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Infoworld Awards Red Hat Linux 5.2
An anonymous read was the first one to say that InfoWorl gave
Red Hat Linux the
1998 Operating System of the Year
award. This is of course the third year in a row.
Congratulations to the boys at Red Hat, but more importantly
Congrats to every one of you studmonkeys who wrote code that sits
in that thing. Pat yourself on the back.
...if Slackware started an advertising campaign, all these Windows 95 users would probably stop being so impressed with Red Hat. I guess they're just used to broken software.
The Anonymous Coward
Slackware For Life
EFNet's Own...Doommaker!
Even though, I have been using Red Hat exclusively
for 2.5 years, I believe that 99% of the credit
for this award goes to the Linux development
community in general, rather than the RHS company.
It's always RH...
What about Debian? I use Debian all the time (now after switch from RH where nothing would compile right) and I love it.
It has got to be the easiest to maintain distro available. Upgrading is a snap! No more searching high and low for pesky braindead PRMs and then having to install them only to find I need more RPMs to satisfy dependencies.
Plus, many of the RH RPMs are poorly setup. All the Debian debs are tested against a strict (or so I hear) policy so they're not DOA.
But then, maybe I'm just biased. I haven't used RH in about 5 months since 5.0 and perhaps there has been improvements. Next time, however, I'm calling Cheap Bytes for RH's CD instead of RH.
uselinux@email.com
shrink wrapped boxes than they are on their
ftp site?
Another question, tangentially related: what are
the boys at InfoWorld smoking?
*sigh*
i think the only thing Red Hat's got on debian is the user-friendliness of the X install, but that will change as soon as Debian gets Xconfigurator ported. now if only they'd stop slinking around and get on with frying their potatoes... :]
sure can! the dselect/apt-get thingie in the potato distribution is a slick little whippet, too. there's even a Gnome Apt front end in the works (alpha right now)...
Yes, definately!
That's how I did my first install... I didn't want to download all 2GB+ of Debian.
uselinux@email.com
Yes, the official version that they charge $50 for includes an additional CD with trial versions of commercial software - RealPlayer, Sybase, Wordperfect, and others.
But that's the only difference between the official version, and the freely available version. Everything else is the same.
The *one* reason I bought Red Hat is that they were the first to support non-Intel hardware.
...
... ]
And again they've shown their superiority: Supporting hardware that wasn't even available when their latest version shipped: The Compaq Armada 7400 series
Don't you despise these Anonymous Cowards like I do ? [ now if only S/D made it easy to enter contributions under your own name
Toon Moene (toon@moene.indiv.nluug.nl)
Saturnushof 14, 3738 XG Maartensdijk, The Netherlands
Phone: +31 346 214290; Fax: +31 346 214286
g77 Support: fortran@gnu.org; egcs: egcs-bugs@cygnus.com
For year after year zdnet always refers to windows95 as the best operating system. I believe windows magazine publishes the results. The awards are made by individual readers voting in their best os. The reader looki at all the os's ans say hmmmm I am going to stick with windows because of multitasking, scalability and ease of use. As a libertarian I believe that windows has to be the best os because everyone is using it and governmnet involvment with oems is BS. The guys at microsoft are such geniuses.
Red Hat supports alot of hardware, it has a decent install program, it is available at CompUSA.
Buy it, try it, learn it, love it.
Then move on to Debian or Slackware or SuSE or whatever distribution better suits your needs and inclinations.
I predict that starting next year, BeOS will win the award.
although i think Debian's the bet distribution, at work for some reason Slackware was the only one out of RH, Debian, and SW to recognize a really old and junky NE2000 clone network card...
Well, I think I could just answer the few questions correctly and make it install and run X-windows and whatever win-95 emulator windows manager they have now. Thats no problem for anybody half comptetent with Linux
Um, if you've never had problems with an install (be it due to weird hardware, user error, bad CD, or whatever), that's great, but it does happen even with a perfectly good distribution. Shit happens, y'know?
I smell another MicroSoft wannabe here,
I'd like to sort of respectfully disagree here. Red Hat didn't give themselves the award; some pinhead trade rag gave them the award. Most companies will tell you that they have a good product. Red Hat is as close to telling the truth about that as anybody in the industry, and a hell of a lot closer than most.
The problem with Microsoft isn't that they think they're great; it's that they're WRONG, y'know?
But I do think that eventually the desktop will be unix, and people will judge each other by how much "geek speak" they know, winners being the most fluent.
