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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?
April 1. April Fools!
Just trying to keep up with Slackware.
"Are you running Linux 9 yet?"
"I'll say it again for the logic-impaired." -- Larry Wall.
9 instead of 8.1?
Could this be an early April Fool's joke?
Anyone know if this is using 2.4.20 or still 2.4.18 (like in 8.0)? I didn't see a link to what versions are included or what the major differences are.
Thanks,
Adam
Anyone know if they'll release DVD ISOs? I think for previous versions you had to be a member or whatever.
It would be kinda nice to download just about every package and put it on one DVD.
WWJD.... for a Klondike bar?
And to think, I'm still waiting for Ximian to release it's version of Gnome for RedHat 8.0.
then 10.2 and 10.3 in June
The cult of Linux strikes again, in that case. Paying for advance release of this is a scam.
I really hope that Red Hat drops the Unified desktop for RH 9.
what is the point of using another window manager, if the interface is **EXACTLY** the same. This doesn't even consider the quality of their interface, which is ok.
They also offer 0 customization on their interface, which is really annoying.
For now at least, I will stick SSHing into my PS2, and then using everything in text mode.
If I have nothing to hide, don't search me
So far, point releases have had useful enhancements, while major releases have redone everything and made life miserable. (e.g. using xinetd and broken a gcc in 7.0, metacity stubbornly by default in 8.0)
Hopefully this is just a marketing decision.
I suppose that higher numbers are better from the perspective of new users comparing products, although the race ahead didn't seem to do Mandrake enough good.
A day shy of April 1 is kind of fishy, though.
Lastly, imagine the chaos that will reign when Redhat releases Red Hat 10.
Yes, it will be "ten", as in the same version as the Apple OS X, also a UNIX.
Oh, but "X" is the windowing system for UNIX, you know, "eks eleven", which is much better than "X10", the same as the clunky old protocol for handling devices around your house. Not Windows, but "X Windows"...
It'll be like "Who's on First" all over again...
"Provided by the management for your protection."
So essentially Red Hat upgrades from 8 to 9 in ~6 months. No wonder no one wants to write general-release commerical apps for Linux .. by the time they develop & test their product, the distro essentially discontinues the release & doesn't support it. At this rate, I don't think we will ever convince developers of some great software (Adobe, Macromedia, etc) to port to Linux. Way too much support-related cost involved.
But I'm sure that there are some really excellent features packed into 9 to make it worth being a full version upgrade and not a point upgrade (uhh.. not)
It's been pointed out on the beta list that 7.0 was just called 7 when it came out. That didn't stop a 7.[123] from appearing later.
It's all very well RedHat playing "keeping up with the Jones'" with Slackware and Mandrake, but what about those of us who have spent our hard-earned money on a not-so-cheap certification that will now be rendered expired because of this jump to 9.0?
I got my RHCE less than a year ago, at RH7.2. It was stated that RHCE's are valid for two releases - ie when 9.0 came about, I have to recertify.
Was I wrong to expect that since it took two years to go from 7.0 to 8.0, I might actually have been able to hold onto my certification for more than one year!?
I've always thought that versioning should be more related to features & point releases than anything external, like "marketing".
I see a few reasons for the "9" over 8.1
I'd really like to see a list of "new features" so I can decide for myself. :)
Since it's free software, couldn't an RHN member technically just leak it without consequence?
evil adrian
Umm I have seen that break more servers than a Linux upgrade ever did..
Back in my day, we were able to count version numbers with a single hand, because most of us had lost the other one fighting bears and snowmen!
"5... 4... 3.. 1... OFFBLAST!"
people are retarded and must have the newest version number, or the fastest clockspeed - even if that doesn't necessarily denote "better"
I would have thought that the linux crowd would be smart enough to be above that... which isn't to say that they aren't - perhaps it is the sales and marketing people at redhat that are retarded here.
They should just step it up to 34 and show their customers that all the others suck.
(of course nothing should ever go past version 42)
There are some odd things afoot now, in the Villa Straylight.
