I have to admit, SuSE started to care about an easier installation pretty late. Even the character based Yast (1) installation was/is needlessly complex (no workflow!). Our development team thought, installation is just once, but you use the system for a long time, and that's where most of the energy was spend: inside.
While I haven't tried it myself, I've heard a lot of good things about the new version of Yast II that's going to be on SuSE Linux 6.4 - from installation supporters, those guys that I really believe, because they have to suffer first when something doesn't work.
Anyway, I still think we've got a lot to offer, not just size (amount of packages). The best thing for servers will be the pair LVM (logical volume manager) and journaling reiserfs in 6.4. The advantage of journaling is well-known, and for those who don't know, with an LVM you can enlarge partitions on the fly (by adding hard disks and having a virtual partition as a volume group), and with reiserfs you can actually really use this LVM stuff without reformating (ext2 filesystems cannot grow). That's very, very good for servers! -- Michael Hasenstein http://www.suse.de/~mha/
Hi, I'm from SuSE and have been/am invoolved in this stuff.
The owner of linux-ha.org and leader of that project is Alan Robertson. He is a SuSE employee now. End;-) -- Michael Hasenstein http://www.suse.de/~mha/
YaST II is for the graphical installation only, so far. The regular system tool is still the old YaST - but with quite a few more options (like you ca configure LVM (logical volume manager), or a more powerful sendmail setup,...).
It still does has the annoying reading through rc.config twice during every single rc script though.
What the h... are you talking about?! Not a single SysV rc-file does anything special with rc.config, all they do is to "source" it, so that variables set in rc.config can be checked within the rc-files. That's regular shell stuff and no magic. Get yourself a beginners guide to shells!
Besides, it only sources rc.config ONCE, not twice. And setting a shell variable START_[some-daemon]="Yes|No" in rc.config is a lot easier than removing and inserting links in the runlevel directories. With the SuSE method those links are always there, with the correct names, meaning the correct numbers, i.e. the correct sequence of startup and shutdown. Of course, if you think a "real (Marlboro?) man" is one who keeps track of all these links in all the various runlevel directories, so be it. -- Michael Hasenstein http://www.csn.tu-chemnitz.de/~mha/
Gnome is now MUCH better supported than in 6.2. FInally, you can make Gnome your default in yast, and also select it in xdm/kdm when you login (if it's installed) when you login. Also, the program menu in EE shows all installed apps, I don't think that worked back in 6.2. It looks very good. Looks like I'll finally try out Gnome, I used only KDE so far.
Another thing I found is LVM ("logical volume manager"), which can even be configured from within yast. I'll _have_ to try it...
That's the names of the rpm's on CD2 starting with gn* on SuSE Linux 6.3: gnadmin-1.0.3-33.i386.rpm gncontr-1.0.51-3.i386.rpm gncontrd-1.0.51-3.i386.rpm gncore-1.0.54-1.i386.rpm gncored-1.0.54-1.i386.rpm gngames-1.0.51-3.i386.rpm gngamesd-1.0.51-3.i386.rpm gnlibs-1.0.53-3.i386.rpm gnlibsd-1.0.53-3.i386.rpm gnmedia-1.0.51-3.i386.rpm gnnet-1.0.2-44.i386.rpm gnobjc-1.0.2-58.i386.rpm gnorpm-0.9-1.i386.rpm gnotepad-1.1.2-57.i386.rpm gnpim-1.0.55-3.i386.rpm gnprint-0.10-3.i386.rpm gnprintd-0.10-3.i386.rpm gnumeric-0.41-3.i386.rpm gnuplot-3.7-55.i386.rpm gnutils-1.0.50-3.i386.rpm
-- Michael Hasenstein EMail: mhasenst@us.oracle.com (and, by the way, SuSE Linux 6.3 is certified by Oracle with Oracle 8i already! plus: http://www.suse.de/~mha/oracle/)