Heh. Already, the salesmen "fluently" talk about how they "download the internet". The average users will not learn unix the way you and I have done. Ever. Why the hell would they? It's a pain in the ass, and they don't need an industrial strength server at home, nor do they need awk and tr and grep for anything they care about. They are just not interested in that stuff. Yes, it's a great OS. I love it to pieces, but let's be realistic here. My goals are not the same as my mom's goals. I dig this stuff. I write code for a living. But most people aren't like that. If we can give 'em a smooth GUI surface that doesn't break on 'em and lets 'em do what they want, then sooner or later some of 'em may try a little xterm at a party (the first one's free) and find that they like it . . . and then maybe a little more, you know, just for kicks . . . If it's there, it will get used by somebody, but the "geek speak" most of 'em will learn will never be more than the vague mass of annoying gibberish that they use now: The big beige box is either the "CPU" or the "Hard Drive", the "hard disk" goes in the little slot, IE "downloads faster", "the document is on the file" (WTF does that MEAN?!?! Can somebody tell me? PLEASE?), etc. ad nauseam . . . I know it's not fair of me to sneer at them, because I'm butt-ignorant about some things, too.
You're right, it is the only logical evaluation if what's being evaluated is a superficial misunderstanding of the facts. Here's a tip: before you make a logical evaluation of anything, do a little research and figure out what you're evaluating.
/. readers already know it and are sick of hearing about it. Do a little research. Find out what happened. Go back and find out what happened if an OEM wanted to install OS/2 on a computer. Find out what happened when Compaq wanted to bundle Netscape with their computers. Read the goddamn Halloween documents, all the rest of us have!
The reason Windows has 95% of the market is because the market was unfairly manipulated. I won't tell you what that manipulation consisted of, because 99.999% of
Now, it may very well be that in a free market, Windows would have succeeded, but the reality is, there was no free market operating here.
Oh, and for what it's worth, I'm a libertarian too, so I understand that there's a certain sympathy that goes out to any group or individual being targeted by the government. But just because they're being hounded doesn't mean they aren't wrong.
COME ON LINUX GUYS!! DONT YOU RELIZE THAT PEOPLE BUY THINGS LIKE WINDOWS95 AND STANDARD OIL AND AT&T SERVICES BECAUSE THEY ARE BETTER!! I MEAN STANDARD OIL WAS WORTH 4X THE PRICE BECAUSE IT WAS BETTER THEN OTHER BRANDS RIGHT!! AND COME ON!! AT$T WAS THEB EST LONG SERVICE PROVIDER BEFORE THE SPLIT UP! RIGHT! THE SAME IS ALSO TRUE TOWARDS WINDOWS 95! PEOPLE HAVE A CHOICE WHEN THEY BUY A LABTOP OR PC RIGHT! EVERYONE DOESN'T CARE ABOUT SHARING WORD OR EXCEL DOCUMENTS RIGHT! PEOPLE BUY A PC AND IT NEVER COEMS WITH WINDOWS!! THE CONSUMER JUST LOVES WINDOWS SOOO MUCH THAT HE OR SHE REQUESTS IT! THAT POLL BY DATAQUEST THAT SHOWED THAT OVER 70% OF ALL IT MANAGERS WOULD LEAVE MS WINDOWS IF THEY COULD! GET REAL! HOW OFTEN DO YOU HEAR ABOUT W95 CRASHES AND HOW OFTEN DO YOU HEAR ABOUT LINUX CRASHES! THE FACT IS EVERYONE MUST THINK WINDOWS IS BETTER. I GUESS ALL THOSE WEB SERVER ADMINS ARE WRONG. I AM SURE THEY ALL RUN THEIR SERVER OS'S ON W95 RIGHT! AFTER ALL WINDOWS NT FAILED THE SAME RESULTS.
:-)
The only thing worse then republicans are libertarians.
I am getting a little worried that RedHat seems to be getting all the credit for everything these days. 'Best OS'?? There is no RedHat 'OS', they sell a *Linux distribution*!!! And not a very good one in my opinion, though better then some. Certainly NOT the headlining distribution of Linux, only the most succesfully marketed apperently.
