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Red Hat Returns To the Linux Desktop
CWmike writes "Red Hat used to be in the desktop business along with all the other Linux distributors. Then, they left. Now, however, Red Hat is switching from Xen to KVM for virtualization. As part of that switchover, Red Hat will be using not only KVM, but the SolidICE/SPICE desktop virtualization and management software suite to introduce a new server-based desktop virtualization system. Does this mean that Red Hat will be getting back into the Linux desktop business? That's the question I posed to Red Hat CTO Brian Stevens, in a phone call after the Red Hat/KVM press conference, and he told me that, 'Yes. Red Hat will indeed be pushing the Linux desktop again.'"
It will make 2009 the year of the... Oh never mind...
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
From TFA: Specifically, the new virtual Red Hat Desktop will be managed by Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization Manager for Desktops. This virtual desktops management system, Red Hat claims, will deliver three to five times better cost-performance for both Linux and Windows desktops. (emphasis mine)
Beyond my comprehension; anyone have an explanation?
CC.
TaijiQuan (Huang, 5 loosenings)
I never understood why the left in the first place. They used to be at the top of the game- Fedora, not so much.
Because Linux is Free as in feeling that somehow your choice in a Computer Operating Systems makes you morally superior.
Or it is free as in beer so When OS X or Windows dies on you you have a quick free OS to install to get your work done.
Or it helps you become an Alpha Geek... If a girl is gonna go for a geek they at least will go for the Alpha geek.
Or the very rare case that there is an app the only runs well in Linux that they need to use.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Since most of my hats are brown (along with a couple black ones), I guess I'll have to run Ubuntu.
It's not that I really mind running beta software, it's this whole "you people are testing what we expect to sell as 'enterprise' for a premium later on, we're waiting for your bug reports" thing that I don't really like with the current RH. Although truthfully I haven't run RH since RH 3 or 4.
Not that distributions really matter all that much in the end, after you've been through the rounds and you're done with dicking around with your machine and you finally settle with just using it, you realise that they all ship pretty much the same stuff. And that the details really don't matter all that much. So unless you're really excited with a given logo, you can just pick one at random. They're all the same.
If you're in a corporate setting pick the one that's supported by the package you need, or if you don't require anything external, the one you already know, you'll save a week of work. Doesn't matter. Basically they all mostly work (and/or are broken in the same kinds of places). Same as most operating systems really.
And honestly I really doubt one couldn't have used RH on the desktop those past years. No Gnome or KDE repositories (or XFCE, or any other desktop ? did it even have X11 ? Or was it too hard for "grandma" (who is surely glad that RH finally pandered to her needs) ?
Bah.
May contain traces of nut.
Made from the freshest electrons.
And then I had to find a new OS for not only my desktop but all the servers we ran.
What, you didn't want to give them a big pile of money per-server, even though the amount of effort they have to put out for you to have them work is the same for one or for ten? Say it ain't so!?
I left Redhat when they went Fedora and have never looked back. I hope I never have to.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
I don't know. I mean it was a great desktop years back, probably the best (discounting Debian), I used it for the whole of my time at university, but things have moved on.
I use it for servers nowadays, servers that I set up and don't change, aside from updates, but as a deasktop system it would need to compete with Ubuntu for ease of use and administration. Ubuntu's a long way ahead in those respects.
Still, I'm mildly interested to see what they might offer.
A learning experience is one of those things that say, 'You know that thing you just did? Don't do that.' - D. Adams
I started using red hat with 2.0.2. I currently use fedora 9. As far as I could tell the switch from red hat 9 to fc 1 was a name change only. I have not seen anything out of line with the way the distribution has worked all along. There may have been differences, but as far as I can tell they were marketing and name of the distribution. Not function and the normal evolution of the product. As far as stability I had as many (most likely more) issues with red hat releases as I have with new fedora releases.
How exactly were you burned by a name change of a free product?
I was in the same boat. I had a few Red hat servers and one Red hat desktop, but then received an email that they were no longer providing up2date support for non-enterprise customers. I then switched to Debian for servers and Ubuntu for my desktop, never had looked back since. Now with my desktop I did try Fedora (its crap), Slackware (good, but package management not to my liking), and then just used Debian for a while until a heard about Ubuntu.