In related news, I'm changing my job title to Systems Analyst 2.0, to better highlight new features and capabilities. Of course, biweekly licensing fees will be readjusted to reflect this enhanced functionality...
Stop by my site where I write about ERP systems & more
I submitted a story on this prior to this one, but the gyst is this: Due to this move, anyone who wants to use RHN still will have 3 options:
install RH9 on their systems, overwriting whatever OS was there. Problems: long downtime to install OS then re-set everything up, depending on a X.0 release for everything
"upgrade" current systems to RH9. In my experience, longer downtime than just doing a clean install - things break, get annoying, etc.
hack their systems to look, act, and talk like RH9 systems tothe RHN update software, so you can still update them through RHN
personally, I think I'll just let this year be the last year I'm subscribed to RHN, then either get my updates from someone else (redcarpet?) or I'll just mirror the ftp://updates.redhat.com server locally and run my own service. I don't see any of those 3 above options working for me. Has RedHat gone insane? Do they not realize people count on linux in an enterprise environment, where anything beyond a few minutes downtime is very bad??
YellowDog offer early ISO's to people who pay as well, I guess it's a result of the fact that people mostly download GNU/Linux distros these days?
Check out MKDoc a mod_perl CMS
Historically, RedHat has always guaranteed that all .x releases will be binary compatible with their major number. However, I don't recall any major changes with gcc & glibc. Is there some other change that would make this release not be binary compatible with RH8?
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Now we have to bump all the variants up one major number...
I really think we could have seen kernel 2.6 before a 9.0 came out, or, at least readiness for it.
Anyone know if RH 9.0 will have the required tools already there for 2.[56].xx?
Compared to war, all other forms of human endeavor shrink to insignificance. God, how I love it. - Gen. George Patton
Agreed. I've been using 7.2 since shortly after it was released, and am still using it for all new server deployments. This may change very, very shortly, however, as RedHat insists on droppping support for anything before 8.0 within a year. *sigh*
7.2 may be old, but it's Rock-Solid-Stable(TM)
-- Minds are like parachutes... they work best when open.
I still think 7.3 is new.
It's not?! I just spent all day downloading the ISOs, damnit! I guess that's what I get for using in-span.net as a mirror....
moto411.com
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
And release it as 9.1 without a 9.0. IBM does that with DB2, because apparently point-oh releases scare people away. It seems to me that version numbers for most things don't mean anything anymore. If you're going to just make up a number that sounds good to customers, then just name the release instead.
yet somehow I was able to compile and run apache 1.3.27 and 2.0.44 on a RedHat 8.0 system..... /me yawns..
just more fud from the Anonymous Coward.. man.. that bastard posts alot..
After being a loyal Redhat user since 1997 (When I switched from Slackware), I am probably going to move on to SUSE, or Debian, based on RH's crappy implementation of KDE. I am not going to pay good money ( Yes, I usually buy the box set) for a distro that does not include an up to date, correct implementation of KDE. And don't get me started on Apt get vs. RPM.
Greg
Um, I wouldn't call selling a legitimate product a scam. You seem to believe that Redhat is obligated to provide ISO's for you free. Why?
-BrentOk, they change the major version when the API changes. Fair enough. But 8 wasn't ready for prime time and I'll bet 9 won't be either if it has enough low level changes to require a new major. Will a new stable version ship before 7.3 goes unsupported on Dec 31? Perhaps, but it sure won't leave much time to test and deploy.
If they are going to pitch themselves as "Commercial Linux" they really need to act like it. And no, their "Enterprise" offerings are only going to be applicable to a very small customer base, the ones who would be buying Solaris or HP-UX; i.e. Enterprise computing applications. not the computing lab or departmental server market. If they are departing the small/medium/education markets I really wish they would announce that so we could be putting energy into investigating alternatives NOW instead of when the crunch hits Dec 31.
Democrat delenda est
Red Hat, is that a brand of condoms?
--Drunk as in Beer
Just go to -1. Any geek will know it's the ultimate version number, then you can only wrap around.