They do seem to do a few things for the community, which is all cool and stuff (course it probably helps them bring in the doe more then it does anything for us). But they seem to be getting a whole lot more credit then they deserve. If the world keeps thinking RedHat is the Linux OS, and we keep thinking this is cool,...or even ok....and don't adamantly correct this misconception when faced with it,...we may someday get faced with the problem the RedHat has *become* Linux (meaning that only a few knowlageable people and hackers will know that its just a distro, and software will come in rpm formats only etc etc,...with Linux competing in the major market, this IS a potential problem)...and with thier LSB crap (which contrary to populer beliefe, I do NOT think is in the best intrests of Linux as a whole, but only to certain groups and will cause more problems then anything), we may find that software is much harder to install on other systems.....I have already run into this problem with Gnome and E ("If you try to install this program on another system (Not RedHat) you are on your own") were your more or less discouraged from installing this software on anything but RedHat.
I really think that we should keep the public community from thinking that RedHat is the "be all end all" of linux. That RedHat is the only Linux out thier, or even the best choice among the great variety of distributions of this OS which I firmly believe it is not.
The point is, RedHat should not be recieving this award which should actually go to the kernel development group, and probably also to the FSF who contributed most of the utility programs which make up the operating system. All RedHat has done is offer these programs in a shrink wrapped package with commercial support...this does not make up an OS in any point of view I can think of. And RedHat should not have accepted this award, but instead passed it to the apropriate parties who they owe ALL of what they are now, whitout whom RedHat would probably not even exist....it simply does not belong to them.
and what about people without an x86 or ppc?
i'd love to see it running on the alpha and G3 platforms at the very least.
too bad Be is so dedicated to the homie market.
All Linux distros are preety good, for every bad thing about RedHat you could mention, I could come up with one for Slackware. Same thing for good comments.
.12 linus root/boot I made when it came out).. I started using Linux a lot when SLS came out and made it somewhat 'easy' to get up and running. For years my main computer was Slackware (1.0) and it had been incrementally upgraded (aout->elf,libc5;many kernels,sysV init;libc5->glibc2)..
:) )..
(Free|OPEN|NET)BSD rocks, All Linux distros rock, and all Free Software rocks. Every piece of software that enhances your freedom rocks. Just about all Free Software is high quality.
Novell, Solaris, Digital Unix, BeOS, QNX, Aix, Amiga OS.. Are all preety cool. Software that works, and has a manufactuor that does an okay support job can't be all bad.
Microsoft is the common enemy, their products are the least stable and most bloted available on the whole. Their support is piss-poor (even their fixes are ususally just halfassed workarounds to problmes they would never acknoldge in the first place), and their bussiness practices are criminal. They activly persue to increase their bank account at the direct expence of our freedom and well-being.
But even with all that, there are certian advantages to running Windows over the alternitives.
Please respect other people's choices, while your's might be better for you, it's not nessassarly better for everyone else. If you think you've got something they need to see, then let them know... But it's not your place to hound them.
I've been using Linux a *LONG* time. (Someplace I've got
Now I put redhat on almost all computers I admin. I couldn't imagine managing the number of computers I do without RPM.
I also use debian on quite a few, and have test boxes running Hurd, FreeBSD, and SuSe Linux.
Because of all this, I feel I'm qualified to chose my own distro. Can you tell me why you should be chosing it for me?
As a side note, you might want to give debian a spin (if you havn't already), I think you'll feel at home faster then you would with RH and it tends to be better maintained (and setup IMHO) then Slackware.. Of course, you have to give it some time to adjust.. (When I first used Redhat, I decided I hated it immeaditly because it "didn't have color ls", but I stuck with it a while, and a bit later I had added ls=ls --color=auto to my aliases and was happy again..
So please keep things in perspective and dont flame. Just because you dont understand something doesn't mean there isn't a reason. I assure you, *NONE* of us want to be running inferior software.
If you read the article, I think they made a good case for Red Hat. And with the addition of Gnome, they're on their way to being the premiere distro of Linux for the mass market. Certainly there are distributions that are better for nerds, but remember: not everyone is a nerd.
Me? I run Red Hat. Why? Because of ease of installation and support which are especially important when running it on a laptop. I don't have time to waste playing with setup and config crap. for days on end I don't own a computer so that I can play around with the os. I own a computer so I can do work without it being a pain in the ass. For that, Red Hat is great.
These awards are also cost-free advertising for the magazines themselves. After some time, everyone will want to be awarded. Having worked for one of the biggest Unix-oriented magazines (well, at that time), I know what I am taking about.
My feeling is that they are US-centric and not willing (capable) to look around. BTW did anyone find the criteria for the award?
Most distributions already ship with a superior desktop. RH still ships with fvwm95 as the default. I switched from RH to SuSE for the same reasons. The default RH config is less than optimal, especially from an ergonomic point of view (broken keyboard configuration, ugly window manager, no support for international characters). I've used RH since 4.0, and these problems have still not been fixed, and I got fed up with fixing them myself.
