Slashdot Mirror
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 Released
An anonymous reader writes: Today, Red Hat unveiled Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7, with new features designed to meet both modern datacenter and next-generation IT requirements for cloud, Linux Containers, and big data. The new version includes Linux containers (LXC), which let Linux users easily create and manage system or application containers, improved MS Active Directory / Identity Management (IdM) integration, XFS as the default file system, scaling to 500 TB (additional file system choices such as btrfs, ext{3,4} and others are available), a new and improved installation experience, managing Linux servers with OpenLMI, enhancements to both NFS and GFS2, optimized network management, bandwidth, the use of KVM Virtualization technology and more. See the complete list of features here (PDF). CentOS 7 shouldn't be lagging too far behind due to recent cooperation between Red Hat and CentOS project.
Stable is the word you are looking for.
I'm starting to think GNU is the problem with "GNU/Linux" these days.
rhel7 comes with glibc 2.17.
There are scenarios in which a meticulously backported base with few to no functional changes is valuable. That is the entire point of RHEL, to be able to have support lifecycle that more closely matches Microsoft or Unix offerings.
If you need more rapidly updating content, then a distribution like Ubuntu or Arch or Fedora is a better fit. Ubuntu LTS might be a decent approach for some. The good thing about this ecosystem is you can select an experience based on your needs.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
I was going to the FTP site to look at the sources, but apparently they have moved.
Current sources for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 have been moved to the following location:
https://git.centos.org/project...
That's a bit cool actually.
I have always admired RH for it's feature set and pursuit of enterprise-related features. /etc/network/interfaces /etc/sysconfig/network/networking/where/are/the/damn/config/files
I do however have one gripe: All the config files are in the wrong place!
This isn't a real complaint, more akin to a whine. I have been using Debian for too many years on far too many servers; my muscle memory demands that the config files that I need to edit be located in the same place across distros.
Does anybody know why there is such a difference in file locations?
vs
"The price good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men." ~Plato (427-347 BC)
Red Hat aims not only for stability in the sense of "not crashing", but in the sense of "doesn't change a lot within a major release", especially in the core libraries and language runtimes. Companies often like that kind of stability, because they have miscellaneous in-house or commercial software running on top of the base system, which has a habit of breaking when anything is upgraded under it. So within a major version, Red Hat carefully rolls out only non-ABI-breaking changes, e.g. by backporting bugfixes to previous major versions of libraries.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Systemd is not nice because it does all that stuff. Init is not supposed to do all that stuff, because it makes it bulky, gives additional avenues of attack, and is just all around a pain. What would have been better would have been to make systemd a modular system so that if you want it to handle all that, it can, but if you dont, it just does the parallel start up.
When you cant win, ad hominem.
C-Level: Red Hat has a new version of internet, we should install it.
PHB:right away! PM! Red hat has an OS! lets install it
PM: Of course! Engineering! how are we on the RHEL 7 project!?
Senior Engineer: I dont remember getting one did I give it to you?
Infrastructure group: you never approved our upgrade to RHEL 4 because it required Oracle downtime. You never agreed to the RHEL 3 upgrade because our proxy cant go down or the PHB cant get to facebook. We were told not to upgrade the RHEL 2 fileservers because the PHB keeps his motivational MP3's there. The only machine we have running RHEL6 is the one you made us install four days ago because you attended a webinar..so...i guess we'll have it upgraded by the end of the week.
PHB: whoa there pump your brakes guys...dont touch that server. if you take it offline i might not be able to get to the webinar next year!
Good people go to bed earlier.
BULL SHIT.
Redhat routinely changes shit horrendously within release. They removed the crmsh configuration and replaced it with a completely different configuration tool in RHEL6, breaking a bunch of shit. They do this continuously: upgrade software, change some shit around, deprecate old tools for new tools, and tell you it's improved.
crmsh was in tech preview. Red Hat never committed to supporting that. Pay attention to the support status of what you are deploying.
Comparing apples to oranges when it comes to linux distros. RHEL is for mission critical stability and especially servers where you don't want stuff changing all the time. Rolling release distros are dangerous in production environments. Especially a distro like Arch takes way too much effort to setup and maintain. Not every computer is a hobby.
