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Red Hat Growing Pains
The following was written by Slashdot Reader def con cyber
An open letter to Red HatI have been a Redhat user since release 4.2. I have always been so impressed with your desire to advance Linux technology and bring Linux to the world with your ease of use and easy installations. My Linux experience started off downloading images of slackware Linux off of the net. When I loaded my first Redhat distribution, I swore I would never use anything else.
But now, I find myself waivering on that decision for several reasons. First, I was so excited to get my copy of Redhat Linux, I surfed on over to your website and decided to give you guys a little extra business. For the first time, I will take the plunge, dig deep into my wallet and buy the extra pack. Well, it looks like I will have to dig a little deeper than I expected $99.00. But what the hell. Lets do it.
So, for the next week, I listen to my Linux cohorts telling me about their new Redhat 6.0 Linux boxes. So, I break, I run off and buy a retail version. I still have the perks to look forward to when my plus pack comes. Again a dent to my wallet. $79.00
I load it onto my box, new install. Looks just like the old. Finally, I am up and running. A flawless install. Unfortunately Gnome is buggy and crashes (a lot). I have never spent more time rebooting my system since I ran Microsoft products on it. I type "glint" to install some additional packages. What? Glint is nowhere to be found and GnoRPM is very confusing to use. Why would you drop something tried and trued just like that.
I attempt to install Redhat on my laptop. Glitch, I am trying to install from a superdisk which is recognized as second device, second ide controller or in the Linux world hdd. Not a problem, I am sure I can override Linux trying to mount fd0 and telling it to mount hdd. I try for a few days and fail. Well, I'll try later.
I finally get my Redhat extra pack. I excitedly rip it open. I thow the powertools and application disk into /dev/floppy and spin it up. Well, they are both full of lame application which can be easily d/l'd from the net or that Redhat used to distribute with their standard distrubution. What the hell, I am going to get my moneys worth. I phone Redhat to redeem my free technical installation support about the superdisk problem.
Well, little to no wait, very impressed. I find out why in a minute. I explain my problem and my proposed solution and the tech support says cheerfully, "That sounds reasonable". After being on hold for 5 minutes she comes back and informs me that she spoke to some techs there and, "they could not understand why I wanted to do what I was asking therefor, they could not support the problem." Wow, from, "that sounds logical" to "no way in hell" in five minutes flat.
The problem has since been fixed (without the help of Redhat). Well, this past weekend I get the chance to really tweak my system. I find liks that point to old versions that were not loaded into the system (Ironically when I tried to use the Redhat 'support disk' (a hi-jack of out of date usenet lists)).
I go to the Redhat errata page. I try to dowload the update to Netscape. Broken links. So I ftp into Redhat's updates.redhat.com. What do I find, but a bunch of empty directories. This wouldn't be a problem except for the fact that the errata page had several fixes that pointed to this area. I dreamed of the day Redhat would go public and actually have been putting money aside for when it finally happened. When I read about the Redhat IPO, I wasn't the least bit excited.
Redhat, please know that I am not flaming you. I have tried to fill this with legitimate complaints. I am not anti-Redhat. You and I have been together for many years. I am an Internet content provider and run 5 boxes 24x7x365, and one laptop. All running Redhat Linux.
I have always "bought" your distribution to support you because you were supporting me the user. I have purchased every release since 4.2. I have always recommended you to newbies and helped them setup their systems.
I do not ask for perfection. But you are now charging $79.00 for your basic distribution. As a customer, I am getting less, quantity, and quality. My web server (Redhat 5.0) has been up since Sept. 98 without a glitch. My Redhat 6.0 workstation locks up every few days (much like my wife's Windows machine).
I appreciate your need and desire to win corporate business. But I am "common joe Linux user". I feel I helped you get where you are. Please tell me there is still room for me within your business plans and future goals. If not let me know now so I can find a different distribution who is still looking out for the little guy.
