Snag the Red Hat 9 ISOs, via Cash or BitTorrent

Red Hat Linux 9 is out, and as of today the ISOs are officially available to Red Hat Network subscribers ($60/yr). Or, as of right now, you can grab the same ISOs using BitTorrent. For those unfamiliar with this free/Free P2P download protocol, an introduction follows, written by ololiuhqui. Update: 03/31 23:45 GMT by J : After roughly four hours, BitTorrent has transferred over 500 full copies of all 3 ISOs, and a total of over 1.5 TB, at 170 Mbytes/sec. Thanks to the more than 3000 people who helped each other download the data, and especially to the more than 200 who got full copies and still have their clients open, to keep serving data to everyone else :)

Tectonic Rumblings

Every so often a new tool comes along that causes a shift from Bronze to Iron, that divides history into "before" and "after." The peer-to-peer world has certainly seen its share. Those who used 486s to encode and play MP3s remember it wasn't just abysmal modem speeds that kept people from casual trading, but the tiresome process of finding users and content; Napster freed us from that bondage, letting the computer do the heavy lifting and freeing people to do what they do best.

When the weaknesses began to show in Napster's overly centralized model, Gnutella stepped in with a distributed, decentralized network. Audiogalaxy gave us astounding variety (even the most obscure music could always be found sooner or later) and a rich sense of community that is still sorely missed. WinMX offered the ability to connect to multiple Napster-compatible networks; with the advent of multi-source downloading, Morpheus and similar programs allowed us to rise above the limitations of slow upstream (until it's hard now to find any P2P applications that don't use it); and EDonkey added the nice touch of being able to share files before they were done downloading.

So what's the next stage of P2P evolution?

Enter BitTorrent -- a "swarming, scatter and gather" file transfer protocol developed by Bram Cohen that's taking the net by storm. Even without a friendly, unified interface, BT's ability to scale in the face of overwhelming demand while minimizing the free rider problem ("leeching") has attracted a flood of new users. But as with any tool, understanding how and why it works will always make using it easier and more fun.

All technical references are taken from the BT server tutorial and the official documentation.

Let's Start with the Basics

BitTorrent is not a 'website' or a 'network', and strictly speaking is not even a program -- it's a protocol with a number of functional implementations.

Instead of jumping right into downloading, first we'll discuss how files are served. Most new BT users are familiar with going to a website and clicking on links to .torrent files, but this just provides a friendlier interface and isn't actually necessary. All you really need to serve is a public Internet machine. The "tracker" will "keep track" of who is connected and who has which pieces of the file(s) in question. Like any public Internet service, a static IP address and/or valid hostname will make it easier for people to connect to your tracker.

To start serving, you choose a file or directory to serve and run a program which generates a .torrent file. This contains a 'hash,' which serves as a checksum to ensure the file is the same on all systems, as well as the address of a tracker. A typical .torrent file is quite small, typically 5-50k in size.

The second step is to load the .torrent file into a BT client. The client asks you where to save the file, you point it at the existing and complete copy, it verifies that the file hash matches, says the download is done and sits there uploading when necessary until you cancel it.

Here's an animated graphic (.mng, currently viewable only in Mozilla) of a torrent transfer.

Getting Started

The official BT client is available for Win32, Mac OS X, as an unstable Debian package, and as Python source code.

Getting started is quite simple; the Windows installer asks no questions and provides no options, and the only behind-the-scenes addition is that Internet Explorer now launches BT when you click on links to .torrent files. (Mozilla users will need to edit Preferences, Navigator, Helper Applications and add the mime type "application/x-bittorrent", to be launched by the btdownloadprefetched executable.) You can also download .torrent files and load them locally without going through a website.

Once the .torrent has been invoked, the client will prompt you for a location to save the file to. The client then creates a file of the appropriate size containing all zeros, and connects to the tracker to get a starting list of some random subset of available peers (other users connected to the 'swarm'). BT then starts connecting to peers and downloading random chunks of the file, and begin uploading to other peers as soon as you have enough for it to bother.

Every time your client verifies another piece of the download, it tells the tracker it has a good copy of that piece. By directly utilizing each user's outgoing bandwidth, downloads can be generally be completed very quickly while minimizing the load on the original server, in effect turning the dreaded "Slashdot Effect" against itself -- the more who want to download, the more there are to upload. Sooner or later (usually sooner), the download is done, and the client continues to upload pieces to other users.

What's In It For Me?