*Just* after I get my video drivers (NVIDIA), mouse (Logitech) and soundcard drivers (SB Live)all up and running.
I'm running RH8.0 ATM, and am a big newb to linux. I am wondering what one needs to do after an 'upgrade' install when they have previous drivers/settings already installed/setup:
Does the 'upgrade' ape all my settings?
I have read here that I will need to wait for new NVidia drivers to come out, then go through the hassle of figuring out how to install these. I'm guessing I need to uninstall my 'old' drivers (as per nvidia's readme) *before* I would install the new ones?
My Logitech mouse just needed a bit of tweaking to get working in X, in XF86Config. Will this setting be gone?
I *just* finished figuring out how to compile/install/blah some drivers (http://opensource.creative.com) for my SB Live! 5.1 Platinum. Will these needed to be uninstalled before I 'upgrade'? Or perhaps removed and reinstalled *after* the 'upgrade'?
Hope someone can answer these, and lend a calming hand. Thanks!
Great timing, i *just* switched over my kde to kde3.1 via apt-get. I'm not really sure how I feel about redhat's odd way of grabbing their revenue stream. I do like the fact that they have a slew of people paid working on the code but the up2date thing makes me really unhappy. I'm very close to making a redhat wrapper (in the same way that mandrake was a redhat wrapper at some point) that is basically redhat/rpm compatibility based but w/out some of the annoying revenue stream add-ons. The obvious one is that is officially moving redhat over to apt Right now there are only a few redhat apt-mirrors, but I would be more than willing to host a mirror and it will easily allow us and anyone else to keep the security updates at least "up2date" w/out paying per year per node. The other thing to look at is synaptic which is also a really nice gui for apt as well and puts what i've always liked about debian on the redhat platform.
:)
,synaptic and having a slew of decent apt-mirror sites would be an obvious and simple fix
Also redhat doesn't seem to be doing very well w/ kde. I am not sure whether it is because kde3.0 was really buggy or something happened w/ the 7.3->8.0 transition but I wouldn't mind a redhat that was "un-unified." At the very least, a kde/konqueror that was usable then, since many people think the unified thing is a good thing
Anyway maybe talking to a few people and seeing if it would be possible to collect a cd of non-gpl but "open" developer software (Kylix 3, intel compilers 6.0 (kind of a weird license)) would also be nice addons.
At the very least I think defaulting/forking redhat to include apt
the security updating issue w/ the current incarnation of redhat. Its also I think obvious that redhat will never release the up2date server source and have obvious reasons for not incorporating apt into the offical distribution so it may require the redhat' wrapper trick to get apt in there.
In any case, i'm curious as to what you guys think, one the one hand i think its a bit "assholish" as it deprives them of one of their obvious revenue streams, on the other hand I think for those of us who run clusters or whatnot or even want to auto-redistribute custom software onto our own nodes having access to the equivalent of our own up2date software (which apt is a better version of to be honest) is a reasonable task, and furthermore wrapping around redhat (like mandrake did) is somewhat what open source is all about as well, especially as redhat and redhat-compatible rpms/source(i.e. ati/nvidia/vmware drivers) is a bit ubiquitous.
-bloosqr
I bought Redhat 8.0 a few weeks ago (it had been out for some time before that, of course) and have been pretty impressed with the completeness of the package and the work they have done on adding some consistency to the configuration apps bundled.
However, I can't really see what Redhat are going to put in this release to justify a +1 version upgrade.
I agree with other posters that frequent version changes will threaten the release of 'industry standard' apps on the RH Linux platform, and as such Linux in general because of the perceived volatility of the environment.
However, strong sales of 8.0 might have given Redhat the impression that consumers look favourably on 'integer' releases, when really I think 8's popularity was almost entirely due to the well-publicised 'out of the box' antialiased fonts and UI work. If it was called 7.4 it would still have been very popular for these reasons.
It would be nice to see Redhat give a clear rationale behind it's numbering scheme and clear up the confusion that obviously reigns in this area.