(see bottom for answer to question) Gnome is now MUCH better supported than in 6.2. FInally, you can make Gnome your default in yast, and also select it in xdm/kdm when you login (if it's installed) when you login. Also, the program menu in EE shows all installed apps, I don't think that worked back in 6.2. It looks very good. Looks like I'll finally try out Gnome, I used only KDE so far. Another thing I found is LVM ("logical volume manager"), which can even be configured from within yast. I'll _have_ to try it... That's the names of the rpm's on CD2 starting with gn* on SuSE Linux 6.3: gnadmin-1.0.3-33.i386.rpm gncontr-1.0.51-3.i386.rpm gncontrd-1.0.51-3.i386.rpm gncore-1.0.54-1.i386.rpm gncored-1.0.54-1.i386.rpm gngames-1.0.51-3.i386.rpm gngamesd-1.0.51-3.i386.rpm gnlibs-1.0.53-3.i386.rpm gnlibsd-1.0.53-3.i386.rpm gnmedia-1.0.51-3.i386.rpm gnnet-1.0.2-44.i386.rpm gnobjc-1.0.2-58.i386.rpm gnorpm-0.9-1.i386.rpm gnotepad-1.1.2-57.i386.rpm gnpim-1.0.55-3.i386.rpm gnprint-0.10-3.i386.rpm gnprintd-0.10-3.i386.rpm gnumeric-0.41-3.i386.rpm gnuplot-3.7-55.i386.rpm gnutils-1.0.50-3.i386.rpm -- Michael Hasenstein EMail: mhasenst@us.oracle.com (and, by the way, SuSE Linux 6.3 is certified by Oracle with Oracle 8i already! plus: http://www.suse.de/~mha/oracle/) -- Michael Hasenstein http://www.csn.tu-chemnitz.de/~mha/
You gotta lot of phantasy. You should write another one of those interesting conspiray theory books. And don't trust your neighbour, he's an alien spying on you! -- Michael Hasenstein http://www.csn.tu-chemnitz.de/~mha/
Tell us about problems at feedback@suse.de. We do what we can. If there's a serious problem on AMD, we'll try to fix it, of course. -- Michael Hasenstein http://www.csn.tu-chemnitz.de/~mha/
SuSE AG is a holding. It contains several sub-companies (as "GmbH"s), one of the SuSE Press, another one is SuSE Inc. (SuSE Oakland, California), and so on. Shares of a company that is based on stock don't have to be traded publically. You can found your own "AG" and own 100% of the stock. Only some "AG"s are traded publically. Should be the same in the US. -- Michael Hasenstein http://www.csn.tu-chemnitz.de/~mha/
We (my emails: mha@suse.de and mhasenst@us.oracle.com [I'm at Oracle in Redwood City, for SuSE]) will NOT forget other platforms. We've had an AXP version of the distribution, and we might have other platforms as well. We can't do Compaqs work, however. If they don't promote the Alpha (enough)... same with PPC -- (offtopic) FYI: Oracle on SuSE (my business): - SuSE Linux 6.2 certified on Oracle 8i, and SuSE Linux 6.3 is 98% through the process) - SuSE _first_ distributor with en engineer (me) at Oracle HQ - also see http://www.suse.de/~mha/oracle/ -- Michael Hasenstein http://www.csn.tu-chemnitz.de/~mha/
NAT is the virtualization of network addresses. Weve had the same development with memory addresses long ago, and similar issues (i.e. programs using physical (memory) addresses directly). Today we have almost the same development weve seen inside a computer in a larger environment, the network. The time where an address specified an exact physical entity will be over some day, and is already today in many cases - ever heard of virtual servers? Load balancing?
The network is still at an very early stage in development compared to the inside of any modern computer. Youll see even more virtualization. That doesnt mean todays NAT solutions are the future, theyre just the beginning and at an early, sometimes very experimental, stage, just like virtual memory wasnt developed overnight. Besides, the virtual network is a lot harder to do than virtual memory: the latter takes place inside one small box, while the virtualization of network resources has consequences for millions of computers simultaenously.