Now your first instinct at this point might be to close the program, but you really ought to leave it open as long as possible afterward, to help seed the file into the network. But this is really a social and cultural issue which can't necessarily be addressed through technical measures; BT can enforce fairness during the transfer with its algorithms, but no software can force the user to keep the client open. Many tracker owners keep a close eye on such things, and will generally ban repeat offenders. In any event, "giving back" your bandwidth has never been easier, even for users behind firewalls or NAT (although as always, being able to avoid or go through these will make the transfers more efficient).

Alternative Clients and Other Tools

That said, there are perfectly valid reasons to want some control over the amount of bandwidth a P2P application uses, and an experimental, unofficial client (Win32, Python source) has been created to provide a friendly interface for this. BT will automatically adjust your download speed appropriately if you set a slower upload speed, but it's still an invaluable tool for some cable and DSL users whose downloads will choke and abort if they use too much upstream, or for anyone with limited upstream who wants to reserve some of it for other uses.

Currently, both the official and experimental GUI clients use a separate window for each transfer. BT++ (Win32, Python source) has made an initial attempt at combining all transfers into one window, as well as offering some other enhancements, but users report mixed results, with some saying "it works for me" and others that it's buggy to the point of unusable; still, it's one to keep an eye on. (Caveat: BT++ provides an option to automatically stop uploading when the download is completed. I believe this deliberately encourages people to do so even if there is no real need to do so, and would advise anyone using BT++ to refrain from using this option; it's unnecessary, detrimental to the BT networks, and may lead to your IP being banned as described above.)

TorrentSpy (Win32) is another useful tool that shows various statistics about your transfers, including which files of a multi-file torrent are complete. It's not meant to replace a downloading client, but to complement it.

I should add that the speed and time-to-completion numbers may not be wholly accurate, and will typically fluctuate wildly to some extent during a transfer. (After all, do you believe Windows when it tells you how long it will take to copy a file?) The "percentage completed" at least is accurate, and you may be able to get more accurate information using TorrentSpy. A new version of BT has just been released (3.2) and its reported changes include "more even and consistent download rates".

A Few Miscellaneous Points

It's quite possible to generate .torrents for files you want to serve and then advertise them on someone else's tracker. Since anyone can run a tracker, BT is more like IRC, Usenet or Direct Connect than something like Kazaa. Like Freenet, it works best if the content is highly in demand; it's also more effective on recently released stuff. One highly recommeded website is Bstark. It doesn't provide .torrents for anyone to download, but functions as a "metatracker", that is, a tracker that keeps track of trackers. If you're a statistics geek, the graphs are a lot of fun, and even for the average user it's a simple way to check what files are most in demand and most in need of someone to serve them. This is even more effective when you combine it with an alternate means of communication such as IRC or email, making it easy for users to check supply and meet demand. The .torrent file can also be distributed by any means, be it a website, IRC channel, email attachments or perhaps carrier pigeon.

Conclusion

With the 'entertainment industry' finally focusing their attention on IRC, the cantankerous and difficult granddaddy of Internet file sharing, BitTorrent has found a niche and filled it admirably. The author understandably wishes to focus upon using BT in a legal manner. As with any new invention, "the street finds its own use for technology," and BitTorrent will undoubtedly continue to be rapidly adopted for both licit and illicit use.

Given the decentralized nature of BT networks and the rapid development of new tools, it's only a matter of time before someone writes a GUI wrapper for an IRC client, web browser and all-in-one BitTorrent interface. After all, Napster did it, as do most other mainstream P2P apps like Kazaa. Like Direct Connect with its 'hubs,' there will always be multiple BT servers available, and a unified interface would not only make it easier for users to find and download content, but free them to focus on forming the social and cultural networks that are also needed. A website typically uses far too much CPU and bandwidth to handle popular traffic, but a BT tracker uses minimal bandwidth by itself. Perhaps the next-generation clients will try to automatically locate trackers, or help the user find and serve older content as well as new releases.

The late great Audiogalaxy had many strengths, but one of its most fundamental was the sense of community it encouraged. BitTorrent wisely fills a narrow set of technical requirements, leaving a great deal to human need and will. The ad hoc arrangements and customs that have so far sprouted as expressions of the will to fill these needs are often chaotic and messy -- but that's human action for you.

Comments

YES!

[FortKnox]

The best way to help Open Source Companies (a la RedHat) survive is to circumvent their income strategies!
Tell RedHat to screw off! Circumvent the subscription policy with P2P!

Is that a bullethole in your foot?

Re:YES!