I gots ta ding a ding dang my dang a long ling long
Folks, this is getting silly... Next time, RH2000, RH2003, RH2009...
It just really seems like redhat is trying to become the next M$. Obviously in a few months they're going to end free updates, and now this crap. So basically now we're going to have reinstall redhat every couple of months to stay up to date, becuase they're no longer going to to update their products that are a year old, and it seems that with every release they are going to break binary compatitbility. Please, someone point me in a sane direction for a good easy to update linux distro. I really can't decided what I want to run. I was thinking redhat 8.1, but I'm not sure if I want to deal with them much longer. I may give debian another shot, and hmmmmm FreeBSD 4.8 supposed to come out today....very tempting. I want to hear from people, what are you running, what do you like. Please help me out! P.S. I'm not afraid of the command line and a ports system would be very nice.
Redhat seem to have forgotten that many people won't use a *.0 release...now I've got to wait till October to upgrade my 7.3 box :(
/. , but you guys kind of terminally pissed him off):
Also, many commerical apps - for instance Franz's Allegro CL, which I use all day - won't support 9.0 for a while (they've just got around to supporting 8.0 this month).
Doing this to be at the same number as Slack??? Why not just switch to a sideways 8 and be done with that lame sort of one-upmanship already?(yeah, you're right - Volkerding would release "Slackware Infinity plus 2" - so then you'd release "Redhat Infinity plus Infinity").
Finally, a note to the RH people reading (bero-RH used to respond to all of my posts here on
WTF is up with Metacity?
You put a window manager on your distro that doesn't even have a webpage? Many of us loyal RH users had gotten quite used to Sawfish. So used to it, in fact, that I had used GIMP to create many of my own themes.
So I was unpleasantly surprised, upon installing 8.0, to find that you guys had once again skipped a version number. What were you thinking? Didn't you you guys learn anything from the gcc-2.96 fiasco? (read the very bottom of the page). With 8.0 you've done it again - SF's sourceforge site has the most recent version at 1.2, yet somehow something named sawfish-2.0 made it into your distro. I frankly wouldn't care if your "2.0" worked; but whatever genius in NC decided to "upgrade" it forgot to also upgrade the sawfish-themer. The problem is that you also changed your entire font structure, so that SF2 barfed at my TTF bankgothic fonts. And then I had no themer to change it. Editing theme.jl by hand is a pain.
Now don't get me wrong. Metacity is a great WM. The fact that it uses XML is quite cool. And Havoc is a great programmer. But the fact that you switched WM's on us, and switched to essentially a wholly undocumented WM (there are pages now but none at release and really few for the first few months) is unacceptable.
Now I've kind of gone off on a tangent here, but I'm using a simple example to illustrate a very important point: Whomever is making the UI decisions at RH needs to stop it. I submit to you that some software companies do this thing called research - they find out what their users are using, and then make their products acceptable to them. Yeah, I know, I'm one of few people who customizes his own saw themes. So at this point I will also remind you that with 8.0 you took the terminal icon off of the desktop and the menubar and hid it 3 or 4 levels deep in the menu.
And a litany of other things - my point is that each release should have me sighing relaxing sighs of "Oh, this is nice," but instead every April and October I find myself feeling ever more uncomfortable and having to re-learn your entire distro. And don't tell me this is "innovation" - I know progress when I see it, and this isn't it.
On a better note, for the day or two that I did use 8.0, the fonts were beautiful - if you guys can hurry up and create an upgrade that I can live with, I'll love you for it.
I remember when I first started reading Slashdot. I thought that Anonymous Coward was a jerk that had too much time on his hands. Boy do I feel naive.
I make a reasonable middle-class wage by going to work and not spamming blogs with scams.
I hope they get a stable & mature 9.x release out by the end of the year, like 9.1 or 9.2, before the EOL cycle for 7.x systems.
My 7.3 system is pretty mature. Moving from a well-patched x.3 system to a immature x.0 system seems like a potential can of worms.
"Can of worms? The can is open... the worms are everywhere."
