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End of Life for Red Hat 7.x, 8.0
thelenm writes "Red Hat announced today that the 7.x and 8.0 distributions have reached their errata maintenance end-of-life. Red Hat 9 reaches its end-of-life on April 30. The options for those who want to stick with Red Hat are Red Hat Enterprise Linux or the Fedora Project, as described on their Migration Resource Center page. Or of course, you might take this opportunity to select another option." This day's been a long time coming, but it's finally here.
Why is debian always the "other option" when there are lots of alternatives?
Or you could chose an alternative here. Considerably more options.
~To choose doubt as a philosophy of life is akin to choosing immobility as a means of transportation. -Yann Martel
For those that are used to RH and don't want a big change, there are many distributions that are compiling the RHEL source and making their own distro. Thank you GPL!
Whitebox Enterprise Linux
cAos
Tao
just to name a few
Am I the last remaining Slackware user?
Two of my servers are still 7.2, while both are updated up to today and both secured as possible.
Up to recently I still had one 6.x but machine died and that was the end of it
latest kernel
proftpd instead of vsftpd
samba 3.0
apache 2.0
opengroupware (in testing mostly)
mysql 4
qmail instead of postfix (or it was sendmail)
latest cups
openldap
squid
etc, etc
No one stopped support, just up2date from redhat doesn't work anymore (I have 5 enterprise server licenses but not even once I used up2date), all apps and services are still compatible, and all of them are still patched and updated, which is far more than someone could say about NT
Sorry, but as such I don't see difference
Signature Pro version 1.13.2-3 release 83.5 beta3try7 after-breakfast edition
Windows 98 = 8 years of support. I'd rather have 8 years of support for a buggy product than this.
In my experience, Windows 98, even with support from Microsoft, will consume a fair bit of effort just to keep functioning.
My unsupported RedHat 7.2 machines, on the other hand, are pretty much rock solid. The only thing that they really need now is the occasional security update, which you can get from Progency, or from Fedora Legacy, or you can roll your own. Rolling your own RPM isn't too hard, and in a lot of cases you can simply take the SRPM from Red Hat or Fedora and rebuild it for your system. Rolling your own updates for Windows isn't really an option, and Windows 98 would be such an unstable basis that I'd consider it a waste of effort.
A good friend of mine just got started in Linux and chose SuSE Linux. I've been using Redhat 9 since last year, and had never seen SuSE, so it was a lot of fun to set it up together. Once we got past the FTP install (I'd never done that before), it was a dream. I mean it really blew me away. It found his TV tuner card (Winfast 2000 XP Deluxe, I think) automatically and put a link to a tuner application on his desktop. He literally logged in for the first time, double-clicked and was watching TV, color, sound, everything. This was amazing to me, as I spent two weeks trying to get my Audigy 2 and winmodem to work with RH9 way back when, before finally giving up and deciding You Can't Get There From Here.[1]
It's really slick, polished, and the installer (YAST) is the first thing I've ever seen in a Linux distribution that would make me willing to spend money.[2] This weekend I'm going to wipe RH9 and give it a try. They even have a live-eval CD image if you want to try it out first, before giving up HD space.
[1] Eventually fixed, but if I hear "emu10k.o" one more time I'm going into orbit.
[2] Plus the lizard thing is cute.
I'm sure they didn't mention those repositories for legal reasons (ie. We don't mention it, we're not responsible for anything that happens if you use them). In any event, the word should get out a little better about those repositories. Myself, I've got clients on everything that has been dumped (7.3-8.0) and what will soon be dumped (9.0) and am getting even more clients wanting to make the switch. None of them are duanted by the decision of one distributor of one distribution. It's about the level support they get directly from their supplier (me) as opposed to the company putting it out.This can't be said for large installations, that I know, but a school of all places (primary, secondary, high schools, etc) shouldn't have a problem with it. Hell, that gives and computer studies courses a serious project throughout the year as far as I can see it. Let me throw a little situation at you:
1) Walla Walla High School decides to convert all internal student systems to Linux (including student servers, library systems, etc)
2) Once the framework is in place, students are picked out of each computer class whom have a level of skill and competency (and trustworthiness) to let administer the student network.
3) Students suggest upgrades or changes that the school admin never thought of or didn't have the time to implement
4) Students implement changes. Some work, some don't
5) Everyone learns
6) School offers "innovative learning environment using the latest software to enrich your childs knowledge of computing in the digital age" (why couldn't I come up with lines of BS like this when I had to)
In any event, now that I'm thoroughly off topic, I'll end with this. RedHat doesn't mention the repositories because, if they did, they can be held liable for anyting that happens to systems using said repositories. A recommendation can and would be construed as an endorsement.
CliffH
sigs are like a box of chocolates, they all suck remove the underscores to email me
Bob (resembles Pyro but with Luke Skywalker's whiney voice): "Waaah! They're dropping Redhat!"
Tom (resembles Emperor Palpatine but with Magneto's charm): "Come to the dark side, Bob!"
Bob: "The dark side? What's that?"
Tom: "BSD."
Bob: "But that's evil! All my penguin friends tell me so!"
Tom: "You're friends are flightless waterfowl that smell of herring. You are better than that. You have the potential."
Bob: "But it's not under the GPL!"
Tom: "Just pretend it is. There's nothing in the BSD license preventing you from fully and completely treating it as GPL."
Bob: "But it wouldn't really be the GPL. I would know and wouldn't be able to live with myself."
Tom: "We have gcc..."
Bob: "You do?"
Tom: "...and all the other GNU software in ports. Even glibc."
Bob: "Wow, I never knew. No wait! You're trying to trick me! I happen to know that BSD is development in a 'cathedral' like environment, instead of the politically correct chaos of the 'bazaar'."
Tom: "Words, words, just words. Yes, we have some procedures we adhere to, to prevent random code from entering the system, but is that any different from Linus holding the keys to the Linux kernel repository?"
Bob: "But BSD users are elitist!"
Tom: "Yes, we are. But you are worthy to join us. Look in your heart. You know you are better than flightless antarctic waterfowl."
Bob: "Hmmm, I guess you're right. But what about the software? What about my GNOME and MPlayer?"
Tom: "We have them too."
Bob: "But what about my NVidia card?"
Tom: "We have NVidia drivers."
Bob: "Opera? Java? Oracle?"
Tom: "Yes."
Bob: "Well okay then. I guess I'll switch."
Tom: "Fine. First I need you to sign this contract in your own blood. Then you need to renounce all that is good. Finally, you have to wear these horns..."
Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!