Re:Red Hat is not Microsoft
on
Red Hat Europe
·
· Score: 1
I'm really tired of people saying suse is proprietary without any proof. Of course, there is no proof... -- Michael Hasenstein http://www.csn.tu-chemnitz.de/~mha/
There is no license agreement for the CD. Of course not, this is all free stuff except for the pay-series with commercial stuff - where SuSE goes so far to separate free vs. non-free that even xv is in 'pay'. What you probably mean is the YAST license. But you don't say so, that means your deliberately spreading SuSE-FUD. -- Michael Hasenstein http://www.csn.tu-chemnitz.de/~mha/
SuSE has acted like a bastard on may occasions (undermining Red Hat's IPO, etc.)
so what's the etc., come on... Michael Hasenstein PS: (No, I deleted the comment about the first part of the sentense. It's just not necessary.) -- Michael Hasenstein http://www.csn.tu-chemnitz.de/~mha/
SuSE is at least as big as Red Hat, but much of their coding effort goes into proprietary stuff that you and I will never benefit from. Where did you get THAT bullshit from? my alternative email address: Michael Hasenstein -- Michael Hasenstein http://www.csn.tu-chemnitz.de/~mha/
Redhat talks about risks of their going public. They don't mention any competitor, but everything else. Also, I've heard (ok,ok, hearsay) that Mr. Young (Redhat) used the words "...our little competitors..." during an event. Redhat felt a little TOO secure and important. -- Michael Hasenstein http://www.csn.tu-chemnitz.de/~mha/
I wrote: although SuSE probably spends the greatest effort of all distributions on ISDN
Reason: ISDN is very popular in Europe and _especially_ in Germany, where SuSEs home market is. Just wanted to mention this explanation to not let anyone think I'm biased (more than usual). -- Michael Hasenstein http://www.csn.tu-chemnitz.de/~mha/
Major problem: although SuSE probably spends the greatest effort of all distributions on ISDN (they also employ one of the core isdn4linux developers, Karsten Keil) they, like everyone else, have the problem that 2.2-ISDN (I'm not talking about standard-2.2 ISDN, which is ooold, but also about the newer patches) is buggy compared to 2.0. If you really need/want ISDN and it doesn't work with 2.2, what the hell, go back to 2.0 and try again. 2.2 needs to mature quite a bit anyway. Remember, 2.0 is at sub-sub-level 37, while 2.2 is at 10 and also significantly more complex. -- Michael Hasenstein http://www.csn.tu-chemnitz.de/~mha/
Re:Is there any reason to stay with the 2.0.x seri
on
Linux 2.0.37 Released
·
· Score: 1
> If it was called a beta series of kernels, then who would use it.
It would be honest. Right now lots of inocent newbies are told about Linux' stability. Then they go and buy the latest 2.2 based SuSE/Redhat/whatever. And it's indeed mor estable than Windows on the average, but I didn't need to turn the power off because the system was completely frozen for years (only time was long ago when I tried an ealry dosemu version) until I started using 2.2. It happened 3 times so far.
The problem is we can't really compare Linux to Windows, we have to compare it to other Unix'es, and most of them are a lot more stable than our beloved (irony) Linux. -- Michael Hasenstein http://www.csn.tu-chemnitz.de/~mha/
That's what I said. I don't see how the much more aggressiv way you both did it can be of any help. Yes, sometimes (more and more often) I get very tired of all this Linux stuff, especially since there are excellent systems out there that already have all the features needed for big(ger) systems and are also a lot more stable than Linux (ok, partly(mostly?) because they run on well-defined, proprietary hardware, not on PCs). -- Michael Hasenstein http://www.csn.tu-chemnitz.de/~mha/
First: all current distributions are (on the average) much more unstable than the last generation was. (Reason see below)
Second: you can't blame Redhat (nor anyone else).
Reason: All three major core components are in some sort of Beta state right now:
the kernel 2.0 is at patchlevel 36 now and considered stable, 2.2. is at number 9 and much more complex - so it seems it's going to take (a lot?) longer to mature then 2.0 did)
the libc glibc2.0 was never meant to be used in a distribution (read the glibc mailing list archives). Redhat went ahead and used it anyway, forcing the other distributors to do the same. Same situation with glibc2.1 now. Well, I don't want to blame them, sure there are reasons. There's some interesting new technology there.
the compiler a new compiler generation is replacing godd ol' 2.7.2.3....
