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RHEL 6 No Longer Supported By Google Chrome
sfcrazy writes "Google has declared Red Hat's RHEL 6 obsolete, showing a notification which says, 'Google Chrome us no longer updating because your operating system is obsolete.' Red Hat evangelist Jan Wilderboer says: 'We release new stable versions of RHEL every 2-3 years. The API/ABI stability is what sets it apart from community distros. Customers need long term stability. Google knows (and uses) that itself internally. By cutting the support of enterprise distributions they simply tell me to move elsewhere. That's not a very encouraging thing.'"
What the heck are they thinking?
Also, RHEL versions are supported for a very long time. You can have systems running one version of RHEL, with security and bugfix updates for many years at a time. The whole point of the distro is stability; you don't have to worry about upgrading every six months.
What is Google thinking?
By cutting the support of enterprise distributions they simply tell me to move elsewhere
So Google wants us to go back to Firefox? ;-)
SCNR
C - the footgun of programming languages
come on
No, it would be saying the opposite.
The headline, while someone oddly phrased, says that Google Chrome will no longer be built with concern running on RHEL 6.
The other way around would imply that RHEL 6 would have some change to it or it's update/patch cycle to remove concern for the continued operation of Google Chrome.
Self proclaimed typo king, and inventor of the bear destroying coffee table (patent not pending).
I think RHEL 6 will be supported until 2020.
WTF.
Fedora is not better suited for all workstation tasks. I simply do not have time to deal with things breaking every few weeks, nor do I have time to upgrade my entire OS every year and go through the process of dealing with things breaking as a result. I switched from Fedora to ScientificLinux (a RHEL clone, more or less) for that reason: I have better things to do than to deal with a distro that thinks I should reformat my hard drive every 6 or 12 months. I am not alone in this either; I know a lot of other people who need a reliable workstation more than the latest features of every package.
Palm trees and 8
You don't need a web browser on something that won't even have X installed.
RHEL is for servers, you could use it on a workstation , but fedora is better suited to that task.
Disagree.
Developers and Linux desktop users often need the stability of a commercially supported desktop/workstation distribution. RHEL, although not as bleeding edge as Fedora, is great on a PC.
That's exactly what I thought when I first read this post. Why do we even care. You shouldn't need anything GUI based on a server. RHEL shines in server environments and although you could use it as a workstation why even bother, definitely go the Fedora route for workstations and desktops.
Then use Debian. Solves both problems.
I agree with you in principle, but there are a ghastly number of users of RHEL that are developers, or who'd like to use a GUI instead of CLI when they do admin on a server-- for whatever reasons.
A GUI takes less CPU cycles than you might think. If you've got a quad-socket, 4/core/socket machine, you have strokes to burn because even the vaunted, hallowed Linux kernel can't use them THAT efficiently. So, you want to open gnome or kde or x-something and do your surfs? Gotta use a different browser now. Seems strange that the support life would be that short, but I can also see valid reasons. And also see valid reasons not to use Chrome.
Best practices would say: servers need every stroke they can get. Real world: we never use this stuff as intended except when the auditor is hovering around our cubes.
---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
Uh, no. You're half right, in that there is no need for X on a server. However, as a Linux Admin maintaining a few thousand of those servers, my workstation also runs RHEL, and for damn good reason.
Firstly, I have work to do, that doesn't involve updating my kernel every twenty seconds as Fedora is wont to do. I also have no need for the latest greatest version of GIMP or mediaplayeroftheday, or want to be forced to format and start all over again every 13 months, while still trying to get work done.
RHEL and RHEL clones have a very real place on many peoples' workstations. That said, I'm a Firefox user and have zero interest or need in Chrome. Many of my co-workers do though.
Ubuntu: If at first you don't succeed, blindly slap a sudo in front of it
Chromium is open source, Chrome is not.
The two are similar but not identical.
There's an obvious reason why Google's doing this. They target the most popular desktop distros and can't be maintaining releases for old distros without a lot of desktop users. Now, if there were a 'standard' Linux API (lumping all the various API's together as something Google could target and all distros could support), this wouldn't be an issue. The same Chrome release for Windows can be used on XP->Win8 (desktop mode). That's why 3rd party dev's target WIN32. That's also why 3rd parties won't (for the most part) target Win8 'metro' - which differs way more from WIN32 than RHEL does from, say, Ubuntu.
As other posts have pointed out, though, Red Hat - or anybody else, for that matter - is free to take the pure open source Chromium and port it to RHEL. That is, until Google decides to target some library that RHEL doesn't provide. Then it's not such a simple matter to Compile and release the latest Chromium source.
Posted from my Android phone. Oh, I can change this? There, that's better...