With respect and hope for the future of Redhat, Stuart MacKenzie
Unlike so many others, I am not turned off by RedHats business forays. If they can bring commercial software makers into the fold fine, if they can make a buck fine, if they are the foremost distribution fine. RedHat has made a huge contribution to the Open Source movement and they are still doing it to this day. They are providing hackers like Miguel and Alan Cox with livelihoods to code Linux and release all of it under the GPL. You can still load one copy onto any number of computers ( unlike Caldera but that is another story. ) It's total crap that Redhat is selling out.
.3 to .9 for no apparent reason and even Miguel admitted the 1.0 release was too early. It is obvious that Gnome was falling quickly behind KDE and needed a 1.0 release to stay in the race. ( No I don't want to start a flame war about K and G - but the situation speaks for itself. )
However, the quality thing is another issue. The thing that attracts people to Linux is its stability. If RH continues to release buggy distributions they are shooting themselves and us in the foot. Why should anyone switch from M$ crap to Linux crap. The 5 series distributions were decent but included a few major problems such as broken Linuxconfs and the program that erased the fstab for you. The problems with 6.0 seem to be rampant though ( Truetype fonts that stop working, Samba misconfigs, and crashes due to Gnome, etc.). Gnome may be the next big thing but it obviously isn't ready for the big time. It jumped from
As for me I am about ready to go with Debian or Mandrake Linux which is basically a fixed version of RH 6.0. I think unless RH straightens out this quality thing, they are injuring themselves as well as the rest of us by because as the foremost Linux distribution the rest of the world percieves RedHat as Linux.
Being in the new york startup scene, I know the quiet period is an SEC requirement for a fact. The rule seems to be intended to prevent self promotion by the company going public. The idea is that the company files and the investors use the filing to judge what the market value should be. Based on the rules and format of the filing itself, it is probably a way of forcing the investor to look at a company in more objective terms than a normal press release.
-Dave
David Stenglein daves@bluetape.com
Check out http://www.sputnik7.com for a cool interactive music video experience. (Blatant Plug. We're nowhere close to our quiet period ;-)
My primary concern is that Red Hat appears to be forgetting the reasons for their success. Some reasons why, in the past, I standardized on Red Hat:
/incoming directory has disappeared and there are no directions on any Red Hat web site on how to contribute to RHCN, the purported replacement. Don't believe me? Try http://developer.redhat.com and http://rhcn.redhat.com!
1) Large amount of contributed software on their FTP site. Now the
2) Swift bug releases. In the past, Red Hat swiftly released bug fixes. Today, go browse BugZilla on http://developer.redhat.com . Look for problems with, for example, the NIS daemon. Look at the "Resolution" box. I'll bet you that 99% of the bugs you find will have "WONTFIX" or "LATER" (fixed in later release, not in 6.0) in the "Resolution" box. For some things this does not matter. For others it does -- for example, the NIS password daemon dying is a major bug for those of us who use NIS, and it is marked as "LATER". It appears that the automatic response of the poor slob they have monitoring these hundreds of bugs is to automatically put "LATER" or "WONTFIX" into that box so that he won't have to actually do anything about them (work? gosh, what's that?!).
3) A coherent web site. In the past, Red Hat had the best web site of any distribution. It was chock-full of information, you could find out almost anything you needed to know about Red Hat Linux by following the links, it pointed you to their mailing lists, etc. Now it's a mess. You can't find anything, the links are all broken (like the one on how to contribute to RHCN!), and you can tell that behind the scenes, the thing is torn to pieces and the mechanics are scratching their heads trying to figure out how to put it back together again. In short, it's a mess.
These are growing pains, certainly. But unless Red Hat remembers why they got where they are, they're going to start losing market share -- and once that happens, they'll lose their luster of invincibility and end up being just another distribution.
-- Eric
Send mail here if you want to reach me.
I can see your understanding of being fustrated at the pains of RedHat linux, but there are some simple solutions which I will list.
1. Don't pay that much for linux. Linux started off as a free OS, and continues to this very second.. RedHat sells their distribution for that much to provide the user with good(unable to confirm), support. I have yet to buy a distribution of linux, and the closet I ever did come to it was 2 years ago when I ordered something like 12 cds with distributions and archive packs from cheapbyes for something like under 10 dollars. I now have acces to a T1(they claim) at school, and can download it if I am really determined to, which I am not really. Either order some 2 dollar cds from Cheapbytes, linuxcentral, or linuxmall, or download it using someone's fast link. Don't pay Microsoft prices.
