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Red Hat, IBM Expand Linux Deal
jukal writes "From ZDNet "Red Hat and IBM have expanded a partnership, with Red Hat bringing its top-end version of Linux to all four of IBM's server lines and with IBM's services and software divisions supporting Red Hat's software. "" The NYTimes also has a version of the story, as does the News-Observer.
.DEBs lack integrity checks - that means that the contents are not public/private encrypted. .RPMs have this ability. That is a very important ability in an internet setting.
.RPMs have their troubles, too.
That said,
Stop the brainwash
Well, considering that I use Redhat Linux almost exclusively, it's not hard to discern what my opinion might be. The reality is, this claim is so far offbase that it's ridiculous. Most of the people making this claim are elitist goons who probably don't use Linux anyway, they just read on some newsgroup that it makes you sound 1337 to bash Redhat and so that's what they do. The only thing that makes Redhat any different from any other distribution is market share. People claiming that Redhat is the Microsoft of the Linux world are arguing against capitalism. These people would bash any company that was successful. Redhat remains open source, and contributes a great deal to open source software and to the community at large. This is VASTLY different from the proprietary software development model employed by Microsoft. I get really sick of elitist Linux users trying to put down everything successful, user-friendly, or even remotely easy to use. It's these people that will prevent Linux from every truly becoming successful on the desktop. Too many people hear these goons claiming how hard Linux is to use, and how you have to be a genius to even install Linux. They do this simply to puff themselves up and try to gain some semblence of self-esteem. Sorry guys, Linux really isn't that hard to install OR use. You don't have to be a hard-core computer geek use Linux for all of your normal computing tasks. This is a figment of your wannabe-1337, s'kiddie imagination.
"Herbivores eat well cause their food never, ever runs."
Seems to me I've seen a bunch of articles on companies opting away from MS products. Dell offer Linux, IBM offering Linux, Dell (and other companies?) offering Word Perfect instead of some variation of Office.
In my opinion, this looks like the start of a stance by companies against MS. Time more than ever for ALL Linux distros to be more user friendly. Don't get more wrong, I think Linux is a great thing, but I still use OS X because I get a stable OS, PLUS the ability to futz with *nix.
The Linux "collective" needs to start making Linux less configurable (yes I said LESS) for the average user. The average user just doesn't care about all the configurability of Linux... heck, I'm a slightly above average user and I don't care!!! When the learning curve is less steep for Linux, or when somebody offers a distro (Lycoris?) that has less of a learning curve (a sort of Linux Home edition), then Linux will make some major inroads into the home.
That would be great to see... because everybody should have access to the world of computers and everybody shouldn't have to buy a new one ever 2 years to keep up with the low quality stuff MS puts out.
-AHow can Red-Hat Linux or any open-source operating system become the "Microsoft" of anything? Yes, some things only come in an rpm, but that dosen't force you to use RedHat.
If you are using open source software, you can by definition - get the source. You can even make all the Debian packages you like and provide them to anyone you wish.
If you choose to use software that isn't open-source, it's not RH's problem if rpm the only package it's released in.
At worst, RH is the "AOL" of the Linux World... but that really isn't all that bad.
"Red Hat is the Microsoft of the Linux world."
Yeah, I can kinda see that. Compared to OpenBSD, Debian, or Gentoo, Red Hat seems bloated, bland, and corporate. When using the newer versions of Red Hat, I don't quite know what's installed on my system and I feel alienated from my computer and from my OS -- which is one reason why I don't like running Windows on my machines. I can't explain it, but Red Hat just isn't fun anymore. Lately, when I screw around with computers, I'd rather screw around with Gentoo or BSD.
But that's where the comparison between Red Hat and Microsoft ends. Sure, Red Hat can act unilaterally and piss lots of people off (GCC 2.96), but they're generally good corporate citizens. They make their ISOs freely available for download, even though they aren't obligated to do so (hell, even OpenBSD refuses to release official ISOs on their FTP site). They don't launch campaigns to embrace-and-extend Debian and Gentoo into existence. They don't charge K-12 schools assloads of money for site licenses and threaten to audit them if they don't pay up.
Red Hat's freely available, easy-to-use software is what enabled me to learn how to program. I'd always been interested in programming, but didn't know where to start and could never afford Windows compilers. Red Hat 5.0 provided an easy-to-use (by 1998 standards!) introduction to UNIX and Perl which ultimately led me to switch my major to CS. I know Debian is freely available, but try doing an FTP install over the phone line. I've since abandoned Red Hat in favor of Gentoo, but it's my experience with Red Hat that gave me the technical proficiency to install and manage Gentoo and, most importantly, to realize that Gentoo suits my needs better than Red Hat in the first place.
As much as I disagree with some of the design decisions that Red Hat has made, I think that their distribution is a fine product. I think RPM can be overkill for the casual user, but if you're an admin for a sizeable institution (I'm not, but I used to work for someone who was), and you've got Linux boxes scattered all over the place, Red Hat's package management is a good way to keep things syncronized. If I ever end up as a sysadmin in a similar situation, I'd very likely deploy Red Hat, just as they did.
Red Hat isn't perfect and it's totally legitimate to blame them when they do something that you think is dumb. But they aren't nearly as bad as Microsoft.
Steve