It's one thing having minimum X libraries to be able to do X11 Forwarding and another having them boot into init 5. I am sure there are use cases where X is required but worrying about chrome on RHEL doesn't bother me one bit.
I use CentOS for the exact same reasons as the parent above.
I'm a developer on a single user system. Futzing around with the OS is not even in the top five things I want to spend my time doing.
Does Debian stable promise a 7 year support cycle? When last I checked, Debian stable releases will only be supported for three years, but I am not really a Debian user some perhaps someone can correct me.
What I have trouble understanding is why you are so dismissive of the idea that someone would run RHEL on a workstation. I see a lot of researchers do it, and they all say essentially the same thing I said: they lack the time needed to upgrade frequently and new features are less important than stability. Debian stable may deliver that, but so does RHEL; what exactly do you think makes Debian better for workstations than RHEL?
Palm trees and 8
Fedora is a great test bed or home system. But upgrading hundred's of workstations every 6 months (like we have here) would be no fun at all. Plus the ABI/API isn't stable in Fedora between revs.
Many real world application use RHEL as a workstation because it doesn't change ABI/API, is supported, there are no major changes through the life-cycle. This is why RH specifically sell a Workstation version of RHEL. See also the existence of Scientific Linux (RHEL clone) and why that is used on workstations at every major particle accelerator.
Too many people view Linux through the prism of their home machine needs. Professional users need things like support, stability, regression tested updates, directory services, NFS (probably secure even if it's just to satisfy an auditor), speaking to (sadly) MS systems (AD, Exchange and even (the horror) Sharepoint). Bleeding edge functionality is worth nothing against stability.
When someone (many) people say use Fedora, is the reason this isn't the year of the Linux desktop. No company wants to reinstall it's desktop estate every 6 months, retest all their apps every 6 months and retrain their users every 6 months. No software vendor wants to retest it's software on a new release every 6 months.
The RHEL approach (7 year life cycle) is correct for most users. Google is wrong to not support this but probably more to do with Google not really having to care corporate Linux desktop users (pretty small base really).
That said, I'm a Firefox user and have zero interest or need in Chrome. Many of my co-workers do though.
I guess this is where I was trying to go with. If you use it for a workstation there is no reason why firefox couldn't do the necessary to get you through. At work we use RHEL for workstations and thats because it's on the "approved" list. At home I run Fedora and only apply security updates when needed. Even then it's still a billion times better than having to deal with Winblowz.
That the repos have more than a couple packages in it. I use RHEL for servers, getting lots of common linux packages on them is a huge PITA. I get that Redhat wants to limit what they have to support, but it still sucks.
... CentOS 6.3. Google will support CentOS, right?
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
Vendors don't want to the cost of supporting your platform, so they drop you. To avoid any responsibility, they simply add an error message blaming the user: "Your platform is obsolete." (I guess it's my problem now!) Many users are uniformed or credulous enough to believe it.
Many 'cloud' vendors are going this way; they've simply ignored their commitment to support their users and make the users do the work of supporting vendors (via upgrades and installations). I suspect it's because many users are consumers, aren't aware the vendors have this obligation, and take the 'error' messages at face value.
Worse, I see it in business situations. For example, cloud vendors we pay say that the current Firefox ESR is obsolete, or that we need to deploy browser upgrades office-wide every 5 weeks -- it does nothing for our bottom line, we'd just be doing it to please them.
There needs to be some push-back. We have no reason to absorb these costs.
This seems dumb imho. I run a CentOS server, I like to install a desktop interface onto it because there are a few things i use the server for that do require a GUI. and its also nice to be able to just open a web browser quickly if i need to test my internet connection after making changes since the server and my switches and modem are all in the same room. First thing i always do is install chrome, i was so happy to see it available for CentOS.. But now its gone. I guess ill just switch back to Chromium.
Really? Go to redhat.com and click on 'products'. First thing displayed is 'Red Hat Enterprise Linux - DESKTOP'.
My company has deployed thousands of laptops with RHEL desktop on them.
I don't think I've ever installed RHEL or CentOS with X Windows. Frankly it annoys me that there are no desktop distros that are maintained for longer than a year or two. Are we really expected to reinstall Linux on a workstation ever year? That scares me because it makes me think the people who are using Linux are just screwing around and not doing real work. Anyone doing real work doesn't have time to reinstall Linux every year.
So do you have your own repos or use DAG or what?
How do you solve the Redhat repos are depressingly small problem?
Above you talked about 6-12 months, now it suddenly changed to 7 years... Do you seriously use that old disk images carried over to new HW, or do you perhaps re-install the OS from scratch to new HW a bit more often than that, after all?
I'm fairly happy with Ubuntu LTS (with a sane DE of your choice), and doing OS upgrade every two years (and I mean upgrade, not re-install), about half a year after each LTS has come out and most bugs have been weeded out.