These changes have two sides: we have a stability problem now (compared to the older distros). On the other hand , using the new stuff NOW leads to faster change, besides, some features of the new stuff are needed. SMP with 2.0 can hardly make anyone switch to Linux (just had a call from a _big_ potential Linux customer who started evaluating Linux, but only after trying 2.2 I could convince them that Linux' performance is good enough for them). So, to summarize, yes, there is a stability problem right now, but personally I don't see how else it could have been done. The new features are _needed_, and others (e.g. logical volume management, e2fsck time down, and lots of stuff I'll remember immediately after submitting this text;-)) we don't have yet as well. All this stuff takes time we don't have. Maturity (and with it comes stability) takes lots of time and it's only possible when few things change, which is not the case right now. It's a difficult situation. -- Michael Hasenstein http://www.csn.tu-chemnitz.de/~mha/
What for? After installing redhat 6 I got a core dump while doing an innocent 'finger root'. Come on. The glibc developers themselves call glibc2.1 beta, and it was pre-beta when redhat made the master CD. RedHat always goes ahead with new stuff that's highly beta (glibc2.0 was never meant to be used for a distro by the developers, read the glibc mail archives!), thereby forcing other distros to follow, making Linux more unstable than it has to be (other distros have to follow because of poeple like you: no idea about the background story but only looking at and comparing stupid version numbers). All current Linux distros are significantly more unstable than teh previous generation! Ok, lots of new features, but we pay a high price for that! New beta kernel (2.0 needed 36 sub-releases to become stable and 2.2 is much more comlex, and caldera/suse/redhat all came out with 2.2._5_), new beta glibc, and new beta compiler (egcs). All three major core components in beta state! I never had to turn off power because of a system freeze until I used the latest 2.2.x distros. NEVER happend to me with 2.0! This is the other side of all this Redhat early-release stuff (was the case with glibc2 and now with 2.1). Yeah, I can (and do) use the old stuff, but what about all the new people who check out Linux for the first time because they heard it's so damn stable? I already had quite some bad feedback about this from newbies! Linux stable, ha! -- Michael Hasenstein http://www.csn.tu-chemnitz.de/~mha/
Slashdot Mirror
I have to admit, SuSE started to care about an easier installation pretty late. Even the character based Yast (1) installation was/is needlessly complex (no workflow!). Our development team thought, installation is just once, but you use the system for a long time, and that's where most of the energy was spend: inside.
While I haven't tried it myself, I've heard a lot of good things about the new version of Yast II that's going to be on SuSE Linux 6.4 - from installation supporters, those guys that I really believe, because they have to suffer first when something doesn't work.
Anyway, I still think we've got a lot to offer, not just size (amount of packages). The best thing for servers will be the pair LVM (logical volume manager) and journaling reiserfs in 6.4. The advantage of journaling is well-known, and for those who don't know, with an LVM you can enlarge partitions on the fly (by adding hard disks and having a virtual partition as a volume group), and with reiserfs you can actually really use this LVM stuff without reformating (ext2 filesystems cannot grow). That's very, very good for servers!
--
Michael Hasenstein
http://www.suse.de/~mha/
Ah, read first, then post, didn't see he already spoke for himself... sorry.
--
Michael Hasenstein
http://www.suse.de/~mha/
The owner of linux-ha.org and leader of that project is Alan Robertson. He is a SuSE employee now. End ;-)
--
Michael Hasenstein
http://www.suse.de/~mha/
YaST II is for the graphical installation only, so far. The regular system tool is still the old YaST - but with quite a few more options (like you ca configure LVM (logical volume manager), or a more powerful sendmail setup,...).
--
Michael Hasenstein
http://www.csn.tu-chemnitz.de/~mha/
ok
--
Michael Hasenstein
http://www.csn.tu-chemnitz.de/~mha/
What the h... are you talking about?! Not a single SysV rc-file does anything special with rc.config, all they do is to "source" it, so that variables set in rc.config can be checked within the rc-files. That's regular shell stuff and no magic. Get yourself a beginners guide to shells!