I still got my Red hat 5.2 Deluxe edition box with the discs and manual. It was the first Linux distribution I tried and got me hooked around 1998 or so. I didn't purchase it as it was handed to me by somebody who didn't understand it and gave up. Used it on my old AMD Am486 SX2-66 box back then. :)
Because of my initial good experience with Red hat I didn't look to try out other distributions cause I stuck with what works all the way to Red hat 9 (I kept my servers at 7.3 though at the time, too much bloat in 8.0 - 9).
This space is not for rent.
Wow.. you sure are gullible. You are assuming that the vendor who is selling you a (server) OS is telling you the truth? I prefer to do a little research and put my money in the solution *I* determine will work for my situation; not the solution some marketroid determined will (might) do the job.
I have.
RH9.0 was rock solid.
FC1-4 were buggy as hell with major problems. I jumped ship. I was a solid Redhat Guy.
If they are better, I'll never know. I'm not gonna dump any more time into Fedora.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
The article seems to conflate "desktop" and "desktop virtualization."
RH has been on the desktop since the beginning. They offered Red Hat Linux 1.0 in 1995, all the way up through RHL 9 in 2003. They followed that with 10 bleeding-edge releases of Fedora and five main releases of RH Enterprise Linux. All 100% open, including their own work on utilities, Gnome/KDE, and kernel development. They have done more for linux on the desktop than just about any other company. And now we all reap the benefit, even if we use another distribution like Ubuntu.
So it is nonsense to say RH "returns" to the desktop. They never left.
Now, the article goes on to talk a lot about desktop *virtualization.* That's a totally different topic. Maybe the article should have been titled RH returns to desktop virtualization.
Why do you say Fedora is crap? I have used it since inception up through 9, have not tried 10 yet. I have also installed and tried various versions of Ubuntu, most recently 8.10. The only difference I have seen is that Ubuntu includes non-free codecs that will will play dvd and mp3 out of the box. With Fedora it takes an extra 2 minutes to get that capability. Other than that the color scheme is different. As far as usability I see no other differences. There may be some deep down feature differences but for my home desktop of web surfing, open office, etc there is no noticeable difference.
yum has been in fedora from the start and was/is just as good or better than up2date.
I think the problem with most Linux distros is the Desktop system...being KDE, Gnome, etc. The OS runs like a scalded dog, but the GUI sucks wind. The only serious crashes I have ever had on Linux was due to the Windowing system, nothing else that I can recall. If they could get their heads together and come up with something that was stable and usable (Gnome and Xfce are better now-a-days) they would probably own. One of the problems my own mother has had was the fact that there were too many choices when it came to the GUI, she could not decide and eventually gave up.
"My immediate reaction is "WTF? What kind of moron doesn't make things 64-bit safe to begin with?" Linus
Yum and up2date both sucked compared to apt-get.
Do this;
remove all your kernels, then add one back and see how it treats it. Last time I did that yum left me with a non-booting box.
Someday Red Hat is going to decide who they want to be. But until then, I'm keeping them out of my systems, and out of my portfolio.
A cynic is a man who, when he smells flowers, looks around for a coffin. -H. L. Mencken
The amount of effort they have to put out is the same for one or ten? Really? So, ten different machines aren't more likely than a single machine to have more problems? Sure, there'll undoubtedly be some overlap, but that's what large-scale pricing is for. You shouldn't be paying ten times a single-server cost when you buy ten licenses, whether that's RHEL, SLES, Windows Server, or any other software. But, you will definitely be a bigger risk for a higher call count than someone who only has one server. And staffing those call centers do cost real bucks. And they need to have appropriate worst-case staffing to meet demand within their designated goals (e.g., 90% of calls answered within 5 minutes, 95% of the time, or whatever their numbers are).
I used to run RHEL - my employer gave me the option of RHEL or SLES, and SLES simply didn't have all the desktop tools (and SLED didn't have the server tools), so I chose RHEL. Eventually, a few years ago, I gave up on that and went to Gentoo. But that wasn't about cost - it was about flexibility.
It's a Dr. Seuss quote, but for you it seems to be a sort of Rorschach test:
Your sig describes a 3some manwich.
And your answer reveals something quite interesting.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
It wasn't a name change, it was a support issue for a free product which suddenly became non-free. When you have many dozens of servers, you want support. Red Hat wanted us to pay for security updates and such. That wasn't in our budget, and so we had to go through an enormous hassle to migrate away from Red Hat.
