Red Hat 8.0 Released

I_am_Rambi writes "RedHat has released their latest OS, 8.0. Here is Red Hat's ftp site for download and some mirrors. If you need help there's a Howto." Jeet81 adds: "Red Hat is out with a new release, Red Hat 8.0. Looks like Red Hat is moving towards the windows XP style using its new Bluecurve graphical interface (the new default email client 'Ximian Evolution' looks a lot like MS Outlook)." So what's the verdict on Null or Bluecurve or whatever it's called? Good idea, bad idea?

Comments

Better List of Mirrors

[sheckard]

Here is a list of mirrors known to have RH 8.0 ready:

http://freshrpms.net/mirrors/psyche.html

Get it right

[browser_war_pow]

Null was the beta, bluecurve is the new theme

Yay...

[Coplan]

The interface isn't nearly as hacked as people think it is. I think Redhat took a step in the right direction. As much as some geeks might flame that, I think its necessary for the community.

Realistically though, they didn't hack both Gnome and KDE together, they just sorta made them "LOOK" similar. This is essential, as some people use both KDE and Gnome programs regardless of which interface they use.

It's worth a try for you redhat and mandrake users. Debian and Slackware users will probably dislike what they've done.

null or bluecurve

[sethadam1]

I cannot even believe this is Slashdot anymore!

- The release is called Psyche.
- The final beta was called (null), with parens, not "null."
- The default theme, authored by Red Hat, is called Blue Curve. Blue Curve is offered in both Red Hat stock KDE 3 or Gnome 2.
- The release date was 9-30. Is this is a news site or what?

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Upgrading from 7.3 status

[mgkimsal2]

I had a stock RH7.3 install, which I'd then changed a bit visually (new KDE themes, etc). I upgraded to RH8 yesterday. The 'bluecurve' didn't come up, although it was an available theme in the KDE theme area. Overall, after the 'upgrade', everything seemed exactly as it was before. Couple things seemed faster, but nothing significant had changed (didn't check Apache, and apparently it's gone to 2.0, so that probably wouldn't have worked).

Anyway, I had to completely remove my .kde directory, then restarting brought up everything 'new', and it looks nice. Not earth shattering, but nice. We've played around with it here, going between KDE and Gnome, and they do look very similar. Menus are the same, colors, etc. Fonts seemed a bit different between the two (Gnome fonts appeared a bit smaller) but otherwise it was fine. Not impossible to tell which you're using, but it's not a jarring experience going between the two.

The menu now has just one option for many things - 'project manager', 'web browser', 'email', etc. and I do think some things are grouped more logically than others. It also seems that you still get WAY too much *in the menus* which isn't useful for most people - it just overwhelms you when you're trying to find stuff. I'd suggest making a 'default' menu with fewer things, with the option of clicking a 'sysadmin menu' checkbox somewhere to add sysadmin stuff if/when it's needed.

Finally, many things seem faster - I'm assuming this is because of the new GCC and some kernel scheduling stuff. Whatever it is, it's made a big difference on this box. I'm testing at home tonight as well and expect similar performance increases.

All in all, a good upgrade.

Free version is non-distributable

[Beautyon]

From the LBC-announce mailing list:

"I've been getting a number of enquiries about when we'll have a cheap
version of Red Hat Linux 8.0.

Unfortunately, Red Hat have moved the goal posts again. In a surprising
move they've completely broken with their previous policy of 100% open
source. The new distribution contains a few components which are (C)
Red Hat and are *not* freely re-distributable. This has produced
surprisingly little comment but the effect is that it's no longer
possible to re-distribute copies of the standard download version of Red
Hat Linux. For the company that has up to now been the champion of Open
Source, it's a major direction change.

It's not all bad news though. The problem components are in identified
packages and Red Hat have said it's fine to re-distribute as long as
they are first removed. I therefore hope that we will be able to do a
Threads Linux 8.0. It will no longer be exactly the same as Red Hat,
although it will be functionally identical.

Cheers,
John"
-- The Linux Emporium - the source for Linux in the UK
See http://www.linuxemporium.co.uk/

Re:Free version is non-distributable

[Majix]

Unfortunately, Red Hat have moved the goal posts again. In a surprising
move they've completely broken with their previous policy of 100% open
source. The new distribution contains a few components which are (C)
Red Hat and are *not* freely re-distributable.

Every piece of software in the distribution is of course copyrighted to someone. That has absolutely no implications for whether you can redistribute it or not. If you thought GPL'ing the software somehows means giving up your copyright I suggest you reread the license.

Now I admit I haven't checked all of the packages, but I did check the most obvious ones, redhat-artwork etc. They are all under the GPL.