SuSE works properly out of the box. And their support beats RH's hands down.
Coolest post ever AC. |8-D
BeOS is getting linux converts. And most of the big open source projects such as mozilla, povray, gimp/gtk, apache and others are coming to BeOS
Anybody check out gnome 99.7 offical release? It kicks ass! I have been following it since the I first heard the rumors at the Red Hat Labs, and I could have only imagined how good it could get. It is well on it's way to eliminating the need for the command line for a new user working on a preconfigured box!
Bullshit, Linux will never be for a mass market. GNOME/KDE are just a set of useless toys, not tools. The first time user will eventually have to do rtfm and start using command line. Not, even before that. Someone has to do all that crazy unix sysadmin staff. Is GNOME gonna do this for a clueless (l)users?
O'Reilly, RedHat, another fucking microsoft
The fact that standard oil wasn't worth 4x times the price proves my point exactly why people buy things out of needs and not quality. Standard oil was the only one to chose that didnt have a overly bloated price tag (thanks to Rockofeller buying the distribution chains). No one could or wanted to compete. Whic is easier? To buy oil at 3 tiems the price for your model T or forming an oil company and a railroad company and a store to sell you oil? Libertarians are fools. THe fact that NT failed on the same survey shows how stupid most computer users are and they dont care if their computer crashes, just as long as they can read ms word documents and type in formulas in Excell. This is the only reason why people use windows. ITs free with the computer and everyone else uses windows and why do I need to change.
If you look a little closer you will see RedHat has a product for all the ports you refer to and more. "Extreme Linux" and "Rough Cuts". Both listed on there web site.
Tried it. Love it. Period.
Not only can you install it over ftp, you can upgrade to the newest version of all packages daily, using apt-get. It totally rocks. And with about 3000 packages in total, almost all interesting freely distributable pieces of software are prepackaged.
All distros have their strengths and weaknesses... the best thing to do is use the one you're comfortable with, and if you advocate that particular distro, be willing to help others that use it as well. Also, if you have a problem with a particular distro, instead of bashing, try writing to the creator(s) and asking them why they decided to such-and-such a thing (instead of saying "They SUCK!!!!")
There are two reasons that might be the explanation of why the media gives the awards to a specific company instead of to Linux in general:
1 - They have to compare products in the marketplace. The distrubutions are the products, not the underlying kernel.
(or)
2 - They are ignorant.
Neither of the above two are Redhat's fault. They are the beneficiaries of ignorance, but not the causers of it. Stop blaming them.
Don't label something "offtopic" unless you know the topic well enough to tell what's on topic.
Don't label something "offtopic" unless you know the topic well enough to tell what's on topic.
I bought RH5.2 Thursday, tried to install it
10 times already, fails stupidly at configuring
timezone without telling me why, and also fails
silently at create boot disk and installing
LILO.
Their installation program is a joke.
linux is the only *nix flavor I don't know
and this RH experience has left me disappointed.
so far all the linux people I know can't give me
an answer
> 95% market share means it's the best product.
Nope. 95% market share means only that for 95% of the purchasers, it's an acceptable balance between functionality and cost on the basis of their individual knowledge. It says nothing whatever about inherent technical quality, aesthetic appeal, efficiency, usability, or anything else.
(And since when, by the way, do us libertarians, who profess a radical individualism, believe that the majority is necessarily right? Politically we reject the tyranny of the majority as firmly as we reject the Divine Right of Kings.)
Now, if you (or any of us Linux -- or Be, or OS/2, or whatever -- advocates) think they're wrong, the answer is to educate them, and do whatever is necessary to raise the functionality and/or lower the cost (not just $, but hassle and time) of your favorite OS. And I think that's what we're doing -- isn't it? -- with improved installation, KDE/GNOME, etc.? (Who have you introduced to Linux today?)
Craig
See -- I'm one, too....
RedHat's Web page lists ports to Intel, Alpha, and Sparc.
Debian's Web page lists ports to Intel, Alpha, Sparc, UltraSparc, ARM, Motorola 68k, MIPS, PPC, the Hurd and Beowulf. And Debian isn't even a commercial entity (I know--but some people feel that being a commercial entity should result in better products so I felt I'd mention this
Don't know about the other distros, but that doesn't sound like 'superiority'..
And what's a Compaq Armada?