2. When you are having problems, don't call RedHat support, as you have already learned. Every tech support department at companies consist of many phone operators sitting next to thousands of sheets of paper in tech manuals. When that tech support person told you that she checked with the techs, she was most likely meaning she opened a few manuals and looked around, not finding anything. Whenever I have problems, which dosen't happen much cause linux is mostly good to go when you have a good base install and maintaince, I go to IRC and ask. Sometimes it might be a gimp question, or gtk, or something. But I access IRC on one of the many networks and find the right people to ask what to do and how to fix it. 100% free and most of the times it's only a matter of minutes before someone can help me with the problem.
3. Extras pack. Hey now, no need for that. I have never even seen an extras pack, much less bought one. All it is, like you found out, is a bunch of applications that the RedHat people went and collected off the internet. Spend the ten minutes and download those few megs of programs that you really need to use.
I hope that this will guide others in aqiring linux and using it, as it will save you money, time, and paitence. Linux was started as a open source free project, let's keep it that way and not taint the idea that started it all.
Dear Sir and other readers.
Thank you for voicing your problems with Red Hat Technical Support. We can only address those problems brought to our attention.
For other people reading this, and looking to either give positive or negative feedback on their support, please get the name of the Technician, the time you called, and send your input to sup-manager@redhat.com.
From this we can talk to the technicians involved and work on better methods for clearing up such problems.
Stephen Smoogen
Support Manager
-- SJS smooge at smoogespace dot com
Yes, but the point of the post was that he had been actively supporting them this whole time, actually giving them money when he didn't have to because he believed in what they were doing - and this is how they repayed him.
I think it is a good thing when people who can afford to support Linux distros/developers/etc., do so. They help to make all this possible. This post is all about trying to determine whether it is worthwhile to continue supporting RedHat when things have changed for the worse this much. In the spirit of the post this man should instead turn his business over to SUSE or Debian or someone else, where the money will be actively used to enhance Linux for the rest of us rather than whatever RedHat has been doing with the money (and let me say that they have helped the cause out a lot, but it doesn't seem to be quite as high-quality help lately).
Charlie, someone who owns 1 legitmate copy of RedHat Linux 5.2 and is probably going to buy the next Debian distro next time instead, if he doesn't just switch to *BSD
I always wondered why pcmcia was installed by default... that one is very weird.
OTOH, all the people listing bugs/complaints here *really should* submit them to the Red Hat bug list, as well. That's how you make it better.
every x.0 redhat release since 2.0 (which i started with) has caused people grief. i've had my share of problems with 6.0 (install not mounting /home or /usr properly, apmd messing up TZ info, latex getting hosed, scientific apps like IDL and IRAF not working with glibc2.1, etc.), but i certainly had problems with earlier x.0 releases as well. 4.0 was an even bigger mess than 6.0. 5.0 didn't seem as bad, though i did have to spend several evenings rebuilding stuff to work with glibc. now that i have 6.0 running, it runs fine and i don't have any stability problems with either KDE or gnome/E.
redhat really tries to push the latest technology into their x.0 releases, sometimes perhaps before they're ready (glibc in 5.0, gnome in 6.0). they did at least make betas available for 5.0 and 6.0, but how many people really tried them out? and how many other current dists are running glibc2.1 even though it's been clearly stated that it will be a key part of the LSB? i for one appreciate redhat taking the risks of staying out on the bleeding edge. it would be really easy for them to be safe and corporate and let others innovate and take the heat.
redhat also has a good bug tracking system in the form of bugzilla.redhat.com that i encourage all redhat users to take advantage of when they find a bug or a problem. the more people take advantage of it, the better redhat 6.1, 6.2, and later will be.
tim
hiding in shadows / i hear you coming closer / you will explode soon -- a quake haiku
But I agree that RedHat sites have too many broken links.
Last Sunday I had the unfortunate need to do an emergency upgrade. Meaning, old faithful (my harddrive) took a big dive. I ran to the local store and snatched up another, slapped it in, and installed RH6.