[elmegil]

Not only that, but do it with a package that works "best" on Windows, under Internet Exploder! (don't EVEN ask me about trying to get it to work with phoenix or mozilla or any other reasonable browser).

Re:YES!

[bramcohen]

Redistribution isn't 'circumvention'. The GPL specifically requires that it be allowed.

Strange that people seem to be so religious about all the details of the GPL, except when it might hurt RedHat, in which case it's okay for them to sell it like proprietary software.

Re:YES!

[gmuslera]

Download open source program is boring, where is the excitement? the sensation of danger, doing something illegal, doing something behind the usual channels?

For windows users this way to download an er.. "unnoficial" way to obtain the official redhat would be as running kazaa, edonkey, or similar, in a legal way, to get a software that should be free but they feel as they should be paying for.

That is the key for linux adoption, not giving distributions as something so free to windows users, but show them in the same way that pirated software, this will give value to it and after all the effort getting it, they will appreciate the software more, will try actually to install it, and maybe they will adopt it as their official OS.

Re:YES!

[Mr. McGibby]

Have you actually tried to get it to work under mozilla or phoenix? Do you even know what the hell you're talking about? It's obvious that you don't. "Oh, WAAA! It doesn't install with a single click in Linux!" Guess what, nothing does.

It *isn't* a IE browser plugin as many folks have claimed. The installer simply installs the program like any other program, and then adds the correct mime-type and windows extension handler to IE. THAT'S IT. Writing an installer that makes it easy to install in Windows is a good thing, since doing so adds large group of users to the user base.

All the tools to setup torrented downloads work best in Linux. I use BitTorrent in Linux all the time and it runs just like any other program. It's very nice.

Installing almost any program like this that works well with mozilla or phoenix is impossible. Tried to install the Flash plugin? It sucks rocks. Bram and the BT crew can't be held responsible for the fact that creating a slick interface to Linux browsers is like trying to keep 10 polygamous wives happy. Nothing works the same way twice.

Re:YES!

[ajs]

Check out the list of packages included with Red Hat Linux 9. You'll find exactly zero non-free software. There is one file (the README, perhaps? It's been a while) that states that while you have the right to copy it (the file), you do not have the right to modify it (the file). If you have a problem with that, dump the GPL now, because the GPL (the document itself) has the same proviso as does the BSD license. FreeBSD even has a whole document devoted to how various degrees of restrictive licensing interact in the ports system.

But you are probably thinking of the Office and Multimedia Applications CD which is not part of Red Hat Linux 9, but rather an add-on 7th or 8th disk included with Red hat Linux 9 Professional and you will find that the licensing on all of that software includes specific language that allows for duplication of the Red Hat Linux 9 Professional ISOs. These packages are also not required (in fact, I don't even think they're referenced) by the base installation of the software.

What I don't understand is how there can be such wild misinformation as there has been about Red Hat.

This move has the obvious intent of invoking one of the more useful properties of the Internet: it interprets restraint (I'm generalizing the concept of censorship, which is usually what is cited in this particular quote) as damage and routes around it. Red Hat was spending more and more money per release on providing ISO downloads. What to do? Stop providing a download for the ISOs and let the community create a better solution. If they didn't think the community would do so, they certainly would not be in the free software business (I say free software only because Red Hat as a company pre-dates other terms for this business model, not be cause "open source" would not have applied equally well).

How about some ethics ?

[InodoroPereyra]

Red Hat, a company supporting lots of developing in the GNU/Linux community, releases their newest version as a privileged one-week-early download for their customers through their network. In the meantime, Slashdot publishes this inflamatory plug for bit torrent, as a workaround to kind-of-boycott Red Hat's policy.

Correct me if I've got the facts wrong. But it sounds to me like a week long wait is not really long, and that this announcement in Slashdot is not really ethical ...

Re:How about some ethics ?

[Steven Blanchley]

Out of curiosity, about how much of Red Hat's income is from the subscription thing in the first place?

While I am not familiar with this particular situation, I would expect that most of their money comes from selling their software in boxes. You can't download those nice big manuals with BitTorrent or FTP.

And by the way, if a week-long wait is not so long, then why would this decrease the value of the subscriptions?

Re:How about some ethics ?

[alaric187]

No, you've got the facts right. It's just that most people here want free as in beer and not free as in speech. I swear if Microsoft was free most of the people here would be switching to it right now. This open source thing is just a red herring for "I want free stuff because I deserve it."

Thanks in advance to mods for extra tasty troll points.
Also, notice I said most not all, I know there are lots of people that believe in open source.