I guess I just do not see that problem on my own systems. I have a few EPEL and RPMFusion packages, and otherwise everything I need is already in the repositories.
Palm trees and 8
Aside from our own applications, and the stuff provided on EPEL (which is permitted), what is missing from the Red Hat repos that would be required in a corporate environment?
I know this wasn't directed at me, but since I do in fact use RHEL (actually Scientific) on several workstations...
Rpmfusion supports RHEL and RHEL clones. Then there is EPEL. Between these you can have ~98% of what's available on any Fedora install. This problem isn't nearly as big a deal as what you seem to be making of it.
Ubuntu: If at first you don't succeed, blindly slap a sudo in front of it
He talked about not being willing to upgrade every 6-12 months. many workstations don't need hardware upgrades or to be replaced regularly at all depending on the task they are doing, It is not unusual for a workstation to have a 5-10 year life if its intended use is not processor or IO intensive. however they do need support and stability.
Above you talked about 6-12 months, now it suddenly changed to 7 years...
Read a little more closely. Fedora releases stop being supported after 12 months, and new releases come out every 6 months. RHEL releases lose support after 7 years, with new releases every 3 years or so.
Do you seriously use that old disk images carried over to new HW, or do you perhaps re-install the OS from scratch to new HW a bit more often than that, after all?
This is exactly the point: the support cycle is long enough that I will generally have to reinstall at some point before the 7 years are up, and I can do so at my discretion, when I have time available. I do not buy a new machine every 6-12 months; were I to stick with Fedora, I would be reinstalling (or praying that the upgrade option will work) on the same hardware year after year, and then having to take a few days away from work to rewrite configuration files, find workarounds for deleted features (or worse yet, added "features"), get my machine to connect to the network, etc.
I'm glad to here Ubuntu LTS works for you and lets you get your work done. I'll be over in here RHEL land getting my work done, and I'll be ignoring Google and their efforts to get me to do something else.
Palm trees and 8
Yes, I dare say it's simple mathematics. If the number of users of an OS, multiplied by the Chrome browser share of that OS, multiplied by the revenue per Chrome user on that OS, is less than the cost of continued support, then it's a simple decision to discontinue support.
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
Google earth and stuff like that. It does not seem very corporate, but we have a couple hundred folks using it.
I can't imagine how I have been getting my work done for all these years without using Google Earth. I guess if you are in a job where Google Earth is required then you would not be running the same desktop I am.
The type of user who uses RHEL on a workstation is not the same as the distro hoppers who jump from one flavor of Ubuntu to another just because a package isn't included in the default of an icon got moved. They will simply use Firefox or do a custom build of Chromium or something, but jumping distros is likely not a consideration.
Ubuntu: If at first you don't succeed, blindly slap a sudo in front of it
I use RHEL on the desktop as well. I'm a developer of Sysadmin software, and an admin of a large number of RHEL servers. No I don't run a desktop on the servers, but I do on my development machine which matches the servers, and need to test things against various browsers. Yes I have testers to do a lot of things, but I like being able to hit Chrome and Firefox right out of the box before I waste my Q/A folks time. Another example is trying to develop custom SELinux policies w/o enough GUI to run the tool set. The inter dependencies are nuts in this day an age to deal with if you're not able to drill into them with a GUI based tool. Point being as a developer and as a sysadmin there's generally some reason to have RHEL on the desktop and with multiple browsers.
Fedora is not better suited at all. In the enterprise no one is interested in an OS that won't be supported in 18 months. If I was to setup Linux in a business it would be between Debian, RHEL/CentOS, and Ubuntu LTS fedora would not make the cut at all.
This is very surprising coming from a company (Google) that supports open platforms and encourages open source software. I don't understand what a web browser like Chrome needs to rely on so heavily of a long-term released operating system. The binaries should be written to run on any version of GNU/Linux.
A likely explanation is that the user's running an older update of RHEL 6 (it's currently on update 3) that RH isn't providing updates for anymore. I could make a case for ceasing to support older updates, because they aren't getting security patches anymore and users really should be applying the regular updates from RH which, if they were, would've transitioned their systems to update 3 long before this (it came out in June 2012).
I'm using CentOS (free RHEL clone) on my laptop without any third party repositories. I'm interested in having a stable desktop environment, not every package in existence. Works great for me, but I can understand that it's not for everyone.
It's actually 10 years; 13 if you pay extra.
https://access.redhat.com/support/policy/updates/errata/
I'm sure Google's services runs just fine in Firefox.
How's this shit voted insightful? They sell a desktop version because corporations that will use linux on the desktop will want it from a company that offers support and not a community that might not be there tomorrow.
What "proprietary components"?
