the gnumeric without a necessary library, you will see the following message:
rpm -Uvh gnumeric-1.0.5-5.i386.rpm
error: Failed dependencies:
libbonobo-print.so.2 is needed by
gnumeric-1.0.5-5
libbonobo.so.2 is needed by
gnumeric-1.0.5-5
libbonobox.so.2 is needed by gnumeric-1.0.5-5
Suggested resolutions:
bonobo-1.0.20-3.i386.rpm
The above mechanism is equivalent to (and will replace) the existing --redhatprovides mechanism.
GNU Ghostscript has been upgraded to version 7.05.
By default, top and ps only display the main (initial) thread of thread-aware processes. To show all threads, use the command ps -m or type [H] in top.
The junkbuster proxy filter package has been replaced by the privoxy package which can now filter animations, pop-ups, refresh tags, and webbugs. Privoxy is configurable at run-time by pointing your browser to http://p.p and choosing options from the menu.
Red Hat Linux 7.3.92 contains the following new configuration and system tools:
Red Hat Log Viewer (redhat-logviewer)
Red Hat NFS Configuration Tool (redhat-config-nfs)
Red Hat Samba Configuration Tool (redhat-config-samba)
Red Hat X Configuration Tool (redhat-config-xfree86)
Red Hat Sound Card Configuration Tool (redhat-config-soundcard)
Red Hat Language Selection Tool (redhat-config-language)
Red Hat Keyboard Configuration Tool (redhat-config-keyboard)
Red Hat Mouse Configuration Tool (redhat-config-mouse)
Red Hat Root Password Tool (redhat-config-rootpassword)
Red Hat Security Level Configuration Tool (redhat-config-securitylevel)
Package Reorganization
The following packages have been replaced.
ucd-snmp - replaced by net-snmp
gtop - replaced by gnome-system-monitor
gphoto - replaced by gphoto2
console-tools - replaced by kbd
junkbuster - replaced by privoxy
The following packages are currently not included but will be in a future version.
gnomemeeting openh323 pwlib rpm2html rpmfind
The following packages have been removed from this release of Red Hat Linux.
alien blt dip fvwm2 ee elm extace gnomeicu gnome-pim gnorpm ical jikes kaffe metamailmi cq netscape playmidi rxvt sliplogin taper xbill xdaliclock xlockmore xmailbox xpilot
The following packages have been deprecated and will be removed in a future release of Red Hat Linux.
LPRng
Kernel Notes
The kernel used in this release supports the following list of improvements and new features. The kernel is based on the 2.4.19- pre10-ac2 release for this beta.
HZ=1000 on i686 and Athlon means that the system clock ticks 10 times as fast as on other x86 platforms (i386 and i586); HZ=100 has been the Linux default on x86 platforms for the entire history of the Linux kernel. This change provides better interactive response, lower latency response from some programs, and better response from the scheduler. We have adjusted the
The latest aacraid driver now has 64-bit support, and so should have much higher performance on systems with more than 4GB of memory when you use the "bigmem" kernel.
The network console and crash dump functionality from Red Hat Linux Advanced Server 2.1 has been ported to this release. Documentation for setting this up is included in the netdump and netdump-server packages and is also available as a whitepaper at the following URL:
http://www.redhat.com/support/wpapers/redhat/netd
This beta contains a kernel providing EA and ACL support for the ext3 for setting this up is included in the netdump and netdump-server packages and is also available as aw whitepaper at the following URL:
http://www.redhat.com/support/wpapers/redhat/netd
This beta contains a kernel providing EA and ACL support for the ext3 filesystem based on the patches and user-level tools from
http://acl.bestbits.at/
The support for EA and ACL is included in several packages:
kernel provides the support for storing EAs and ACLs on disk for ext3 filesystems provides the system calls to manipulate EAs and ACLs; and provides the mechanisms to enforce ACLs on file access.
e2fsprogs includes knowledge of the new on-disk extended attribute formats so that fsck can check filesystems using the new feature.
attr provide access to extended attributes attached to libattr files
acl provide tools to set, modify and query the ACLs set libacl on files
libattr-devel libraries and include files to build programs using libacl-devel, acl, and attr
How could they!?! Where can I find the source for it. Really now, it's quite fun squashing Bill before his OS gets on my network. Level 21 has been my best for the few times I've played.
Building from source is fine, but getting RPMS is nice, particularly if you want other things (Galeon and Nautilus) using Mozilla. I find it quite pleasing to have someone else (ie Ximian in my case) worrying about making sure all three play happily together at any one time.
Boffoonery - downloadable Comedy Benefit for Bletchley Park
That's complete BS. KW'ing actually does serve a useful purpose -- it brings facts into the discussion that would not otherwise be brought up. The people who get the +5 get it because they contribute to the discussion.
To make laws that man cannot, and will not obey, serves to bring all law into contempt.
--E.C. Stanton
Actually up2date can be a very nice program, and if you have several systems you'll get them all listed on the redhat network page where you can easily update them all without logging in on them. I really like the up2date program RedHat offers.