If there are indeed packages that can not be redistributed I sure would like to know the names of them.

RH8... the good, the bad, the ugly....

[JeffVolc]

I downloaded the 3 ISOs on monday and installed Redhat 8 on my laptop and home server server yesterday. FWIW, I installed Mandrake 9 on my laptop and home workstation on monday to see how it will compare to RH8.

The Good...
Very polished... no really... VERY POLISHED! Way impressed. The new theme is nice. Yes some stuff is moved around... so what. No technical hitches at all. Everything was detected great.

The Bad...
2.4.18... what's up with that. I guess it's been in testing too long. Actually, for a X.0 release things look pretty good.

The Ugly...
Apache 2.0+PHP.... none of my PHP stuff seems to work. This was mounted straight from my 7.3 install. Some real ugly errors.

The verdict....
Apache 2.0+PHP problem is a show stopper for me. Wiped the machine and installed Mandrake 9.0. Sad since 8 is very slick. Hats off (pun intended) to Redhat for a great release. I may come back to it if I can get the PHP stuff resolved.

Mandrake 9 comments: I've had issues with stability in previous Mandrake releases. So far I haven't had one with 9. I like the autologin and tv card setup. It almost setup my dual monitor... jsut a little tweaking. Mandrake SEEMS faster and more responsive than Redhat. Haven't benchmarked though so it's just an impression. This could be the release which makes me a Mandrake Convert... and I've been using Redhat since 3.0.3! Only extra package I needed was mtx for my tape library (Redhat includes it).

Jeff

Re:RH8... the good, the bad, the ugly....

[abdulwahid]

All recent version of PHP have deprecated the REGISTER_GLOBALS option (and good riddance!). This is most likely what is causing your problems, poorly written scripts will no longer run on recent PHP's.

They haven't got rid of REGISTER_GLOBALS rather they have just made the default to be off. That is of course a good thing as they can often cause drastic security risks by people passing variables to your script and causing behaviour you didn't expect. For now you could re-enable it but I wouldn't recommend leaving it that way. Fix your scripts and then leave it off.

A users perspective of Red Hat 8 and KDE

[Nailer]

Most people have heard a lot on this topic, but mostly from people who haven't actually used 8.0 or Null. In fact, a good deal of the information that has been touted about the web is provably false. Some of the changes have had negative side effects that are in bugzilla, but, in my opinion as a KDE user, overall they've increased the usability of Linux desktops.

I've written a fairly comprehensive summary of what exactly Red Hat have modified about their KDE setup, and what I believe to be the rationale behind those changes. If you've read it before, it might eb worth a visit as I've made a few correctiosn and additiosn since then.

Cheers,

Mike

Re:Redhat-logos

[alue]

You're right about this one, apparently: the redhat-logos package, and additionally the anaconda-images package, are licensed under something red hat wrote rather than the gpl:

$ rpm -qi redhat-logos
Name : redhat-logos
. . .
License: Copyright ? 1999-2002 Red Hat, Inc. All rights reserved.
. . .

These packages include a file on copying. Here's a n excerpt from that file:


The redhat-logos package and the anaconda-images package (the "Packages")
contain image files which incorporate the RED HAT trademark, Red Hat
"Shadow Man" logo and the RPM logo (the "Marks"). RED HAT, the Red Hat
"Shadow Man" logo, RPM, and the RPM logo are trademarks or registered
trademarks of Red Hat, Inc. in the United States and other
countries.

Red Hat, Inc. grants you the right to use the Packages during the
normal operation of other software programs that call upon the
Packages. Red Hat, Inc. grants to you the right and license to copy
and redistribute the unaltered Packages, but only in conjunction with
copying or redistributing additional software packages that call upon
the Packages during the normal course of operation and only in
non-commercial distributions permitted under Red Hat's trademark
guidelines found at www.redhat.com/about/trademark_guidelines.html
or under a separate written license agreement from Red Hat. Red Hat,
Inc. grants to you the right and license to copy and redistribute the
Packages in commercial distributions without additional license or
permission, but only in conjunction with copying or redistributing
additional software packages that call upon the Packages during the
normal course of operation and only when all of the Marks have been
removed or replaced within the Packages.


So this is all about the Shadow Man and RPM logos. According to the license, you can still redistribute red hat in its entirety, provided you don't make any money off of the redistribution. If you do want to redistribute Red Hat in a commercial fashion, however, you're permitted to do so "only when all of the Marks have been removed or replaced within the Packages."

Looks like a good compromise to me.

Re:Look like windows?

[Deagol]

the ability to browse SMB shares would be a must

Launch Konqueror. Type in the URL: "smb://smbserver/share".