This means that, going by the "never use a .0 RH convention", the latest stable release will still be 7.3.
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
Well another nail in the coffin.
RH8 has an EOL of 12/31/03 and this new version will give me an EOL of 03/31/04. I got several clients running RH 7&8 that I was looking at moving off to other distros or I upgrade NOW to RH9 and delay the next "forced" upgrade for 3 months. This is not going to encourage me to stay with RH. We need longer EOL times.
Slashdot, home of supporters of free software, free music, and free speech.Except for Moderators that disagree with you.
My RH 9 beta has a grub configuration util, it is located in /bin/vi
What it means is, starting with RH9, you have 12 months of errata. You'll be able to use RH9 until March 31st, 2004, a year after release.
This *is* inconvenient, because it means, at minimum, taking a machine down to kickstart it every year. THAT is annoying as hell, especially since you aren't going to deploy RH9 site-wide for at least 2-3 months (shortening the releases "lifetime" by 3 months).
I thought this was a huge problem until I looked at their ES level enterprise solution. Since enterprise entitlements are $120 anway, paying $230 for an OS that doesn't expire for 3-5 years seems perfectly reasonable.
If your systems are mission-critical enough to NEED to be left stable for *years*, then going with Advanced Server makes more sense than any other distro - they stabalize the platform for 18 months between releases, minimizing your QA and upgrade time significantly.
redhat laboratories releases linux9 advanced server pro champion edition(tm)
redhat laboratories has announced today the future release of 'linux9 advanced server pro champion edition(tm)'. redhat scientists have announced that this will be the most numerically advanced version of linux ever sold. by abandoning older 8.x technology (found on previous releases), redhat has been able to accelerate the versioning capabilities of linux by nearly 10 percent.
numerically advanced versioning technology is an important step in bringing redhat to the enterprise. many enterprise customers, who run high-availability servers on big iron hardware, demand the stability and maturity that can only come from numerically advanced version numbers. moving to linux9 puts redhat in direct competition with sun microsystems' (SUNW) solaris operating system, which has been sporting version 9 release enumeration for over a year.
in other news, redhat has announced that linux9 advanced server pro champion edition(tm) will be distributed in a six dvd set, that includes 2 dvd's containing the basic distribution, and 4 dvd's of pre-compiled packages. additional dvd's supporting non-x86 architectures may also be available for purchase.
I'm not exactly sure how that relates to the Red Hat Network (which has pretty much become the "pay for timely upgrades to our free operating system" club), but I felt it was worth saying.
perl -e 'print $i=pack(c5, (41*2), sqrt(7056), (unpack(c,H)-2), oct(115), 10)'
BSD systems make great servers, but they make only so-so desktop systems. Most disgruntled RH users are better off trying Mandrake.
I am not overly pleased about this. The changes from 7.2 to 8.0 were not overly significant in my opinion, and 9.0 isn't going to be that different from 8.0. How could it be? There has not been enough time between them for major kernel changes or radical security modelling to alter, etc.
Click here or here.
You may want to take a look at Gentoo (www.gentoo.org). Fully customized and has a freebsd-like ports system.
I wonder if RH will have something to say about Office Depot's new policy. The linked site gives a list of retailers that will carry RH9 on April 7th. However according to this article, OD will be doing away with anything computer related not stamped "Windows XP Certified". ---- snip ---- Get your copy of Red Hat Linux 9. Beginning April 7, 2003 at the: redhat.com store Or these retail locations: * Best Buy * CompUSA * Fry's Electronics * Microcenter * Staples * Office Depot ---/snip---
Enterprise Service Entitlement 10 $96/yr
Basic Service Entitlement 0 $60/yr
Red Hat Enterprise Linux AS Developer Edition n/a $60/yr
Red Hat Enterprise Linux WS Basic Edition n/a $179/yr
Red Hat Enterprise Linux ES Basic Edition n/a $349/yr
Note that if you have a bunch of servers at 7.2/7.3, not only do you have to have them offline for many hours each for the update/install process, you have to go from paying $60/96 a year, to paying $349 a year (yes, I called them to verify the $349 was the only option for ES to be on the RHN).