Daniel
Hurry up and jump on the individualist bandwagon!
Anybody check out gnome 99.7 offical release? It kicks ass! I have been following it since the I first heard the rumors at the Red Hat Labs, and I could have only imagined how good it could get. It is well on it's way to eliminating the need for the command line for a new user working on a preconfigured box!
If I was asked if Red Hat would win the infoworld OS of the year this year I couldn't tell you, but I can tell you they will win for 99!
I don't understand why people bash Red Hat so bad.
Deep Thoughts(TM)...
Here is somthing to think about. What do you think Linus or RMS would say if you wtote them an email saying Alan Cox is a liability and should be locked out of the kernel project because he works for Red Hat. (Hint: They have ripped into people for far less.)
Novel theory: Modern Man evolved from psychopath
I like Slackware better.
Besides, how great can the Inforworld Award be if the same company keeps getting it?
"You're gonna need a bigger boat." - Chief Brody
correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't Linus use a redhat distro? I don't remember where I heard it from (prolly somewhere on ./ or an interview), but he said he did.
I do know they gave the award to OS/2 for a
number of years. (5 years?)
And now Linux (well, RedHat, but Linux none-the-
less) for 3 years.
How long has this award been around, and who
were the winners, and how many times did a
MS OS make the list?
Vip
They'd have a good laugh, and block all further E-mail from you.
I would agree that the credit definitely goes to the makers of free software, but the importance of RedHat's distribution should not be downplayed. RedHat is not the only Linux, and it is true that people should be made to know this. However, RedHat is different from other distros because they have made a shrink-wrapped, supported, package. RedHat does not deserve the award for best OS for the technical side (software, etc.), but they do deserve the award for making a working business model for free software that can survive. Also, the new adopters of Linux that are using RedHat's distro in business do so because they now have someone to go to for support. Linux hackers in general I think have too great a tendency to attack any entity that wants to make Linux a bit friendlier for the beginning user. GNOME and RedHat's use of the RPM for distribution are important because they are giving a way for new users (like myself, for instance, who just compiled his own kernel outside of an RPM) to jump onto the Linux bandwagon. I have been using RedHat for a good half year now and was about to go to Debian (still am) because the RPM I at first thought was too restrictive, but I am finding that, though the dependencies are annoying, overall it is not too bad. RedHat should be watched to make sure they don't venture too far from the Linux mainstream (and create their own), but nevertheless they should not be attacked for garnering those Win95/98 OS newbies that are frightened by GNU/Linux's complexities.
Um, okay.... :)
I dont get it.
Why not just Linux?
What differs RedHat Linux from debian or slackware?
It uses the same kernel, and the same (GNU) utilities.
If they deperated the award for "best kernel" and "best utilities" then these would win,
and it would be like every distibution won.
This is nothing but free advertising to Redhat.
("I'm gonna get linux so I better get RedHat because it's the best!")
---
I'm going to live forever, or die in the attempt.
My RH5.2 crashes whenever I pick Workstation or Server installation. Doesn't matter since I always pick custom anyways.
"If a show of teeth is not enough, bite
As a RH user since 5 I have to agree. RH is not much better than the other distributions (the opposite is also true - I ain't a traitor). Most of the tools used in RH installation are available on other platforms, I know the installation of Turbo Linux parrots that of RedHat. Combine this with average build quality - broken Navigator etc. I do not think that RedHat is as sterling a product as its accolades would lead you to believe.
Their much vaunted support only covers installation, assuming you do not have any exotic hardware and are capable of reading and understanding the installation of RH is a snap. The definition of an installation is unfair, leaving the newcomer to figure out his modem alone.
Aside from the email tech support, the tech docs on the site are in some ways deficient - mainly with respect to their age.
However while RH 5+ may not be the best distribution by far it does deserve consideration as the best. RH the company is almost a model citizen, especially with the RHLabs. I could more conceive of the company being given an award.
On the other hand the award is for Linux, RedHat just benefits from being the most popular. Linux also benefits from the exposure RedHat gets, and so does Debian and the other distributions. All in all it is a win win situation.
Woe be on to them, all who rise against poor people, shall perish in a the end. Buju Banton
I'm new to Linux and a friend I work with is a loyal user of Debian. I asked his advice after reading tons of stuff like this discussion thread and becoming sold on Debian. After much thought, he actually suggested starting with RedHat to get my feet wet because it can be easier for newbies. If Red Hat can ease the transition from Windows to Linux for non-hackers, then kukos to them and their distribution.