Re:How about some ethics ?

[warpSpeed]

Correct me if I've got the facts wrong. But it sounds to me like a week long wait is not really long, and that this announcement in Slashdot is not really ethical ...

Once you have the bits they are yours to do with as you please.

I'll bet that RedHat is offering the pre-access to the bits for the subscribers so that they can actually get the bits before thier servers are /.ed from the unwashed masses.

And I would bet that RedHat is happy to off-load the downloading to something like BT. It just makes thier bandwidth usage go down, and most likley the people sharing the bits were not going to buy support anyway.

Re:How about some ethics ?

[nooch]

Maybe you can tell us why it is not ethical to offer an alternate method to acquire the ISOs, which are free (week or not), early. It's not like this places any burden on RedHat. It takes the load off their servers, allowing people who would have hit RedHat, or their mirrors, for the ISOs in a week to get it earlier. This also allows for more people to test it in the early phase of release. Sounds like a win-win situation to me.

Don't bother to say that the people who paid the $60, or whatever fee, paid for the right to get it early. That is just silly. They paid for the service they are getting from RedHat, as well as the ability to D/L the ISO from RedHat.

Personally, RedHat can say 'bye' to me. I am going back to Gentoo. We don't need no stinkin' surveys.

-J

Re:How about some ethics ?

[TV-SET]

Actually, it depends on how you look at it.

From one hand, using p2p networks to download latest RedHat's ISOs is going against supporing a Good(tm) company.

On the other hand, paying RedHat 60$ a year, and then going and downloading latest ISOs from p2p actually helps RedHat to save some bandwidth for those customers who complain too much. This might be actually helping RedHat in terms of partially paying their bills using the resources of those p2p users. :)

The company I work for has a bunch of subscriptions to RHN, both Basic and Enterprise, but we are still getting 1-2KB/s download speeds currently. P2p might improve our satisfaction on the subject though. :)

Re:How about some ethics ?

[tomlord]

This is good for Red Hat. There are some obvious PR benefits to it, of course.... but I think it amounts to R&D they'll eventually capitalize on.

RHATs central servers -- not just for isos but also for updates -- are a vulnerability; a single point of failure six different ways from tuesday. (There's even another post in this /. topic about the servers allegedly being overloaded right now.)

Not nearly all, but a big chunk of the vulnerabilities can be fixed with P2P distribution. RHAT's bigger customers can be organized to help each other that way. When, for example, security emergency response times become critical, P2P will be a big boon.

If, suddenly, all distribution of RHAT software happened P2P -- subscriptions would still have value, and that value will grow over time. Immediately, it would have value as a source of secure hashes, delivered over multiple channels. Of course it would retain its support values -- and my hope/prediction is that in the future, Red Hat Network will increase in the degree to which it is a low-walled garden "community (of customers) website": tightening and enriching the feedback loop between customers and programmers.

-t

Re:How about some ethics ?

[cant_get_a_good_nick]

Welcome to the way the GPL works. RedHat knows this plenty well. This freedom is a good thing.

Doesn't GPL allow charging for distribution? Isn't that what RedHat is doing, charing for their distribution?

Re:How about some ethics ?

[stratjakt]

GPL only means they have to make the source accessible, it doesnt mean they have to give away the iso with all the binaries prebuilt and all the scripts and whatnot that make it an easy-for-joe-dipshit package.

Don't want to wait a week for all that convenience? Download all their GPL'd source and build it yourself.

OR let's just rename it the GGGPL (gimme gimme gimme public liscense)

Re:How about some ethics ?

[cant_get_a_good_nick]

Charging money for a week is no different than charging money indefinitely.
It's no different for a week, then after it's very different.

Jokes aside, if you charge for a week, you're charging for the early access service. If you charge indefinitely, you're charging for the product. Two very different things. In my state they'd be taxed differently, so the state calls them different.

BitTorrent is a great tool which RedHat can use to get their bandwidth costs under control so they can focus on their core business, whatever that may be.

I think part of their business may be charging for early access to software downloads.

Everyone says "OpenSource is great, no need for charging for software, charge for services". Then RedHat comes out with a value add service - you can download something a bit early before being stuck in a queue, and now everyone says "no, thats not cool, we have to wait a whole WEEK."

As far as using BitTorrent to save them bandwidth, there's nothing stopping you from using BitTorrent in a week either. The same benefits can be had a week from now without subverting a RedHat revenue stream.

Personally, if I had a business, I'd still probably download from Redhat servers anyway, just to avoid possible trojans.