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..:-)
Or will it be v7.4? If I read correctly, GCC version major change result major change in Linux version for Red Hat. Is this still true?
:)
Thank you in advance.
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
It's a BETA. Betas are releases from hell. You have to know what you are doing if you are using betas. :)
Judging from previous history, it won't be the name of the final release.
I'm running 7.1, and I had to upgrade GCC from the broken 2.96, which wasn't easy for me, me being a linux n00b.
Im curious. What problems did you have with gcc-2.96-rh? Did you upgrade to the official errata updates for the compiler? Are you sure that the compiler was at fault and not the applications you were trying to compile? Some developers have been more keen on blaming the compiler than on fixing broken code.
GNU/Linux. The Freshmaker.
Having seen the progression, the next name should be Polevault.
One simple rule for its versus it's
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?
nice that LVM is now supported by default, so you dont have to mess with kernel modules and initrds ..
/API" for storage management tools like LVM.
Check out IBM's EVMS (Enterprise Volume Management System). It is a plug-in based "front end
Basicly that means, that you can create, destroy, resize LVM 'volumes', software RAID volumes, partitions, and use chkdisk etc, with the same tool. There are are one CLI, and two GUI's, one ncurses based(console), and one Gnome based. The latter simply makes me drool.
see http://evms.sourceforge.net/gui_screen/
No, it isn't ready for production systems. But that won't stop me from drooling. (and trying it soon)
Further, it looks like it (EVMS) also has plug-ins for various filesystems and their tools, like; Ext2/Ext3, ReiserFS, JFS, Linux swap.
And how about making snap-shots of a volume, and later a roll-back?
--I like redhat up to the point of security, then the default install, even checked on high security and NOT selecting the 'server" install, just doing a minimum "workstation" install, leaves ya wide open. Yep, I got owned fairly soon after that install. I've had to reinstall 3 times to finally have something that might be close to bare minimum secure. I had to find a third party GUI front end for IPtables to have some sort of maybe it's working firewall. NO WAY most n00bs can command line IP tables or even know what all that stuff is.
./package, but how do you turn it off then? and sometimes that ./ doesn't work, but yet, I have all these packages.
My other serious major beef is I can go to gnorpm, I see a zillion packages, yet my gnome desktop only has very few clickable menu items. Wazzup with that? What IS all that other stuff, where is it, how do you get it to work, or is it working, or what? And just TRY to find out on the web, it's not happening. And WHY are so many services running by default, when you aren't running a server? Again, what is this stuff? Granted, I'm still on 7.2, I have been using up2date to up2date stuff I don't even use but it says I have! ARRRGHHH! I haven't even been able to find out how to use 9/10ths of the stuff on here. Ya, I know, somehow find the package correctly and do
Is there some way to differentiate between the traditional "program start" from something that isn't a program but some library or widget or name I don't even know what it is? I have a smallish harddrive, do I REALLY need all this stuff on here just for casual home use? I had so little diskspace left over after installit ain't funny. I'll get another large hardrive when i can afford it, I'm on a low fixed income, I can't take what for me is a week's pay to buy a "new" hardrive. I got almost a 2 gig hardrive, why isn't this enough, why can't it fit on a much smaller area? Why does "boot" partition waste many many megs that are apparenbtly never used? Why is there this need for some huge "swap" partition if you have 200-odd megs of RAM? Ain't that enough? I've surfed for years with a maximum of 64 megs on both mac and windows, now I got over 200 megs of ram and a "swap partion" that is large than that. WHY? Why is a swap partition even needed? Isn't RAM enough as it is? the 7.2 install I have comes from a full release set of disks and what passes for a couple of manuals that are really just pamphlets, I was expecting actual books for 50 some bucks.
I want to support linux, and I chose redhat after mandrake refused absolutely to dial out on a normal modem, I mean it just WOULD NOT DIAL, at least redhat dialed out. I'll support the company directly by getting their offical releases, but I'm not popping 60$ every 6 months or now less, and even though I have used cheapbytes to try the mandrake release, I would rather support the distro maker itself. I fully appreciate that they need the loot, they offer a product, they lose money on the bulk of the people who use their products. Bandwith isn't "free" although a lot of folks here seem to think it is. "Download the ISO image". That costs money for that company.
And I honestly hope that someone will realise this isn't a troll, maybe a professional redhat sys admin will actually take the time to type a paragraph to answer a few of the questions I have. I've tried those newbie forums and stuff, I am not a newsgroup person though, not comfortable with huge volumes of email that are mostly flamewars and half of them have apparently malicious scripts in them.
Thanks in advance to anyone.
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
But, each to his own. The three options are open to you:
Red Hat usually releases upgrades about four times per year. It varies, depending on how the development goes. Frequently the release cycle is roughly March, June, September, December. There is a lot of variability in the cycle though. Possibly they have been slowing down toward 3 releases per year.
I'm not really sure what the Mandrake cycle is, or whether they are even that regular. They could time their releases to match significant changes in KDE.
Both of them have already upgraded this year. So have many other distributions. Even Debian is coming close to an upgrade, and they tend to have the slowest cycle (though you can get on the unstable tree and run at the bleeding edge if you want to).