Besides, it only sources rc.config ONCE, not twice. And setting a shell variable START_[some-daemon]="Yes|No" in rc.config is a lot easier than removing and inserting links in the runlevel directories. With the SuSE method those links are always there, with the correct names, meaning the correct numbers, i.e. the correct sequence of startup and shutdown. Of course, if you think a "real (Marlboro?) man" is one who keeps track of all these links in all the various runlevel directories, so be it.
--
Michael Hasenstein
http://www.csn.tu-chemnitz.de/~mha/
(see bottom for answer to question)
Gnome is now MUCH better supported than in 6.2. FInally, you can make Gnome your default in yast, and also select it in xdm/kdm when you login (if it's installed) when you login. Also, the program menu in EE shows all installed apps, I don't think that worked back in 6.2. It looks very good. Looks like I'll finally try out Gnome, I used only KDE so far.
Another thing I found is LVM ("logical volume manager"), which can even be configured from within yast. I'll _have_ to try it...
That's the names of the rpm's on CD2 starting with gn* on SuSE Linux 6.3:
gnadmin-1.0.3-33.i386.rpm
gncontr-1.0.51-3.i386.rpm
gncontrd-1.0.51-3.i386.rpm
gncore-1.0.54-1.i386.rpm
gncored-1.0.54-1.i386.rpm
gngames-1.0.51-3.i386.rpm
gngamesd-1.0.51-3.i386.rpm
gnlibs-1.0.53-3.i386.rpm
gnlibsd-1.0.53-3.i386.rpm
gnmedia-1.0.51-3.i386.rpm
gnnet-1.0.2-44.i386.rpm
gnobjc-1.0.2-58.i386.rpm
gnorpm-0.9-1.i386.rpm
gnotepad-1.1.2-57.i386.rpm
gnpim-1.0.55-3.i386.rpm
gnprint-0.10-3.i386.rpm
gnprintd-0.10-3.i386.rpm
gnumeric-0.41-3.i386.rpm
gnuplot-3.7-55.i386.rpm
gnutils-1.0.50-3.i386.rpm
--
Michael Hasenstein
EMail: mhasenst@us.oracle.com
(and, by the way, SuSE Linux 6.3 is certified by Oracle with Oracle 8i already!
plus: http://www.suse.de/~mha/oracle/)
--
Michael Hasenstein
http://www.csn.tu-chemnitz.de/~mha/
(see bottom for answer to question) Gnome is now MUCH better supported than in 6.2. FInally, you can make Gnome your default in yast, and also select it in xdm/kdm when you login (if it's installed) when you login. Also, the program menu in EE shows all installed apps, I don't think that worked back in 6.2. It looks very good. Looks like I'll finally try out Gnome, I used only KDE so far. Another thing I found is LVM ("logical volume manager"), which can even be configured from within yast. I'll _have_ to try it... That's the names of the rpm's on CD2 starting with gn* on SuSE Linux 6.3: gnadmin-1.0.3-33.i386.rpm gncontr-1.0.51-3.i386.rpm gncontrd-1.0.51-3.i386.rpm gncore-1.0.54-1.i386.rpm gncored-1.0.54-1.i386.rpm gngames-1.0.51-3.i386.rpm gngamesd-1.0.51-3.i386.rpm gnlibs-1.0.53-3.i386.rpm gnlibsd-1.0.53-3.i386.rpm gnmedia-1.0.51-3.i386.rpm gnnet-1.0.2-44.i386.rpm gnobjc-1.0.2-58.i386.rpm gnorpm-0.9-1.i386.rpm gnotepad-1.1.2-57.i386.rpm gnpim-1.0.55-3.i386.rpm gnprint-0.10-3.i386.rpm gnprintd-0.10-3.i386.rpm gnumeric-0.41-3.i386.rpm gnuplot-3.7-55.i386.rpm gnutils-1.0.50-3.i386.rpm -- Michael Hasenstein EMail: mhasenst@us.oracle.com (and, by the way, SuSE Linux 6.3 is certified by Oracle with Oracle 8i already! plus: http://www.suse.de/~mha/oracle/)
--
Michael Hasenstein
http://www.csn.tu-chemnitz.de/~mha/
You gotta lot of phantasy. You should write another one of those interesting conspiray theory books. And don't trust your neighbour, he's an alien spying on you!