Fedora has a very aggressive release cycle which essentially means that any version released now will be unsupported in 18 months (at least this was the case when the Fedora project started; I've not bothered to look at it since). That's unacceptable for servers. It's marginally acceptable for workstations.
In any case, other distributions work well and hopefully won't pull the rug out from under us like Red Hat did.
-B
Ash and Hickory, straight-grained and true, make excellent bludgeons, dandy for the cudgeling of vegetarians.
I left Redhat when they went Fedora and have never looked back. I hope I never have to.
Oh, so you've stopped using the kernel, ext3, Xorg, usb, glib, glibc, gcc, gnome, KDE, nautilus, gconf, dbus, hal, NetworkManager, coreutils, parted, grub, rpm, yum, anaconda, kudzu, ntsysv, and firefox? If not, you haven't left Red Hat. They write, maintain, or make major contributions to all of these areas, and you're using RH whether you're using their branded distribution or not.
I am grateful for all that RH has done and is continuing to do for linux.
It wasn't a name change, it was a support issue for a free product which suddenly became non-free. When you have many dozens of servers, you want support. Red Hat wanted us to pay for security updates and such.
You were greatly misinformed. Red Hat Enterprise Linux is completely Free software. You can download every single line of source from Red Hat's FTP server. It is recompiled and offered at no cost by third parties such as CentOS. CentOS makes available the security updates, at no cost.
Red Hat's releases are supported for 7 years from the date of release, and licenses that large businesses pay support this work and (more practically) get them direct access to experts to help them fix their problems. But if paying for the huge amount of work involved in backporting features and security fixes into the stable versions of RHEL is too much trouble, you can get CentOS to give you them for no cost.
Rich.
libguestfs - tools for accessing and modifying virtual machine disk images
I wonder if it has anything to do with a primary Xen developer's wacky business activities?
My point is that the Red Hat distribution prior to RHEL was more like Fedora than the current RHEL. RHEL was the new product. RH9 was a name change to FC1. I don't see much difference in the rate of change and stability of the Fedora releases vs what I saw with Red Hat releases. I started with 2.0.2 in 1995 and was on 9 in 2003, the OS changed massively during that time as well.
Take a look at the version history here...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Hat_Linux
Anyone that could have dealt with that release pace could deal with Fedora for servers. I like the new RHEL pace for server installs and currently use CentOS. But for the desktop Fedora is much better and the quick upgrade cycle is a good thing.
I tried a Fedora release not too long ago and found myself in dep-hell before the install was set up to my specs. That was the reason I bailed on RH back when they were on v8.1 If they can't fix that in the space of several years, why bother?
How I welcome this. I think Fedora have the best software of any distribution, but they also have the worst art of them all. Just compare with SLES or Ubuntu. They are beautiful out-of-the-box.
I don't wanna sound like a queer or nothing, but Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols, Cyber Cynic, has striking green eyes. I wonder if he did that with Photoshop?
Offtopic? The article was written by Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols, Cyber Cynic! Did you even RTFA, mods? I didn't think so.
Now you're giving me a headache!
That's because there is no "-1, gay" moderation option (I know, I had the points today and checked).
Save your wrists today - switch to Dvorak
I just want to reinforce Wee's original statement. I am not sure that he was misinformed. When RedHat changed their direction from having a RedHat 9.0 product, to Fedora for the desktop, and RHEL for the server, it left administrators wondering what should they do for a migration path from RedHat 7,8,9 to the new products.
RedHat pushed their RHEL as a paid service. Administrators were left with the impression of "now" they would have to pay $500 a year or so to get updates for the server product. Or to use the less well test Fedora.
CentOS was a risky move. How were we to know what kind of quality CentOS would have? Hell, I did not even hear about CentOS around that time. I recall doing quite a bit of research "at that time" trying to figure out what is the best, most reliable migration path. And my conclusions were that other distributions, that had been around for quite some time, with a proven record, were a better option.
When RedHat made it's "workstation" more expensive than Windows XP, and ensured that Fedora was a buggy, unsupported test-bed for new technologies, it effectively abandoned the Linux business desktop market.
These "virtual desktops" are not new, either. RedHat had these types of systems as early as FC2. They just decided not to sell them. Had RedHat not abandoned this product line years ago, they would have made significant inroads in corporate Linux desktop deployment by now.