Nice to see well written pieces on /.

[agrounds]

This is a welcome to change to the usual copy/paste from the linked articles we usually get. This is so decent it's alomst as useful as the time that guy posted the step-by-step on Gentoo that was so good I went home and installed on the spare PC. Bravo!

Otherwise I'm glad to see the P2P community keeping pace (or should I say, one step ahead of) with the best in file serving. I'm not sure that RedHat would be pleased about it, but it was bound to happen that the ISOs would be released back to the community in record time regardless of paid subscriptions. In the end, I think they'll find it difficult to release anything without the inevitable leaks. This seems to hold true for Microsoft as well, as they contend with leak after leak of their beta and developer images. Information wants to be free!!

Subscriber costs

[rf0]

RedHat is a business. Business want to make money. The community support this. So therefore we get rid of their revenue streams by getting what will be free in a week now and stopping potential subscribers?

Rus

Re:Subscriber costs

[Anonymous Coward]

This is Slashdot. Companies shouldn't be allowed to profit. Information wants to be free. Nobody reading this story ever intended to spend a single cent on this (or any) software. Good for Slashdot for sabotaging another reasonable and worthwhile revenue stream for an open source company.

Yeah bit torrent, yeah ISO out...blah blah blah

[Anonymous Coward]

So ok. You can get it with Bit Torrent, you can get it off of the FTP if you are a member. But what the heck is it? All I've seen about Red Hat 9 is that it's out. What are the new features? Anything cool/not-cool. I just recently got 8.0 and was expecting the usual RH path of 8.1 and 8.2 before the next version. Anyone using 9 currently?

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Hopefully, it is faster...

[cenonce]

I am a Red Hat subscriber and I am pushing a measly 14 kb/sec to download three 600+ MB ISOs. I'm on ISO #1 with 9 hours to go!

So what exactly is the advantage of getting the distro a week ahead of everyone else when the servers for "subscriber use" are so overloaded it will take me a week to download it!?!

Mixed Feelings

[Anonymous Coward]

On the one hand, BitTorrent is an excellent way of reducing bandwidth for Open Source companies... if they release their files only on bittorrent, then they can get the distro out to more people & save money on bandwidth at the same time. In that regard, I think all Linux distro companies should adopt it.

On the other hand, this is a massive leak for RedHat... if BitTorrent can always be relied upon to get the ISOs the day they're released to subscribers, then there is no incentive to become a RedHat subscriber... and thus RedHat loses money.

In the future, it would be nice if BitTorrent users could wait until after the distro is released to the public before mirroring it... Yeah, then companies like RedHat still get their 1 week advance for subscribers, AND they get to not have their servers flooded on public release day.

*sigh*... I better go buy a RH9 boxed set, I feel all dirty now.

Re:Mixed Feelings

[phoebus1553]

So does support not mean anything to anyone? That's part of the paying for the RHN subscription.

Re:I thought you were right on...

[Pharmboy]

I personally ponied up my 60 bucks, but then again I also go out and buy boxed copies.

I already pony up the 60 per year anyway, have for two years. Its a good service they provide, well worth the money.

As to them making money, once again what I see is giving a little more to those of us that give a little more to them. I didn't like the way they marketed it, but the fact is they give alot more bandwidth to people who have NEVER given them a dime than anyone else. The GPL requires you make the source available. They COULD put all their files on a 64k throttle except for subscribers, and meet the requirements of the GPL. But they don't.

I personally hope they do make some money, get back in the black, and gain some market share. Linux is never going to become mainstream without companies like Redhat who have somewhat viable business plans. I WANT them to be here 10 years from now, because I like their products.

Reminds of the gag: How do you make a profit by giving stuff away?

VOLUME!

Well you obviously don't

[Tsugumi]

Ok, I use gentoo, and even I'm getting miffed with the "yeah, but why not just use gentoo" when any other distro is mentioned.

And anyhow, RH 9 actually does include something much more than "a little gloss" - NPTL (warning - link is to a pdf)

Now if you've ever tried to debug a core file of a multi-threaded app, or dealt with signal propagation with the old... aw, shucks never mind, but take my word for it, NPTL - woot woot

Oh, woot woot BT too by the looks of things...

Re:Pretty cool!

[ralphus]

Let it run for a bit. mine is about 20 minutes in on an ATTBI cable connection. 118 kB/s down, 40kB/s up.

Redhat was giving me 8.7kB/s down before I found this article.

what changes?