I'm sorry if you are feeling impatient to move faster, but things are really moving at about as fast a clip as is safe already. Perhaps a little faster (even the major distributions don't always do enough testing before a release).
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
Much as I love Gentoo, this criticism is a bit unfounded. I never know with the next "emerge rsync" whether I'll get an obscure couple of new revisions to obscure packages I never use, or a sudden change to a new compiler version that will recompile everything I have just to update my window manager. Installing a RedHat distro is far, far more stable.
This is why I go Gentoo; I'm willing to risk the instability to get the latest features, and for the most part, it pays off. I'd hesistate before putting it on a server, though, and when I finally decided to go for it (the performance boost is quite tasty), I'd be very careful about actually updating it.
Debian's a good example, with 'stable', 'unstable', and 'testing', a.k.a. 'probably actually unstable'. (Unstable is usually an OK choice for most uses.) You can't have it all.
Personally, I'm wondering if rpm now handles debs. It started handling tarballs a version or so ago, so that's not beyond reason.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
These are good questions. These are the type of questions that a lot of experiences Linux advocates forget about or ignore.
/bin, /usr/bin, /usr/sbin, and all those other 'bin' [binary] directories you have. I wouldn't suggest just sitting down and going through them all unless you have a LOT of time, but searching through the 'man' and 'info' pages are how you can learn a lot about your system.
n -4.html#NUMBER
.
n -4.html#AEN347
. In general the
Linux Documentation Project is a wonderful place to find answers.
Well, I'm not going to be able to give a lot of very specific answers to everything here, but this should help. I would first point you to your local Linux Users Group (LUG), if there is one. I've found that there's almost always someone in the group who can help me. It's one of the closest things to true tech support the Linux community has. Chech out http://linux.com/usergroups.pl to find one nearby. You should also do a google search since not every LUG is listed.
Many of the packages you see in gnorpm are libraries or applications that run only via the command line. Only a few of these are GUI applications you'll actually see under one of your menus. Now you may think that's a LOT of libraries and system utilities, but (from a Windows point of view) if you ever check out all that's in your C:\WINDOWS folder or C:\WINNT folder, you'll find all sorts of stuff you never seem to use (that doesn't make them unnecessary though!). I've been using Linux coming on two years now and it's only been in the last couple of months that I feel I really start to know what the different core packages are and what they do. And this is after doing many many installs of Linux. A good way to 'explore' what you've got is to check out the 'man' pages for the applications you find under
You're 'boot' partition is where the libaries and programs that start up your computer reside. This partition in general does NOT have to be very large. Space is usually given on the boot partition if you what to do some configuration and cusomization. Try reading http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/mini/Partition/partitio
As for the swap space, check out http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/mini/Swap-Space.html and also: http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/mini/Partition/partitio
Linux still has a horrid learning curve to it. While some love that (I for one), it's a rough climb for many. Learning about your system and about linux is a process of doing exactly what you did here--ask questions, participate in the community. And eventually, you'll get the hang of it.
As of Linux for Joe User, I would say we're getting close, very close, but there will always be more to do.
Who said Freedom was Fair?
It's the programming language for Bell Lab's (you know, the original Unix people) Inferno embedded O/S.
Well, more to the point, stable means different things to developers and users. When developers talk about a "stable release" or a "stable branch" of the code, what they really mean is that development has reached a point where all new development is for bug fixes, and new features and major development has moved on to an "unstable" branch. In a perfect world software that is stable in the development sense would also be stable in the reliability sense, but nothing can really guarantee that.
Since the Limbo is also a dance, I bet that the next Red Hat release will be codenamed something like Mambo or (dare I say it) Macarena? ;-)
cpeterso
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
I hope that DVD sized images become more widespread. (Kudos to the distributions that use them now.)
I also hope that soon DVD(+/-)RW drives are available at a price comparable that of CD-RW drives.
Generally because Linuxconf wasn't stable. It would often eat hand edited configuration files (though that improved with time), and had a nasty tendency of asking you to perform actions that weren't necessary to make your changes take effect (eg, wanting to postfix when you made a change to samba) with no logical explanation. The system also seemed to want to perform actions necessary for changes to take effect two or more times before it would let you quit.
Anyone out there from Red Hat listening? If so, why not put the important stuff on CD1, & have something next to the packages saying which CD they are on? Or even making it possible to install from CD 1 & if there's anything you selected that wasn't on the CD, you can download it after the initial install?
Nope. You're thinking of Purgatory, where ones' sins are purged before going to heaven.
Limbo is where virtuous non-Christians go. It's a later Christian idea --- in Dante's Inferno, virtuous Pagans go to the outermost (least harsh) circle of Hell. But people didn't like the idea that an unbaptized baby would go to Hell through no fault of their own, so 'Limbo' was postulated that gave a place for those people.
Not too long ago, the Catholic church decided that Limbo doesn't exist, however.
(I'm still waiting for them to say the same thing about Purgatory, Hell, and Heaven, but I might have a long wait... ;-))