--
Michael Hasenstein
http://www.csn.tu-chemnitz.de/~mha/
Tell us about problems at feedback@suse.de. We do what we can. If there's a serious problem on AMD, we'll try to fix it, of course.
--
Michael Hasenstein
http://www.csn.tu-chemnitz.de/~mha/
SuSE AG is a holding. It contains several sub-companies (as "GmbH"s), one of the SuSE Press, another one is SuSE Inc. (SuSE Oakland, California), and so on. Shares of a company that is based on stock don't have to be traded publically. You can found your own "AG" and own 100% of the stock. Only some "AG"s are traded publically. Should be the same in the US.
--
Michael Hasenstein
http://www.csn.tu-chemnitz.de/~mha/
We (my emails: mha@suse.de and mhasenst@us.oracle.com [I'm at Oracle in Redwood City, for SuSE]) will NOT forget other platforms. We've had an AXP version of the distribution, and we might have other platforms as well. We can't do Compaqs work, however. If they don't promote the Alpha (enough)... same with PPC -- (offtopic) FYI: Oracle on SuSE (my business): - SuSE Linux 6.2 certified on Oracle 8i, and SuSE Linux 6.3 is 98% through the process) - SuSE _first_ distributor with en engineer (me) at Oracle HQ - also see http://www.suse.de/~mha/oracle/
--
Michael Hasenstein
http://www.csn.tu-chemnitz.de/~mha/
...and Andrea works for SuSE, you ... (ok, I don't wanna get downgraded for this psoting)
--
Michael Hasenstein
http://www.csn.tu-chemnitz.de/~mha/
The network is still at an very early stage in development compared to the inside of any modern computer. Youll see even more virtualization. That doesnt mean todays NAT solutions are the future, theyre just the beginning and at an early, sometimes very experimental, stage, just like virtual memory wasnt developed overnight. Besides, the virtual network is a lot harder to do than virtual memory: the latter takes place inside one small box, while the virtualization of network resources has consequences for millions of computers simultaenously.
general NAT info:
http://www.csn.tu-chemnitz. de/~mha/linux-ip-nat/diplom/"
--
Michael Hasenstein
http://www.csn.tu-chemnitz.de/~mha/
I'm really tired of people saying suse is proprietary without any proof. Of course, there is no proof...
--
Michael Hasenstein
http://www.csn.tu-chemnitz.de/~mha/
There is no license agreement for the CD. Of course not, this is all free stuff except for the pay-series with commercial stuff - where SuSE goes so far to separate free vs. non-free that even xv is in 'pay'. What you probably mean is the YAST license. But you don't say so, that means your deliberately spreading SuSE-FUD.
--
Michael Hasenstein
http://www.csn.tu-chemnitz.de/~mha/
so what's the etc., come on... Michael Hasenstein PS: (No, I deleted the comment about the first part of the sentense. It's just not necessary.)
--
Michael Hasenstein
http://www.csn.tu-chemnitz.de/~mha/
SuSE is at least as big as Red Hat, but much of their coding effort goes into proprietary stuff that you and I will never benefit from. Where did you get THAT bullshit from? my alternative email address: Michael Hasenstein
--
Michael Hasenstein
http://www.csn.tu-chemnitz.de/~mha/
Redhat talks about risks of their going public. They don't mention any competitor, but everything else. Also, I've heard (ok,ok, hearsay) that Mr. Young (Redhat) used the words "...our little competitors..." during an event. Redhat felt a little TOO secure and important.
--
Michael Hasenstein
http://www.csn.tu-chemnitz.de/~mha/
Reason: ISDN is very popular in Europe and _especially_ in Germany, where SuSEs home market is.
Just wanted to mention this explanation to not let anyone think I'm biased (more than usual).
--
Michael Hasenstein
http://www.csn.tu-chemnitz.de/~mha/
Major problem: although SuSE probably spends the greatest effort of all distributions on ISDN (they also employ one of the core isdn4linux developers, Karsten Keil) they, like everyone else, have the problem that 2.2-ISDN (I'm not talking about standard-2.2 ISDN, which is ooold, but also about the newer patches) is buggy compared to 2.0. If you really need/want ISDN and it doesn't work with 2.2, what the hell, go back to 2.0 and try again. 2.2 needs to mature quite a bit anyway. Remember, 2.0 is at sub-sub-level 37, while 2.2 is at 10 and also significantly more complex.