:)
Now, I'm a KDE user. As such, I knew that RH somehow took the stock KDE distro and "tweaked" it to point to directories they thought they liked. So, I chose not to install their KDE 1.1, but left all else the same. I then installed all the kde 1.1.1 RPMs from ftp.kde.org.
My system has been extremely stable, no problems at all. Everything is working, everything is nice. No compatibility problems to be found yet (this is a new machine as far as parts go).
Just wanted to voice - it's not all bad out there, some of us acutally have good luck and no problems.
-te
I have RH 6.0 installed on three machines. 2 old 486s and a Sparc SS1. I did not have any problems on the Intel iron (other than the new version being big and slow) but the Sparc version is a mess. X wouldn't even work out of the box and a lot of the installation features are broken.
Now I won't excuse Red Hat for the quality problems in 6.0 but I can understand them. 6.0 is a big new version with a new kernel (that isn't mature by the way) and a lot of other new stuff. I expect the next good release from Red Hat will be 6.2.
I bought my CDs from Cheap Bytes this time as the $79.99 price is more than I am willing to pay. Previously I bought the "Official" Red Hat version (since my first 4.1) but the new price is a mistake.
I have never used Red Hat tech support and I doubt if I ever would. I run a technical support department for a proprietary software company and I know that, by definition, technical support always sucks. There just isn't any way that a technician (not the programmer) talking to a customer on the phone can magically devine the solutions to many problems. Real support means flying an engineer to your site and working on the problem hands-on. But you can't get that for $80.
Now for as much as Red Hat is the company we all love to hate, I have to point out that the others are so much worse. Please remember that Red Hat is the only leading commercial distribution that is freely redistributable. This is very important to us all and we should support Red Hat.
I wish that Red Hat would improve the printed documentation that is included with the Official version since that adds value and reduces their support costs. Right now the manuals do not warrant the $80 price of the product.
In reading about the IPO filing, Red Hat plans to become less relient on sales of the distribution and wants instead to become a "Linux portal". This is a really bad idea. Look at their site. Does anybody go there for the priviledge of reading censored editions of Slashdot? No, you go there looking for product and support for product. Red Hat should become a service company that supports Linux for paying customers. They should give away the distribution to make sure the Linux they get to support is the one they control.
My computer, my way. Linux
--
Howard Roark, Architect
Howard Roark, Architect
I believe in a Man's right to exist for his own sake.
As the author of GnoRPM, I may as well respond here. I originally started writing it since I didn't like the interface on GLINT. I didn't write it as a replacement for glint -- it was Red Hat's decision to use it as a replacement for glint. I do not work for Red Hat (you can probably tell from the email address :), and don't have a say in what packages they put in or leave out of their distribution, so do not blame me for the removal of glint.
Yes it is true that gnorpm is not completely finished (you should be able to tell from the version number). Among other things, the install package interface on the version that shipped with RH6 was not very good.
Since then I have been updating that interface quite a bit. If you want to try it out, I recommend you grab the latest version off the GNOME CVS tree, or get a snapshot from ftp.jimpick.com. The new interface adds all the packages from the CD to the install window, from which you can select which ones to install. The list is sorted by package group name, and can be filtered to not show installed or old packages (there are a few other filters in there as well). It also colours packages based on their status (new, current, old or not installed) so you can quickly see updates.
If you have any other suggestions on how to make gnorpm better, I would be willing to hear them.
I agree with a previous poster, most of RedHat 6.0's instability is really with GNOME and Enlightenment.
On that note, I'm really curious as to what's going on with GNOME development right now. For a couple months, they were making releases like mad, fixing bugs left and right. Since GNOME 1.0, it has slowed down quite a bit. So, what are the GNOME folks focusing on? Enhancements or bug fixes? I would hope that they are working bug fixes rather than enhancements; stability should still be GNOME's #1 priority for the next couple of months. However, I don't really see too many releases coming out. "Release often" isn't necessarily a sign of bugs getting fixed, but it can sure be one.