MY GOD. I asked what the option was to get just updates - there is none. You have to get support. I don't want support. Note that the $349 only covers installation and hardware support anyway, so...in subsequent years, its useless (cause what the hell hardware support are they going to give, esp beyond installation?).
Having RHN costs jump from 3.5-6 times as much as current, with no added value...that's a problem. Does M$ charge $349 a year to download updates? Nope. Note that its still the same set of tools, same everything. Redhat isn't reinventing the wheel here, they're just putting it in a different box.
Again, I'll just probably set up my own update server, or move to another service. Its just odd to be forced to do that.
Please don't start comparing RedHat to Microsoft... There are some truths that can clear up a lot of these misconceptions...
1) RedHat releasing this as a major version number is consistent with their numbering schemes in the past and is likely not a marketing plot. RedHat does major number versioning when binary compatibility is broken between versions. The Native POSIX Thread Libraries used in the latest beta Phoebe broke binary compatibility with a lot of applications. Thus, a new major number is warranted.
2) RedHat has an interesting challenge in that it must balance the "release early, release often" philosophy to satisfy those of us who like having cutting edge distros with the need for corporations to have some longevity in their releases. RedHat has found a good balance here. These consumer releases are going to continue to be released every six months to satisfy those who want its raw power. They will continue to be free, and RHN update services will continue to be free (though recently they've asked for about ten seconds of your time to complete a five question marketing survey). These six-month releases will continue to have same QA process as always. RedHat is willing to continue to invest so much into these freely downloadable versions because the feedback they get from them helps them work on the slower release versions. Redhat has said this more than once during a recent thread on the phoebe list.
Please don't start villifying RedHat. They do a lot of good for the whole Linux community, pay many of the best developers of our favorite projects, and give Linux a wider acceptance in the RealWorld (tm) which helps all of us.
-jag
http://starboard.flowtheory.net/
did anyone else notice the sender and reply-to addresses? they're both dev-null@rhn.redhat.com whereas normal redhat emails are from rhn-admin.
early april's fool?
Yes, the next major release of Red Hat Linux will be Red Hat 9, but:
Something that nobody so far has picked up on, is that this is just the start of an entirely new versioning scheme. Red Hat's operating systems manager, Matt Wilson, has suggested that the release following 9 may not be 9.1 or 10, but rather something entirely different. This makes sense in the light of Red Hat's recent announcement of its Enterprise range. I guess Red Hat Linux may no longer exist in its current form, but rather branch into Red Hat Linux Enterprise and Red Hat Linux Personal, with a new version numbering scheme to boot, maybe starting again at 1, or maybe even based on the year it was released in.
And it's shit like this that undermines companies like Red Hat, Mandrake, and other open-source companies.
Red Hat Network & the Mandrake Club, etc., exist so the people who are willing to *PAY A PREMIUM* receive better or more prioritized service.
There are so many reasons this is wrong. By freeloading off of RHN, you're effectively telling Red Hat "Hey, we're not willing to pay for a product that you've spent time and money on. Since it's GPL, we're gonna get it for free anyway."
Red Hat spends time and money improving Linux, and sharing with the community. Whether or not you use their distro, like their politics, or whatnot, "Red Hat Linux" is pretty much what most people who've HEARD the word Linux think of.
By stealing the link and posting it to Freenet, you're cheating the people who paid a premium for early access.
Look at it this way: Just how much would you giggle if you placed an order and put down a deposit for a new Harley Davidson (Ferrari, Hummer, what the fuck ever), and someone was able to get their bike before you, without paying a deposit, because their buddy works for the dealership - making your wait longer?
Sorry to jump all over your ass, but Open Source companies NEED people willing and able to pay a premium to receive premium service. It improves public perception and a company's willingness to stay in business.
Freenet doesn't keep developers in Mountain Dew.
"If there's hope, it lies in the proles..."