--
Michael Hasenstein
http://www.csn.tu-chemnitz.de/~mha/
It would be honest. Right now lots of inocent newbies are told about Linux' stability. Then they go and buy the latest 2.2 based SuSE/Redhat/whatever. And it's indeed mor estable than Windows on the average, but I didn't need to turn the power off because the system was completely frozen for years (only time was long ago when I tried an ealry dosemu version) until I started using 2.2. It happened 3 times so far.
The problem is we can't really compare Linux to Windows, we have to compare it to other Unix'es, and most of them are a lot more stable than our beloved (irony) Linux.
--
Michael Hasenstein
http://www.csn.tu-chemnitz.de/~mha/
That's what I said. I don't see how the much more aggressiv way you both did it can be of any help. Yes, sometimes (more and more often) I get very tired of all this Linux stuff, especially since there are excellent systems out there that already have all the features needed for big(ger) systems and are also a lot more stable than Linux (ok, partly(mostly?) because they run on well-defined, proprietary hardware, not on PCs).
--
Michael Hasenstein
http://www.csn.tu-chemnitz.de/~mha/
Second: you can't blame Redhat (nor anyone else).
Reason: All three major core components are in some sort of Beta state right now:
2.0 is at patchlevel 36 now and considered stable, 2.2. is at number 9 and much more complex - so it seems it's going to take (a lot?) longer to mature then 2.0 did)
glibc2.0 was never meant to be used in a distribution (read the glibc mailing list archives). Redhat went ahead and used it anyway, forcing the other distributors to do the same. Same situation with glibc2.1 now. Well, I don't want to blame them, sure there are reasons. There's some interesting new technology there.
a new compiler generation is replacing godd ol' 2.7.2.3....
These changes have two sides: we have a stability problem now (compared to the older distros). On the other hand , using the new stuff NOW leads to faster change, besides, some features of the new stuff are needed. SMP with 2.0 can hardly make anyone switch to Linux (just had a call from a _big_ potential Linux customer who started evaluating Linux, but only after trying 2.2 I could convince them that Linux' performance is good enough for them). So, to summarize, yes, there is a stability problem right now, but personally I don't see how else it could have been done. The new features are _needed_, and others (e.g. logical volume management, e2fsck time down, and lots of stuff I'll remember immediately after submitting this text ;-)) we don't have yet as well. All this stuff takes time we don't have. Maturity (and with it comes stability) takes lots of time and it's only possible when few things change, which is not the case right now. It's a difficult situation.
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Michael Hasenstein
http://www.csn.tu-chemnitz.de/~mha/
What for? After installing redhat 6 I got a core dump while doing an innocent 'finger root'. Come on. The glibc developers themselves call glibc2.1 beta, and it was pre-beta when redhat made the master CD. RedHat always goes ahead with new stuff that's highly beta (glibc2.0 was never meant to be used for a distro by the developers, read the glibc mail archives!), thereby forcing other distros to follow, making Linux more unstable than it has to be (other distros have to follow because of poeple like you: no idea about the background story but only looking at and comparing stupid version numbers). All current Linux distros are significantly more unstable than teh previous generation! Ok, lots of new features, but we pay a high price for that! New beta kernel (2.0 needed 36 sub-releases to become stable and 2.2 is much more comlex, and caldera/suse/redhat all came out with 2.2._5_), new beta glibc, and new beta compiler (egcs). All three major core components in beta state! I never had to turn off power because of a system freeze until I used the latest 2.2.x distros. NEVER happend to me with 2.0! This is the other side of all this Redhat early-release stuff (was the case with glibc2 and now with 2.1). Yeah, I can (and do) use the old stuff, but what about all the new people who check out Linux for the first time because they heard it's so damn stable? I already had quite some bad feedback about this from newbies! Linux stable, ha!
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Michael Hasenstein
http://www.csn.tu-chemnitz.de/~mha/