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Red Hat Releases RHEL 6

Posted by samzenpus on from the new-kid-on-the-block dept.

alphadogg writes "Red Hat on Wednesday released version 6 of its Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) distribution. 'RHEL 6 is the culmination of 10 years of learning and partnering,' said Paul Cormier, Red Hat's president of products and technologies, in a webcast announcing the launch. Cormier positioned the OS both as a foundation for cloud deployments and a potential replacement for Windows Server. 'We want to drive Linux deeper into every single IT organization. It is a great product to erode the Microsoft Server ecosystem,' he said. Overall, RHEL 6 has more than 2,000 packages, and an 85 percent increase in the amount of code from the previous version, said Jim Totton, vice president of Red Hat's platform business unit. The company has added 1,800 features to the OS and resolved more than 14,000 bug issues."

14 of 228 comments (clear)

  1. erode Windows server how? by cschepers · · Score: 5, Informative

    At my workplace, Red Hat server licensing is pricier than Windows Server licensing. I'd love to move servers off Windows, but it'll be hard to justify if it costs more.

    1. Re:erode Windows server how? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

      That's amazing. It's also how Microsoft kicked ATT out of the marketplace in the early 1990's. ATT wanted $75 per OEM PC license; Microsoft wanted $10. The rest is history.

    2. Re:erode Windows server how? by xiando · · Score: 4, Informative

      Fedora is a really bad choice for enterprise environments. Fedora provides updates for 13 months. RHEL has a 7 year lifecycle. Enough said.

      --
      9/11: Never forget it was a false-flag operation
    3. Re:erode Windows server how? by DrgnDancer · · Score: 4, Informative

      On a per server basis, maybe, but once you pay for a year of Red Hat support you're done. No per seat licenses. It's like $200 (more now? I don't know.. I don't actually handle the money part) to "license" a server for a year (really for a year's worth of support). That's it. Got 2 users? $200. Got 2000 users? $200. The support is good too. Got a problem? Open a ticket. They'll pretty much solve it for you, no per incident charges.

      --
      I don't need a million points of light, just two points of multi-mode fiber and a 10 Gig-E router.
    4. Re:erode Windows server how? by sdguero · · Score: 4, Informative

      And, as a poster above mentioned, there aren't client limitations like with windows server.

    5. Re:erode Windows server how? by h4rr4r · · Score: 4, Informative

      Touche, but windows licensing really does get people into trouble. I have seen many small shops who had no CALs and in some cases no Sharepoint CALs. They were upset when they found out you had to buy the software and then the right to use it separately. I really think Microsoft does this on purpose, since violations can turn into real money very quickly.

    6. Re:erode Windows server how? by h4rr4r · · Score: 4, Informative

      https://access.redhat.com/support/policy/updates/errata/

      RHEL support is good for 10 years these days.

  2. RHEL comes with free CALs by tepples · · Score: 5, Informative

    Red Hat server licensing is pricier than Windows Server licensing.

    At first, I guessed that it might have something to do with the common conception that one can run more things on a single Red Hat server than on a single Windows server. But a couple Google searches later, I found this Microsoft white paper claiming that Red Hat doesn't charge for client access licenses for RHEL.

  3. Re:2000 packages? 85% more code? by Xtifr · · Score: 3, Informative

    Debian has "over 25000". If RHEL6 is "software you can weigh", then Debian must be "software designed to break your scale". :)

    (Note: this is not a claim that "Debian is better" or any such nonsense. Merely pointing out that 2000 packages is hardly an impressive or unprecedented feat in itself.)

  4. Re:Only 2000 packages by kwalker · · Score: 4, Informative

    If you install EPEL you'll get an additional 4600+ packages.

    However RHEL/CentOS are server operating systems, so a lot of packages that make sense on desktops are omitted.

    --
    ... And so it comes to this.
  5. Re:85% increase in code? by h4rr4r · · Score: 5, Informative

    1. You don't have to install all that crap.
    2. RHEL includes support, so they still are cheaper.

  6. Re:CentOS by rayvd · · Score: 4, Informative

    Usually takes 6 weeks or so. You can follow the CentOS twitter feed here to keep up.

    In addition, sounds like there may be new ways shortly for tracking CentOS development.

  7. Official RHEL blog post by trawg · · Score: 4, Informative

    No official link given in the OP, but here's the Red Hat blog post, titled "Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6: A Technical Look at Red Hat’s Defining New Operating Platform", which gives a good look at some of the changes.

    The less-interesting press releases are here (Red Hat Enables Expanded Deployment Flexibility and Application Portability with Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6) and here (Red Hat Sets a New Standard for the Next Generation of Operating Systems).

  8. Re:directory Server ? by buchanmilne · · Score: 4, Informative

    Does this include the directory server that mac's and windows machines can work with ?

    Windows machines have poor support for "directory servers" compared to most other OSs. If you mean an Active Directory replacement, no, because Windows machines expect that Active Directory has LDAP, Kerberos, CIFS, DNS and a few other services *all* running on the "directory server" (where other OSs allow these to be separated and/or scaled differently). If you need AD support with GPOs etc., you can consider trying samba4, but it's still in alpha (although some sites are running it in production). If you just need to authenticate Windows desktops, and don't need GPO-only features (but user/group policies are sufficient, if crufty), samba-3.5 as provided in RHEL6 may be sufficient.

    The OpenLDAP included with RHEL6 is good enough for all other operating systems with support for "directory servers", including Linux, Mac OS X, BSD, Solaris, AIX etc.

    Of course, RH would prefer to sell you RHDS subscriptions ...