Instead they left the market to Ubuntu and SuSE/Novell, neither of whom have the clout to effect US corporate adoption of Linux on the desktop.
"I assumed blithely that there were no elves out there in the darkness"
Non Sequitur. Just because you can't remove all kernels with Yum doesn't make it suck compared to apt-get.
Really, if that is all you can come up with... Each has their pros and cons. Yum is slower. But doesn't require a separate update. But the apt GUI, Synaptic, is very nice. Et cetera.
In the end, it doesn't really matter.
8 of 13 people found this answer helpful. Did you?
You're talking about the present. He's talking about the past.
Ubuntu doesn't come with the DVD or MP3 codecs. It takes two minutes to install the codecs for Fedora? Heck, before RPM Fusion it was a good half an hour; now it's maybe half that. And Fedora doesn't come with a good powerful tool like Synaptic, so honestly I have no idea what you're smoking, but it sounds pretty good.
you're using RH whether you're using their branded distribution or not.
That's a bunch of crap. RedHat is a company, and a distribution. I am affiliated with neither.
I am grateful for all that RH has done and is continuing to do for linux.
Me too. But I wouldn't throw them a red cent given the opportunity to avoid it. And I've had enough agony playing unwitting beta tester for Microsoft, I don't feel a need to do it again for Redhate.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
IIRC this is a %post script issue in the kernel RPMs that depends on having a skeleton there. When you remove the last kernel, it toasts the skeleton, so adding back is problematic. This isn't a "Fedora" problem (exists on RHEL/CentOS too), or even an RPM problem- this is a packaging / scripting problem.
The issue with Ubuntu is that it's buggy as hell. RedHat at least admits that Fedora Core is an open beta; Ubuntu 8.10 is an open beta but Ubuntu didn't inform me of this fact.
That's true enough (somewhat), except that RH started by saying that FC was to be their "free" offering and you actually had to read between the lines to figure out that you were a beta tester for the paying customers that were to come further along (which is what made me leave RH for good).
Except that Fedora (no longer FC as they dropped the "Core" part from their name) is not beta for Red Hats products. It is upstream of Red Hat Enterprise Linux which has nothing to do with a beta version. Fedora is more like a general, fast moving playground of all the latest OSS technologies and software which Red Hat pulls out a snapshot from at regular intervals to tidy up and release as their Enterprise product line.
To call Fedora beta testing for Red hat is like calling the Linux kernel for beta testing of the distro kernels.
In some ways it may be true but it is not a accurate description of the relationship.
Once RedHat stopped selling desktop packages, I switched to Debian stable.
Now I think that I will not likely switch back. RH had their chance, but now I have evolved (devolved?).
I still have my RedHat v7.1 boxed set, too.
Uh, Linux geek since 1999.
RH9 was a name change to FC1. I don't see much difference in the rate of change and stability of the Fedora releases vs what I saw with Red Hat releases.
Well, I used RHL up to version 9.0 and tested Fedora before deciding to jump ship to Debian and can't say the same. If you didn't notice anything from Red Hat demoting it to no longer being a "Red Hat" product, all the support staff that didn't work on RHL anymore or the settling in of the new community model you were either blind or lucky. I was pretty sure they'd shape up eventually, but I decided to find an established community distro that had pretty much all this in place already. That is until Ubuntu came along and finally did all the things Debian weren't doing, like a graphic boot screen. Trivial but most other distros didn't have the base quality of Debian and Debian wasn't doing it. Ubuntu gets blamed alot for not say contributing much to the kernel, but from my desktop experience the kernel is just fine the way it is. Red Hat needs virtualization and NUMA and supercomputer scaling and whatnot, but for running my plain old single-processor desktop? The last real big kernel change I notcied was the O(1) scheduler in the 2.6 series. Of course a few hardware drivers but noothing to change the basic experience. If they should be doing anything it'd be X11, Gnome and KDE. Last I checked both the last two had rather strong ideologies and I guess the Ubuntu way is to simply put it out there and see if people like it. If they do, upstream can come grab it if they like. I mean open source does work both ways, particularly when GUIs are as much a matter of taste as anything else.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Ubuntu wouldn't read my flash drives, or connect to a wireless B network (and they have one at a cafe I like). I have no problems with Fedora, and I'm much happier with it.