[AssFace]

Okay, as a user that never runs a gui on the machine, only ever goes in via ssh over the local intranet, and has a cluster of servers all behind a hardware firewall that blocks all incoming attempts...
What is different about RedHat 9.0 that is applicable to me?

I'm just curious if I should bother with upgrading or not - I would guess no since I can just download any one particular thing that I want/need.

The one thing that I can think of justifying it would be that I'd like a working lm_sensors. The existing lm_sensors that it came with for me didn't have anything for my motherboard (epox 8kmm+). I'll admit it - I tried installing lm_sensors on my own and couldn't do it successfully (so much for "following the instructions").
So were there some way that was RetardEasy to get that in... ie "upgrading" - then I'd go for it.

Otherwise, it is just another big number jump in a short period of time that I'm not sure has any real bearing on me - yet leaves me curiously watching all those about me rush to get it.. wondering... why?

Re:Caveat Downloader!

[TheSHAD0W]

Until recently (and possibly even now), BitTorrent had a problem that often caused the completion meter to climb above 100%. (This occurred when corrupt data was received and had to be redownloaded.) As a result, many people terminated the transfer before BitTorrent had reported, "Succeeded!" Hence, corrupt files.

On the other hand, the torrent initiator may have had a corrupt image to work with. It can happen.

In any case, BitTorrent uses the SHA1 secure hash algorithm, which is comparable to MD5, to verify downloads. So long as the .torrent file was created by someone with a legitimate copy, the result should be just as good. Since BitTorrent is really meant to be used directly by file distributors, this shouldn't pose a problem in the future.

Re:I thought you were right on...

[Pharmboy]

i've always thought this was a good comporomise between letting the dedicated and the geeky get what they are entitled to (the source to play with) while encouraging the moms and pops to chip into the corporate kitty. note that the price of openbsd producst is low

Also note that the number of systems running it are low, too, even tho it is an exceptional OS. I have no prob with them distributing it this way, but it IS part of the reason I don't use openBSD, even tho I KNOW its better for some tasks (pure web servers, for instance).

I cut my teeth on Redhat (4.2) because I could get it free, and then when I needed service, I didn't mind paying for it. Like all distros, it has weaknesses and strengths. Its not that RH is better, its that they made it easy for me to get used to it, and eventually, prefer it. Oh, and I have messed with mandrake, solaris, lindows (really), and slackware (ug).

While there is nothing WRONG with distributing an OS like this, it is not conducive to winning over the largest possible customer base, which is what Redhat is trying to do. Keep in mind, BSD is a very different animal anyway. BSD advocates tend to be more "purist" while Redhat tends to be more capital driven. Takes all kinds.

Re:I thought you were right on...

[juhaz]

They are not selling what they do not own, they are in business of selling ease of installation and configuration for those things, as well as support.

Quibble: There's still one left

[rickmoen]

Aaron Sherman wrote:

Check out the list of packages included with Red Hat Linux 9. You'll find exactly zero non-free software.

Only because you brought the subject up:

"pine 4.44 A commonly used, MIME compliant mail and news reader." This code is source-available, but licensed under proprietary terms (no right to fork).

In pointing out this inclusion of the proprietary pine/pico/pilot package, I intend no criticism of Red Hat Software, Inc., which does it for perfectly understandable reason, given the pine MUA's wide appeal and lack of an open-source replacement acceptable to that customer base that doesn't suffer the same copyright encumbrance (as MANA does). Chris Allegretta's "nano" has nicely eliminated the pico problem, but ditching pine itself without seriously ticking off a fair number of people remains difficult.

When I saw that Red Hat had (by the 8.0 release) reduced the number of proprietary packages to just this one -- having pushed the envelope in jettisoning the old proprietary Java packages, ditched Navigator/Communicator in favour of Mozilla and Acrobat Reader in favour of xpdf, and actually helped write a replacement for xv -- I was (and remain) quite impressed. They've shown impressive leadership, in this area.

But it remains a (small) factual error to claim that the distribution is 100% free / open-source software.

Rick Moen
rick@linuxmafia.com

Re:Please post the right checksums

[Xugumad]

Or, failing that, mount the CDs using loopback, and then check the signature. Something like this:

mount -o loop shrike-i386-disc3.iso /mnt/cdrom
rpm --checksig /mnt/cdrom/RedHat/RPMS/*.rpm

You'll need to have downloaded the RedHat public key, which you can get from "pub/redhat/linux/8.0/en/os/i386/RPM-GPG-KEY" of your favourite RedHat mirror, and then import with a command like:

rpm --import RPM-GPG-KEY