Final note to the RedHat and GNOME folks: PLEASE make RPMs readily available! I found the above site by pure luck, and I believe those RPMs are built by someone not officially associated with either RedHat or GNOME. It is very difficult if not almost impossible to build GNOME updates if your base GNOME is from RPMs, especially if you have RedHat 6.0 which has special RedHat tweaks. Your #1 problem right now is stability, and unless you make it easy for people to upgrade to more stable versions, complaints of buggy software will hound both of you for a long time to come.
----------
In a real emergency, we would have all fled in terror, and you would not have been notified.
gmc or panel, probably - upgrading to a newer version helped. The 1.0 RPMs that shipped with RH6 are pretty good, but they're a lot more stable in current incarnation.
5. I've seen several cases of "slow login syndrome". When you log into X w/gnome, it inexplicably takes forever to load the window manager and gnome stuff. Once things get started, speed is ok. The syndrome persists even across sessions, which makes sense, but weirder still, you can cure it: switch to a console and kill gnome-session manually. Next time you log in, no problem.
I encountered a similar problem, then I compiled the RPM files myself from source (and threw in the PentiumPro optimizations of PGCC) for gnome-libs and gnome-core, along with WindowMaker. Now, it starts up quickly enough for me.
Hey, everyone, listen damnit!
From the Red Hat site:
Red Hat Linux Core
For the hard core Linux users, this comes with only CDs and the Official Red Hat Linux Installation Guide.
$39.95
There $40 bucks. IT'S $40 BUCKS, NOT $79, NOT $99.
Yeah you don't get the source CD (?), you don't get the Applications CD, the "Getting Started Guide" nor installation support.
But who cares? All that's available elsewhere (and it's usually better elsewhere).
If you still have a problem with $40 then simply DOWNLOAD it, but stop whining about $79 for Red Hat 6.0.
Thanks.
Sounds like the netscape + 24bpp pimaps problem. Here is the answer from the XFree86 FAQ:
Q.D3- wrong colors or black and white images in 24bpp modes for Netscape, xanim, WABI and others This is a long-standing problem with all those client programs. It is NOT a problem in XFree86.
Technical details: it is caused by a relatively new feature of XFree86 (24bpp modes with 24bpp pixmaps) that is very poorly understood by many client authors: they assume 32bpp pixmaps instead of asking the XFree86 server for those details. Others (like Netscape) do ask for the pixmap size, but since they don't support 24bpp pixmaps, they fall back to using 1bpp (monochrome) pixmaps...
The current public versions of XFree86 can only support a 1:1 mapping between the framebuffer depth and the pixmap depth. Some commercial Xservers support 32bpp pixmaps in 24bpp modes, and hence they present an interface to client programs that happens to match their assumptions. XFree86 4.0 will also support this feature.
There are two possible solutions to this right now:
- do not use 24bpp modes, but rather 16bpp or 32 bpp modes. 32bpp is best, but it requires more video memory than 24bpp.
- don't use broken X clients. There are patches for Netscape and even compiled binaries on the net that fix this bug.
And if they dropped it completely no doubt you
would have whined even harder ?
"you want your baby back... Kundalini wants his hand back!" *grin* I forgot how much I love that movie. :-)
.. (blah, blah). However, because of regulatory restrictions imposed on us resulting from our recent IPO announcement, we must limit references on our website to articles which may contain substantive information about RedHat. For this reason, we have chosen to block certain Slashdot headline links from our page. Please excuse this inconvenience for the short time during which we must comply with ceratin Securities regulations."
I gueess the only realistic suggestion I've heard to rectify this would be to either just post a link to Slashdot itself, or make a disclaimer (that is, if they don't just remove the slashdot headlines altogether).
"We at RedHat are committed to providing the Linux community
But then, I'm sure they have competent lawyers either on staff or at Goldman who have given them specific directions on what to do. Even having a "disclaimer" like this may be construed (sp?) as restricted communication since it implies that additional information about RedHat and/or its IPO can be found at a certain place.
There's just no making some people happy.
>That *is* immoral and misleading
Well that is a pretty strong opinion. But it is just an opinion. My opinion is that it is fine. It *is* legal. It might *seem* immoral and misleading to *you* but that does not mean that it *is*.