I bet they'll have to support RHEL6 for many and many years as a lot of companies won't upgrade to RHEL7.
http://boycottsystemd.org/
Systemd is the new future toolbox for maintaining and running Linux: All major enterprise Linux distros are using or are about to use systemd. Sure, a few companies will delay their transition to systemd if they have a lot of custom stuff they need to change, but systemd just have so many new awesome features that most will embrace it with joy; systemd simply means faster and better maintenance, and being able to pack more services in each hardware unit.
Those who dislike systemd are just a tiny but vocal minority; they have also spend the last couple of years smearing named open source developers like Lennart Poettering and trash-talking systemd, instead of developing an alternative to systemd. As a group they accept how the most extreme voices against systemd are unopposed, meaning that all the swivel eyed loonies with their paranoid ranting have become spokespersons for them, resulting in that nobody wants to work with them. So not only are the systemd detractors a small group, but they alienate most of the potential developers they could have had.
The end result is that almost nobody works on alternatives to systemd. Critical software like "ConsoleKit" is bit-rotting, nobody tries to help upstream projects supporting anything else but logind, despite that eg. Gnome developers have warned about this for years.
Instead of helping KDE and Gnome supporting non-systemd systems, the systemd detractors just rant on how NSA/The Greys/Poettering are controlling Gnome and KDE, and that everybody should boycot them and use CDE instead.
Like it or not, systemd will be in any Linux distro of importance in the future. Sysvinit (and X) are on life support and will be killed off at first opportunity people get. Even OpenBSD are starting to clone certain parts of systemd, and there is no doubt that all BSD's will have their init-system upgraded to a modern version inspired/cloned from systemd in the upcoming years. It is simply that good.
You think a hobby distribution that didn't even have package signing until 6 months ago is a competitor to RedHat?
You are missing the whole point - the idea is that throughout the 7.x release the glibc (/ other software) version will not change, so in 10 years time your *current* software investment will still work, rather than being force to upgrade. Stability means not changing what is deployed *now* in the future. For many deployments this is crucial. If you do not need this form of long-term software stack stability, then, yes, RedHat is not for you - however there is no point criticising RedHat for a policy that is deliberately enforced for a good reason.
Can one revert to init, rather than using systemd?
instead of developing an alternative to systemd
The stance amongst those opposed to systemd was that what wasn't broken didn't need fixing. Some people disagree and think it needs to be fixed and systemd is it. People objecting to systemd largely don't have to create an alternative, they are content with the linux distributions as they were.
Of course you need to develop alternatives to systemd in order to decay into non-functionality. AFAIK, running a multi-user non-systemd OS these days, depends on a old bit-rotting version of ConsoleKit. There are many more features that will break and bit rot in the future for lack of maintenance; Red Hat, Suse, Debian, Ubuntu, etc. won't put resources into developing for non-systemd systems.
Instead of helping KDE and Gnome supporting non-systemd systems,
KDE at least I thought purported to continue supporting non-systemd systems already. Gnome 3 developers very linked in with the systemd developers and as a whole they prioritize the purity of their vision over any criticisms. Perhaps appropriately electing to focus on bringing their vision to life to serve those who would follow the vision and letting the rest go on to KDE or xfce or MATE or whatever. I personally don't care about gnome shell as it doesn't serve my needs anymore either, but I can accept that they are caring after their user experience. I also wouldn't mind systemd so much except for the fact it is becoming unavoidable whilst retaining compatilibity with ongoing projects in linux.
KDE will support running on non-systemd distros, but it will be with reduced functionality. Not because the KDE developers are evil, but because they are offered no alternatives to systemd. Take fx. the new KDE login manager; KDE simply couldn't afford spending developers so that it also supported the rather broken and bit-rotting ConsoleKit. And nobody else has stepped up and offered help.
Sure you can use another login manager, but it is just an example on how bit by bit, non-systemd distro will have to step up and start doing their own development in order to have functional software. Networking and ntp DE modules, and log viewers, etc. will all be systemd based, with no common alternative in sight.
Gnome developers have warned for years about current problems; systemd offers really good and compelling features that can enhance their DE, while non-systemd distros doesn't. And because non-systemd distros seems to be sticking their head in ground and denying the reality that status quo can't be maintained, they don't offer any help at all. In fact, snarky remarks and vague conspiracy insults are all they are getting.
Pacemaker (which provides crmsh) is a tech preview and unsupported in rhel. But don't let that stop you from blaming them for something that you know, is unsupported...
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Comment removed based on user account deletion