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Red Hat 9 To Be Released March 31
Garfunkel writes "Looks like Red Hat is breaking tradition and skipping 8.1 and 8.2 and jumping directly to 9.0 RHN subscribers
get it a week ahead on March 31st. Available to the rest the world a week
later (April 7)." The website refers to the upcoming release simply as "9" -- which doesn't rule out future point releases, but could it be?
Phoebe (8.0.94) has 2.4.20 (too many versions!!!)... it includes the O(1) scheduler and some latency patches... the desktop is really quite snappy (X 4.3 will be included, Phoebe is working off a pre-4.3 snapshot). I hope 9 includes Nautilus 2.2.2 because the GNOME team added some speed increases there too.
Anyways, the nVidia drivers (the kernel module component) needs some changes to be able to run on the beta (they're available, but not from nvidia directly), but I suspect nVidia will have this released shortly after RH9. Additionally, some third-party stuff will have to be relinked, because of thread local storage stuff and the new NTPL -- Redhat backported a lot of stuff from the 2.5 series. Hence the 9.0 release (IMHO) since an 8.1 release would seem to imply that it's relatively backwards-compatible. It seems there are too many low-level interface changes to justify a point release.
Some drivers are already ready for the 2.5 kernel (as ready as you can get for software-in-progress), so you just need to hack the version numbers a little bit to get it to compile properly -- for example, the PowerVR drivers. Specifically, the VM API has changed quite a bit, so when RH backported these changes, they got the new API as well.
The beta looks really nice though, especially with GNOME 2.2. And CD burning is integrated in Nautilus (drag-and-drop, then click the burn icon, and it writes it to disc). Very nice stuff is on its way...
I've been using the beta version of this for a month now. Phoebe is the name of the beta if anyone is interested in seeing what might be changed as of the last update.
My impressions as a person who uses this as a desktop at home and is normally a Mandrake kind of user:
It is a very easy to use and install and stable distro. I don't like that they include almost no configuration tools. To make it a good desktop distro I had to download a lot of extra rpms because the cd's with the distro are packed with server/workstation rpms. Also, though not RedHat's fault, NVidia's glx driver doesn't work properly with the new kernel and some weird dis-optimizations to the code have to be done in order for it to work (as of mid Feb; haven't checked lately). This is an issue with all 2.5 and 2.4.20 and above kernels, IIRC.
It is very similar to 8.0 (but they might have changed some things in the last month). The biggest gripe I have is that they use GRUB as the bootloader, but have no configuration utility for it. I'm a LILO person, but I thought I'd install GRUB to see if it was better. The man pages weren't very helpful and RedHat includes nothing to help, either. I went back to LILO, but since RH has no priority for it, there was no graphical options for LILO, just text.
It works for what it is supposed to work for: servers and workstations. As a desktop user that wants to have a simple and easy distro, I switched to Mandrake 9.1 rc1.
IANAL, but I play one on
You bring up an excellent point - and you're along the right track. If we examine the features of Red Hat Linux 8.0.9x (Phoebe beta), we notice that several things have been added to the OS that will set it apart from previous releases. You can find the changes (so far) to Red Hat Linux 9.0 in the release notes of Phoebe:
o s/ i386/RELEASE-NOTES
g i? id=86498o w_bug.cgi? id=86465o w_bug.cgi? id=86449
http://rpmfind.net/linux/redhat/beta/phoebe/en/
I think the two major updates that will definitely warrant a few "major" number upgrade will be the following:
1) glibc update from the 2.2 development branch to the 2.3 branch; the major feature would be the addition of the NPTL (Native POSIX Thread Library).
The release notes cite that legacy (LinuxThreads) applications will work with NPTL if and only if they conform to the POSIX standard.
2) The new and improved XFree86 4.3 (usability, eye-candy, performance, drivers, et al.).
3) Extended attributes (EA) and access control lists (ACL) finally come to Red Hat's distribution - giving per-file control par with NT and other OSes that have already had EA and ACL.
4) The inclusion of Gnome 2.2 fine tunes Gnome 2.0 to a better degree.
So far, the glibc update (which seems to branch off the glibc that is shipping with Red Hat Linux 9.0) that was given to Red Hat Linux 8.0 users seems to be wreaking havoc with regards to threads implementations; a few examples:
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla/show_bug.c
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla/sh
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla/sh
It should be noted that Red Hat has been extraordinarly adept with the inclusion of compatibility packages to allow legacy applications to continue working with their newest offering.
Ayup
Subject: Red Hat Linux 9 | Get the latest Linux early
Dear Dirk:
You may know that Red Hat Network is the best way to keep your
systems running the latest errata and always up to date. What you
might not know is that Red Hat Network passed the one million users
mark earlier this year. We've listened to valuable feedback and have
added two items of interest to keep those users happy - early release
of Red Hat Linux 9 ISOs and improved technical support.
Beginning March 31, 2003, paid subscribers to Red Hat Network will
have access to Red Hat Linux 9 ISOs - a full week before retail store
and Red Hat FTP availability. Also, Red Hat Network subscribers will
receive dedicated Red Hat Network Technical Support.
Learn more about the benefits of being a Red Hat Network Subscriber:
http://redhat.chtah.com/
To purchase a Red Hat Network subscription:
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Thanks again for using Red Hat Linux. We appreciate all feedback
from our users and hope you enjoy Red Hat Linux 9.
Sincerely,
Red Hat
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