Cripes, you'd think they were altering the wording or something malicious. This is just the way things work in the world of businesses, investors and lawyers. If you need an excuse to dislike RedHat, surely there is something more glaring we can pick apart.
(Not arguing with you here. Just adding my own $0.02)
"The demand that every problem be solved prior to shipping is absurdly unrealistic."
While I agree that it is always possible for bugs to slip by the developers and testers, I also strongly believe that, on the whole, quality is too frequently sacrificed for, "We must ship next week."
I don't think this is a problem unique to Red Hat (I'm not using RH right now, so I don't know if it really is a problem for Red Hat). It seems built-in to the software development model that most companies use today. The desire to get the most and latest "stuff" included right up to the ship date results in some of that "stuff" not getting the quality assurance it should. This is not the fault of the QA people and certainly not the fault of the support people.
FWIW -- I've found that the biggest source of frustration for support experts is a lack of information. Few things are more frustrating that not knowing what the problem is or even how to troubleshoot it. By taking the time to explain how things (should) work, development staff can save themselves a lot of time dealing with unnecessary problem escalations. The support experts are happier and the customers' problems get fixed faster.
I have a little problem with the idea of "don't bother calling for support". Uhhhh, what is support there for? What am I, Joe Software Consumer, paying for? Unfortunately, the goal in too many support departments is churning the maximum number of calls. This, IMO, is a big reason for the "reinstall to fix it" mentality among Windows users. Get 'em off the phone and answer the next call. I would hate to see a simliar attitude take root (no pun intended) in the world of Linux support.
Save the whales. Feed the hungry. Free the mallocs.
If Red Hat's Slashdot feed pulls all Red Hat stories, it makes it look as if Red Hat is unnewsworthy to Slashdot. That's some pretty nasty publicity there.
Sure, we do a lot of Red Hat bashing (personally, I like them), but the bashing is positive publicity. Some attacks are the overcommercialism. Others are attacks on being the top dog. Others are about quality. We keep on calling Red Hat the Microsoft of Linux: those are buy words in the securities market!
I don't claim to know whether Red Hat is required to remove those stories. However, they have nothing to gain and much to lose by doing so. I figure they wouldn't pull those stories if they didn't have to. An SEC ban sounds like a good explanation to me. Anybody have better ones?
--The basis of all love is respect
The part of his experience I found most apalling was their refusal to support their product because they didn't understand *why* he wanted to use it (in that way). As a sysadmin, I sometimes uncover a bug by doing something that the tech's don't undertand. The fact that they don't understand *why* is no reason to refuse support. I will not accept that excuse -- unless they can tell me a better way!
Geeky modern art T-shirts
I agree with a lot of the above complaints, and can't really comment on others (like tech support)...however, I installed redhat 6.0 as soon as it was released, and was very impressed. the installer worked correctly (and on the first try, too, something that's never happened before), and even set up X right. I haven't had any crashing problems yet, and gnome seems pretty stable, though there are some glitches (weird app crashes, etc, but nothing that takes out X or the rest of the system). The new GUI stuff is pretty slick, though I honestly don't use most of...personally, I think a graphical package-management tool is a waste of disk space and system resources.
On the down side, the RedHat 6.0 sparc distrib plain sucks. They really should have worked on it for a few weeks longer before releasing it. I have a sparcstation 5 I was using as an NFS/mail server at work running redhat 5.2...after "upgrading" to redhat 6 and finding that basic and necessary apps don't function (sendmail says "bus error" and dumps core on startup, for example), and that the knfs stuff doesn't _quite_ work as well as it should on sparc, either, I decided to switch the machine over to solaris 7; it's installing as I'm writing this, actually. RedHat should really place proper functionality ahead of releasing all 3 architectures they support at the same time.
The other problem I have with RH6.0 is something one other reader observed: you can't do a really small install any more. Well, you can, but it's not easy. All the big ugly GUI stuff is becoming less optional then it used to be...RedHat would do well to set up their installer so that you can still do something useful with a 386 or 486 class machine, without having to manually select only those packages you _really_ need.
anyway, my 2 cents...