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
You can run RHEL/CentOS with current Chome, Chromium, Firefox, Thunderbird, LibreOffice, the usual multimedia apps, etc., etc., These programs are not in the official RHEL/CentOS repositories but they are available in reliable independent repos. I know because I've done it.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
>The headline, while someone oddly phrased, says that Google Chrome will no longer be built with concern running on RHEL 6.
Google Chrome has never been built with concern running on RHEL 6.
Download chrome for linux, it says "For Linux (Debian/Ubuntu/Fedora/openSUSE)" , fact which was told in the original googleplus discussion and that the RH evangelist failed to address.
So basically, the headline should be "Due to Red Hat choice to maintain old librairies for long time, chrome now fails to compile on it". Not very sexy.
Speaking of which, is there a Chrome version for Debian
All our servers are RHEL. All our desktops are also RHEL (well, mostly CentOS actually).
We build on desktops, and roll out to the servers.We have minor compatibility issues rolling out from point release differences of RHEL - say, code compiled on RHEL5.6 desktops didn't work on 5.5 servers. I can't imagine how many issues we'd have if we used Fedora, or worse yet (for compatibility) a completely different distro.
"Yeah, but you can compile on compile servers." Why would we have nice Linux desktops that all we do is run ssh to compile on an overused compile server?
So, we run RHEL on desktops for compatibility with prod targets, for solidness. The solidness which is really the whole point of RHEL. Google can choose to do whatever they want, but the reasons for our desktop distro makes sense to me. When you have billions going through your servers, you don't want to be messing around with distro incompatibility issues.
Unless your goal is to make your product ubiquitous. In that case you might want to consider listening to the users, in this case the enterprises that use RH Enterprise Linux and its derivatives. Simple math is rarely enough to build a successful business.
Time flies when you don't know what you're doing
this post on g+ https://plus.google.com/u/0/100132233764003563318/posts/Y1s6T44Soby explain the problem: chrome/chromium won't compile with gtk+ 2.24.0. that's why rhel 6, ubuntu 10.04, debian 6.0 and each distro with outdated gtl all deprecated.
If it is at least a semi-normal PC workstation, one where user might want to use Chrome, then fact of life is, Internet moves, standards change, compilers and associated core libraries change, utility and framework libraries target the new core etc etc.
All in all, even that Ubuntu LTS 2 year upgrade cycle is pushing it and often requires either compromising or tinkering to get some software to work. Going longer than that with same OS core just isn't compatible with the real world. If both are needed, then two OSes are needed, one for "real work", other for interacting with rest of the world. Fortunately, virtual machines and obscene power of modern PCs make it easy to have that with one physical PC without noticeable performance penalty. Easy enough to dedicate an entire OS for running just Chrome.
The thing is, Internet changes, world moves, and things (such as libraries) are interdependent. If you want both ultra-stable OS and recent software, you need two OSes. Which of course is just fine, just run Fedora or whatever in a VM, and reap benefits of up-to-date software where it matters, while having stable host OS for the "real work" (or whatever). No OS install needed even, just download pre-made VM image and you're set.
Firefox just releases a binary distribution (tar.gz) for Linux like they do for MacOS and Windows. It runs on AFAIK every, not really old, distribution. Something Chrome and other software vendors could do as well.
There is a problem with the traditional linux fixed-version distribution of software. You can either choose to use an unstable distro like Fedora OpenSUSE Ubuntu that break once in a while, or choose a stable distro like Debian Stable Ubuntu LTS RHEL/CentOS, and come to the problem that software that is mature to change like browser and desktop stuff being outdated. I think it's also a waste of time for the distribution organisation to maintain all those software packages, it's something the vendors of the particular software should do.
It's also annoying that with the customer distros, nice good working software will be thrown away, like Gnome2 and KDE3 where dropped immediatly after release of Gnome3 and KDE4 (which was really unstable and unusable in the early days).
I now choose to use EL6 (CentOS) now as a OS basis and install/compile new software on it by hand. I have build KDE 3.5.10 and KDE 4.9.5 succesfully for it, works fine. And it will keep working as is for the next couple of years because the API/ABI of the underlying libraries will be stable.
Are you sure that's the Red Hat repositories, and not third party Google repositories?
As fas as I understood the current version will remain forever, but you won't get any updated.
Newer versions of Postgres, Postfix, Dovecot... to name just a few (that I either go to a 3rd party repo or build from source).
Wolde you bothe eate your cake, and have your cake?
Oh? And even then there's trouble getting x64 Firefox builds for Windows.
it will be fixed automatically with next automatic update ;-)
This is part of why I use OSX.
Ubiquity is not a good business goal in and of itself. If they wanted ubiquity over everything else they would pay people to use it, which is effectively what they'd have to do if RHEL users are a net loss.
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?