Half an hour? You're exaggerating. Freshrpms, atrpms, and livna all have had an rpm on their site you could add to yum by simply clicking on the rpm link for several versions now.
And how exactly is synaptic better than yumex (yum extender) ?
"If they have both, tell them we use Linux. And if they have that, tell them the computers are down." -Dave Chapelle
sorta.
RHEL was around a couple of years before the redhat desktop and fedora split. The redhat desktop had a faster release schedule than RHEL since RHEL's inception.
"If they have both, tell them we use Linux. And if they have that, tell them the computers are down." -Dave Chapelle
"get them direct access to experts to help them fix ... "
you have never raised a redhat support ticket ever, have you. sorry there may be giants working at redhat but their support is no better than a forum or a mailing list.
We all know that VMware uses linux red hat as the backbone of their visualisation module.
Now we have a real Red hat entry into the virtualisation world by teaming up with Xen.
I myself do not like Xen, being that you absolutely need the new VC chips to use it....
where as VMWare always worked from the beginning.
Cool to know though, red hat is trying to do there part and compete against M$
No, actually my comment was offtopic and should have been modded as such. My karma is excellent, so the only time a downmod annoys me is when I have something to say I think funny or important and the comment gets buried. That wasn't one of them.
Free Martian Whores!
Yes, and if I drive my car into all barriers, it doesn't drive so well after I sanely decide to not drive it into barriers.
Exactly what is the use case for removing all kernels from a system? It's not like the kernel is an optional part of the operating system. It doesn't hurt you to install the new one first and then remove the old one.
In fact, keeping the old one might even save your skin. You never know if the new kernel works properly until after you're running on it. You have no fall back plan if you removed the old kernel.
Some people walk tightropes without a net, while others insist on nets. The skill of the performer makes falling a rarity. Once a mishap occurs, only one performer is considered wise.
Geek: Someone who has a strong interest in computers and technology.
Alpha Geek: A Geek who thinks he knows more about computers and technology than all the other geeks and wants everyone else to do it his way. A bully's attitude trapped in a geek body.
Because Linux is Free as in feeling that somehow your choice in a Computer Operating Systems makes you morally superior.
Or it is free as in beer so When OS X or Windows dies on you you have a quick free OS to install to get your work done.
Or it helps you become an Alpha Geek... If a girl is gonna go for a geek they at least will go for the Alpha geek.
Or the very rare case that there is an app the only runs well in Linux that they need to use.
I really do like and prefer Linux. I enjoy the system. I like its transparency, performance, stability. I like how easy it is to customize, how it does what I want it to do. I like the lack of vendorlock, the use of open standards. I enjoy both the Free Speech aspects and the Free Beer aspects. It generally does not get in my way by making assumptions. I also like the non-commercial nature; that is, companies can use it and market it, but it's not inherently a commercial product and none of those companies have a monopoly on it. I first installed Linux back in late 1996 or so, maybe early 1997. I have not looked back. Not once have I wanted to switch back to Windows.
Does that mean I found the One Superior OS? The Be-All and End-All? No. It means I found something I really like that works well for me. Ideally, everyone else will do that on their own just like I did. There's a lot I could say (and have said) about Linux etc. but ultimately people have to make their own choices. There are lots of people I know to whom I would not recommend it because I know that those folks aren't interested in learning it. I respect their wishes. If they should change their minds and become more interested in computing, enough to want to put some effort into it, I'll be there to help them. Until they come to me about that, I support them when I can with computing issues, be it with Windows or Mac or Linux or whatever. I have some strong Libertarian type beliefs, in that as much as possible I believe people should make their own choices and do their own thing. To the degree that this is reasonable, I try to help the people I know with whatever decision they made even if I tell them why I would not have made that decision myself. Windows versus Linux is no different.
I'll be honest, you seem rather bitter. Your post up there looks like it was trying to be humor but the humor couldn't claw its way out of the bitterness. Such is often the way of cynicism. Linux really is an excellent OS. There are lots of people who cannot enjoy an excellent thing without looking down on others who won't or can't. You don't just see this in computing; unfortunately this behavior is found everywhere. You could focus on this maladaptive behavior until you drive yourself nuts, if you want, but I hope you don't. There are lots of us who do what we do even when no one is looking.
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein