Red Hat 8.0 Released

I_am_Rambi writes "RedHat has released their latest OS, 8.0. Here is Red Hat's ftp site for download and some mirrors. If you need help there's a Howto." Jeet81 adds: "Red Hat is out with a new release, Red Hat 8.0. Looks like Red Hat is moving towards the windows XP style using its new Bluecurve graphical interface (the new default email client 'Ximian Evolution' looks a lot like MS Outlook)." So what's the verdict on Null or Bluecurve or whatever it's called? Good idea, bad idea?

Better List of Mirrors

[sheckard]

Here is a list of mirrors known to have RH 8.0 ready:

http://freshrpms.net/mirrors/psyche.html [freshrpms.net]

Get it right

[browser_war_pow]

Null was the beta, bluecurve is the new theme

Yay...

[Coplan]

The interface isn't nearly as hacked as people think it is. I think Redhat took a step in the right direction. As much as some geeks might flame that, I think its necessary for the community.

Realistically though, they didn't hack both Gnome and KDE together, they just sorta made them "LOOK" similar. This is essential, as some people use both KDE and Gnome programs regardless of which interface they use.

It's worth a try for you redhat and mandrake users. Debian and Slackware users will probably dislike what they've done.

null or bluecurve

[sethadam1]

I cannot even believe this is Slashdot anymore!

- The release is called Psyche.
- The final beta was called (null), with parens, not "null."
- The default theme, authored by Red Hat, is called Blue Curve. Blue Curve is offered in both Red Hat stock KDE 3 or Gnome 2.
- The release date was 9-30. Is this is a news site or what?

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Upgrading from 7.3 status

[mgkimsal2]

I had a stock RH7.3 install, which I'd then changed a bit visually (new KDE themes, etc). I upgraded to RH8 yesterday. The 'bluecurve' didn't come up, although it was an available theme in the KDE theme area. Overall, after the 'upgrade', everything seemed exactly as it was before. Couple things seemed faster, but nothing significant had changed (didn't check Apache, and apparently it's gone to 2.0, so that probably wouldn't have worked).

Anyway, I had to completely remove my .kde directory, then restarting brought up everything 'new', and it looks nice. Not earth shattering, but nice. We've played around with it here, going between KDE and Gnome, and they do look very similar. Menus are the same, colors, etc. Fonts seemed a bit different between the two (Gnome fonts appeared a bit smaller) but otherwise it was fine. Not impossible to tell which you're using, but it's not a jarring experience going between the two.

The menu now has just one option for many things - 'project manager', 'web browser', 'email', etc. and I do think some things are grouped more logically than others. It also seems that you still get WAY too much *in the menus* which isn't useful for most people - it just overwhelms you when you're trying to find stuff. I'd suggest making a 'default' menu with fewer things, with the option of clicking a 'sysadmin menu' checkbox somewhere to add sysadmin stuff if/when it's needed.

Finally, many things seem faster - I'm assuming this is because of the new GCC and some kernel scheduling stuff. Whatever it is, it's made a big difference on this box. I'm testing at home tonight as well and expect similar performance increases.

All in all, a good upgrade.

Better download suggestions

[back_pages]

This is obviously old news to anyone who cared in the first place, but anyhow...

I was struggling with ftp transfers for the last two days. They are miserably clogged, as we all expect. I was surprised to find a perfectly legitimate use for P2P file sharing networks in this - gtk-gnutella has found all five isos for me with download speeds about 40 times greater than I was getting on ftp.

Just check the MD5 and enjoy.

Re:RH 8 on nvidia?

[CvD]

I believe that because of NVidia licensing you have to get the NVIDIA drivers from NVidia themselves. They're binary drivers but they're well documented. The RPMs for 8.0 aren't there yet, but you can build the drivers from source RPMs which are on that page too.

Here's their latest release [nvidia.com]

Enjoy!

Costyn.

Free version is non-distributable

[Beautyon]

From the LBC-announce mailing list:

"I've been getting a number of enquiries about when we'll have a cheap
version of Red Hat Linux 8.0.

Unfortunately, Red Hat have moved the goal posts again. In a surprising
move they've completely broken with their previous policy of 100% open
source. The new distribution contains a few components which are (C)
Red Hat and are *not* freely re-distributable. This has produced
surprisingly little comment but the effect is that it's no longer
possible to re-distribute copies of the standard download version of Red
Hat Linux. For the company that has up to now been the champion of Open
Source, it's a major direction change.

It's not all bad news though. The problem components are in identified
packages and Red Hat have said it's fine to re-distribute as long as
they are first removed. I therefore hope that we will be able to do a
Threads Linux 8.0. It will no longer be exactly the same as Red Hat,
although it will be functionally identical.

Cheers,
John"
-- The Linux Emporium - the source for Linux in the UK
See http://www.linuxemporium.co.uk/ [linuxemporium.co.uk]

Re:Save your bandwidth

[CvD]

Install apt for RPMs [freshrpms.net] (it is an RPM) after which you can do:

apt-get install mplayer

apt-get install xine

apt-get install xmms

It'll get all the necessary libraries, etc. No need to go through dependency hell!

How easy is that?

Cheers,

Costyn.

Re:And I had a 2 days head start too :(

[Majix]

Note that CD 4 and 5 are source packages only and you probably don't need them. Also, CD 3 holds most of the server stuff (and I think KDE), so if you do a recommended Workstation setup you will only be asked for CD 1 and 2.

RH8... the good, the bad, the ugly....

[JeffVolc]

I downloaded the 3 ISOs on monday and installed Redhat 8 on my laptop and home server server yesterday. FWIW, I installed Mandrake 9 on my laptop and home workstation on monday to see how it will compare to RH8.

The Good...
Very polished... no really... VERY POLISHED! Way impressed. The new theme is nice. Yes some stuff is moved around... so what. No technical hitches at all. Everything was detected great.

The Bad...
2.4.18... what's up with that. I guess it's been in testing too long. Actually, for a X.0 release things look pretty good.

The Ugly...
Apache 2.0+PHP.... none of my PHP stuff seems to work. This was mounted straight from my 7.3 install. Some real ugly errors.

The verdict....
Apache 2.0+PHP problem is a show stopper for me. Wiped the machine and installed Mandrake 9.0. Sad since 8 is very slick. Hats off (pun intended) to Redhat for a great release. I may come back to it if I can get the PHP stuff resolved.

Mandrake 9 comments: I've had issues with stability in previous Mandrake releases. So far I haven't had one with 9. I like the autologin and tv card setup. It almost setup my dual monitor... jsut a little tweaking. Mandrake SEEMS faster and more responsive than Redhat. Haven't benchmarked though so it's just an impression. This could be the release which makes me a Mandrake Convert... and I've been using Redhat since 3.0.3! Only extra package I needed was mtx for my tape library (Redhat includes it).

Jeff

Re:Hard to customize

[tempfile]

That wasn't RedHat. That's due to a sad "take power away from the user interface" policy in Gnome 2.0, which can really be annoying as hell. Read the mail.gnome.org lists, esp. desktop-devel, and the FAQs and guides referenced there on how to "tweak" Gnome. It's sad that "tweaking", formerly an annoying task for Windows users with a religious following and a gigantic market for overexpensive "enablers" and such, has come to the free software world.

A users perspective of Red Hat 8 and KDE

[Nailer]

Most people have heard a lot on this topic, but mostly from people who haven't actually used 8.0 or Null. In fact, a good deal of the information that has been touted about the web is provably false. Some of the changes have had negative side effects that are in bugzilla, but, in my opinion as a KDE user, overall they've increased the usability of Linux desktops.

I've written a fairly comprehensive summary of what exactly Red Hat have modified about their KDE setup [cyber.com.au], and what I believe to be the rationale behind those changes. If you've read it before, it might eb worth a visit as I've made a few correctiosn and additiosn since then.

Cheers,

Mike

Why a new major release?

[less]

Several people have questioned the reason for RH to make this a new major release number. Some of the comments are "Does a new desktop theme mandate a new major release" etc.etc.. The answer is of course, no.

However, aside from the new Blue Curve theme RH 8.0 also contains new major relases of Gnome and Apache. Apache is also probably the most used "userland" application in the system.... So imo Apache 2 and Gnome 2 _alone_ mandates a new major release number for RedHat Linux.

Btw, I thought the short informal mail RH sent to RHN customers is probaly the the best "in a nuthshell" description of RH8:s new features:

Date: Tue, 1 Oct 2002 14:41:54 -0400
From: Red Hat Network <[e-mail]>

[snip]

What's new in Red Hat Linux 8.0, anyway?

* A new interface -- a user-friendly desktop with graphical enhancements and improved menu organization

* The latest Gnu Compiler Collection, gcc-3.2, and a specially tuned and tested high-performace kernel, 2.4.18.

* Cutting-edge web server technology powered by the latest release of Apache, 2.0.

* Updated graphical configuration tools that make setting up a Linux server a truly point-and-click experience.

* A single interface for package selection during and after installation

* Enhanced personal security, featuring a point-and-click firewall tool to protect your system from Internet intruders.

Re:Hard to customize

[Majix]

The "metacity" thing is not really what I want (I want user-defined shortcuts to user-defined functions for one thing), how do I change back to my old window-manager?

killall metacity ; wait 1 ; sawfish
does the trick.

They also removed some customization options for gnome in the control-center, making it very hard to enable tear-off menus and such.

This option and much more is available with the gconf-editor program. The key for tear-off menus is /desktop/gnome/interface/menus_have_tearoff.

Re:Yay...

[runlvl0]

Although Red Hat didn't label them as such, disks 1-3 are the install disks, and 4-5 are the SRPMS. (I just downloaded all 5 CDs last night - GRR! AAARGH!)

Re:Dammit!

[0x0d0a]

Rsync might have let you get the "corrupted" bits without downloading the whole thing again.

Re:Free version is non-distributable

[Majix]

Unfortunately, Red Hat have moved the goal posts again. In a surprising
move they've completely broken with their previous policy of 100% open
source. The new distribution contains a few components which are (C)
Red Hat and are *not* freely re-distributable.

Every piece of software in the distribution is of course copyrighted to someone. That has absolutely no implications for whether you can redistribute it or not. If you thought GPL'ing the software somehows means giving up your copyright I suggest you reread the license.

Now I admit I haven't checked all of the packages, but I did check the most obvious ones, redhat-artwork etc. They are all under the GPL.

If there are indeed packages that can not be redistributed I sure would like to know the names of them.

Upgraded yesterday, Apache migration info

[ccarr.com]

I upgraded on a mouseless server without a GUI. The prior version was Red Hat 7.3 with a highly customized Apache config.

I got a gpm oops during package install that caused a minor formatting problem with the progress bar, but it didn't obscure the information or break the install.

Needless to say, managing the Apache migration to 2.0 was the biggest headache, but I'd say Red Hat did a reasonably good job of easing the pain. When you try to start Apache from the rc script, it fails with an error directing you to an html file for information on migration. That file was fairly helpful as a starting point.

It explained that my old config files had not been changed but would not work with the new Apache version, and it explained that new stock config files had been installed and where I could find them. Working with the two files was awkward without the GUI, having to Alt-F2 and Alt-F1 between terminals, but I managed to get the config file updated for my sites in about an hour. I had already been off line for quite a while during the OS install, so I didn't mind much. If down time is an issue, consider bringing in a temporary box.

Interestingly, I did choose to customize the packages that I upgraded, but I didn't see Apache there. It apparently forced me to upgrade. Can anyone confirm this? Perhaps I overlooked it.

I would have liked to see some warning or information during the installation. I'm not sure everyone will stumble onto that migration message as serendipitously as I did. (It's here: /usr/share/doc/httpd-2.0.40/migration.html.) It may have been visible during the system startup, but since Apache starts relatively late you would have had to have been paying close attention. I didn't notice. I'd also liked to have seen options to install 2.0 to a different directory while leaving the 1.3 version in a working state, or to revert to 1.3. Also, it's fortunate that my sites don't make use of any modules that aren't available in 2.0.

Number of disks (was RE: Yay ...)

[gaj]

Actually, only three are installation discs. Two are source (SRPMs) and one is docs. In their defense, there is roughly one metric shitload of stuff that you can install. One thing I found refreshing (though I've not yet tested it) is an option for "minimal" package install taht is for routers, firewalls and such. I may have a look at that this weekend.

I did install 8.0 last night. I was running "null" for the last week or so, and it looks like most of my problems with null were fixed. One hassle is that my laptop doesn't have APM support; like most new laptops it is ACPI only. The kernel RedHat ships isn't ACPI enabled, unforch. Easy enough to fix, of course, but annoying none the less.

My only real outstanding issues are suspend (which swsusp should cover if I can't get Toshiba's ACPI BIOS to cooperate) and scanner support.

Unforch, the latter was a problem in 7.3 as well, and I never did get it working. Worked fine in 7.2, IIRC. Epson Perfection 1200U Photo is the scanner model. I haven't really done any looking into the issue, though, just tried SANE and it couldn't find the scanner.

All in all 8.0 looks pretty nice. The root menu (or the "start menu" that has replaced it $#@%!) is still a fsking mess, with many config tools not there. I do virtually all my config using my favorite config tool though (vi), so that is mostly an issue for interfaces they've changed. Some of the new GUI prefs tools are pretty nice, though, so I may well start using them.

The AI fonts looke nice, though the only fonts available for gnome-terminal (using the std prefs dialog anyway, haven't checked to see if good ole "fixed" is available) look like shite when made small enough to fit two terms side-by-side on my XGA display. Quick install of either the old fonts or rxvt should fix that, though, and the tradeoff is well worth it for most users (nice clear text in slightly larger sizes).

In short, I approve of 8.0. The new compiler tool chain, Python 2.2.1, Mozilla 1.0.1, GTK+/GNOME 2.0, etc. made upgrading an eazy decision for me.

Re:Upgraded yesterday, Apache migration info

[Anonymous Coward]

You upgraded a production server to an x.0 release of Redhat? I hope you like patching, because there is going to be plenty of work for you now.

Redhat releases are historically trial-ware in the x.0 releases. x.1 is better and x.2 is stable. Unless you were experiencing some problems with 7.3 I would have waited at least 6 months and probably a year before doing that.

just my $.02

Almost great

[ACK!!]

Listen, I love this look for the Window Manager and widgets.

However, I feel that the icons with their plastic 3-D look is too KDE-like. (I know KDE folks say just the opposite but its my OPINION).

My big problem is the fact that they ripped out all the mp3 stuff and do not include most plugins for multimedia use needed for Mozilla. SuSE has no problem shipping Acrobat, RealPlayer etc...etc...

What does this mean? A lot of noisome downloading and such to get a distro I can live with.

Also, what is up with going with Gnome 2.0 by default and not including the Gnumeric gtk 2.0 version? I know that the Gimp port is supposed to be unstable but I love the thing it works great for me. Include some of those cutting edge ports!

On the good side I like the way they integrated the system tools in a very smooth Gnome-like fashion. I hate it when system tools are not integrated well into the desktop environment.

Mandrake...

[Sj0]

I downloaded Mandrake 9.0 last night, and I must say, Redhat would have to do something pretty spectacular to top it. I installed it on my laptop, and not only did it install with room to spare on a 400MB Partition, it comes with many lightweight WMs which are great for a machine with a mere 32 MB of RAM. After seeing the installer(which actually took into consideration that I might not have all three CDs -- something I've been burned by RedHat with several times), and seeing Mandrake resize my Windows partition automatically, I'd be hard-pressed to find a reason to move back -- on my desktop and laptop machines, that is. The server would definitely be RedHat -- It's just something that RedHat is better for.

Sorry for ranting about Mandrake in a thread about RedHat.

Celeron troubles....

[Peyna]

Well, at least that's what I think is causing my problems. I'm trying to install Redhat 8 on my laptop which has an old school celeron 466 (non-mobile), and every time after install it locks up after freeing unused kernel memory. 7.3 worked great, and I had the same error with Mandrake 9. Any ideas or similar experiences? I got absolutely no response on the forums.

Other reasons why Freshroms rocks

[Nailer]

..for Red Hat users:

• Since Fraunhofer `clarified' their licensing for MP3 encoders, Red Hat 8 doesn't include any mp3 encoding or playing tools. Freshrpms have the packages you need for playing mp3s, and even encoding them if you're some kind of sick twisted person that doesnt encode oggs yet
  
• Xine and Totem (GTK2 Xine) packages for playing DVDs and films. Freshrpsm is based in France where CSS itself is illegal (the libdvdcss decoder is therefore fine).
  
• Alsa, so you can let many apps use your soundcard at once, as well as many other davnatges, plus a great 5 minute howto on installing it.
  
• Apt get to install all these funky new Linux packages (RPMs), plus the new GTK version of the Synaptic front end.
  
• Lots of other good stuff I haven't mentioned and to come. Matthias even sometimes does requests.
  

If you use Red Hat, you need FreshRPMS [freshrpms.net].

Re:RH8... the good, the bad, the ugly....

[abdulwahid]

All recent version of PHP have deprecated the REGISTER_GLOBALS option (and good riddance!). This is most likely what is causing your problems, poorly written scripts will no longer run on recent PHP's.

They haven't got rid of REGISTER_GLOBALS rather they have just made the default to be off. That is of course a good thing as they can often cause drastic security risks by people passing variables to your script and causing behaviour you didn't expect. For now you could re-enable it but I wouldn't recommend leaving it that way. Fix your scripts and then leave it off.

Re:Redhat-logos

[alue]

You're right about this one, apparently: the redhat-logos package, and additionally the anaconda-images package, are licensed under something red hat wrote rather than the gpl:

$ rpm -qi redhat-logos
Name : redhat-logos
. . .
License: Copyright ? 1999-2002 Red Hat, Inc. All rights reserved.
. . .

These packages include a file on copying. Here's a n excerpt from that file:


The redhat-logos package and the anaconda-images package (the "Packages")
contain image files which incorporate the RED HAT trademark, Red Hat
"Shadow Man" logo and the RPM logo (the "Marks"). RED HAT, the Red Hat
"Shadow Man" logo, RPM, and the RPM logo are trademarks or registered
trademarks of Red Hat, Inc. in the United States and other
countries.

Red Hat, Inc. grants you the right to use the Packages during the
normal operation of other software programs that call upon the
Packages. Red Hat, Inc. grants to you the right and license to copy
and redistribute the unaltered Packages, but only in conjunction with
copying or redistributing additional software packages that call upon
the Packages during the normal course of operation and only in
non-commercial distributions permitted under Red Hat's trademark
guidelines found at www.redhat.com/about/trademark_guidelines.html
or under a separate written license agreement from Red Hat. Red Hat,
Inc. grants to you the right and license to copy and redistribute the
Packages in commercial distributions without additional license or
permission, but only in conjunction with copying or redistributing
additional software packages that call upon the Packages during the
normal course of operation and only when all of the Marks have been
removed or replaced within the Packages.


So this is all about the Shadow Man and RPM logos. According to the license, you can still redistribute red hat in its entirety, provided you don't make any money off of the redistribution. If you do want to redistribute Red Hat in a commercial fashion, however, you're permitted to do so "only when all of the Marks have been removed or replaced within the Packages."

Looks like a good compromise to me.

Re:I think bluecurve sucks...

[Mandi Walls]

*sigh*

Well, you're just lost.

Check their graphics guy's site here [linuxart.com].

You will notice that he's also the guy who gave linux.com their logos, as well as VA Linux.

In addition to being one hell of a graphic artist, he's also a very talented photographer. Somehow I don't think he needs any inspiration from OBOS.

now go soak your head.
--mandi

Re: P2P! (Need all 5 ISO's?)

[AKnightCowboy]

Does anyone know if we need all 5 ISO images? Seems pretty bloated. What do I need to install a running system? I want to upgrade (or reinstall) from RH 6.0.

Why don't you just do an FTP install? Last time I checked that only needed one 1.44 meg floppy disk (at least with Mandrake it does). Then you're only downloading what you need instead of 3 gigs worth of packages you won't ever install. As for the loaded FTP sites just wait a week. Nobody is going to shoot any kittens if you don't upgrade to Redshat 8.0 today. Besides, it's a dot-oh release and probably has tons of major bugs which is typical of major Red Hat dot-oh releases. (5.0, 6.0, and 7.0 were all very buggy IMHO and weren't stable until 5.2, 6.2 and 7.2). Anyway, not a flame, just another perspective. It's a waste to download ISO images to just install it on one machine if you have broadband anyway. If you DON'T have broadband or a high speed internet connection then you're on crack for downloading 5 ISO images over 56k dialup or ISDN. :-)

Re:ISO date on pysche...

[Mandi Walls]

The isos would have been sent to a publisher to be stamped onto optical media in enough time to be shippable for the release.

Damn hardcopy!

--mandi

Re:Used the beta and now the 8.0 release

[Anonymous Coward]

if you use kde, you can use alt+f2 and type in smb://machine/sharename and it'll show up

i believe the gnome side has something similar, allthough i dont think it's bound to a key by default

Re:Look like windows?

[Deagol]

the ability to browse SMB shares would be a must

Launch Konqueror. Type in the URL: "smb://smbserver/share".

perl 5.8.0 of rh 8

[lethalwp]

there seems to be problems with perl in the rh 8: when using a non blocking pipe of a shell command, you only get the first line back instead of all the lines (this was noticed when using dvd::rip ;) )

also a friend who has a perl script for his dxr card , on the open devfile perl segfaults

when he puts debug mode: it works

There are some problems :) Beware

But many limbo/null bugs were finally fixed

So i would recommend to upgrade if you use the older beta, but if you have a stable working 7.x system, maybe wait for rh 8.1 :)

Redhat 8 v Mandrake 9 1 dufus's opinion

[jd142]

I played with Mandrake 9 last week and I downloaded and installed RedHat 8 on Monday of this week. So I thought I'd share a few thoughts about the differences in the distributions.

I've used Mandrake more, so I'm more familiar with its menu structures and way of doing things, but I hope my comments are objective. Or at least that my subjective opinions are biased for other reasons than my experience with Mandrake.

Both the installations were pretty easy. The only slight edge I would give to Mandrake is that if you are adding or removing packages it will tell you immediately what other packages will be added or removed. With Redhat, you select your packages, then it tells you all at once what dependencies are required. My preference would be a combination of these two approaches so that I don't have to say ok constantly, like on Mandrake, but I can easily make a choice about whether I really do want to get rid of efax if kde-utils depends on it. For example.

Another point against the Mandrake install is that I don't have the option to put in a grub password if I choose grub as my boot loader. And I couldn't find it in the preferences after install either.

For the desktop user, neither one of these is really an issue.

After install, I found Mandrake to be quicker and more responsive. I don't know if that is because Mandrake is using i586 compiled rpms and Redhat was 386. My test computer at work is a pII 300 with 196 megs of ram.

At first I thought it was a kde vs gnome problem, but Redhat felt slower even with kde.

As far as the look and feel, Mandrake had a reasonably consistent look to it for both gnome and kde. Yes, the themes were different, but that isn't a big deal. The menu structure, desktop icons and wallpaper were the same for both gnome and kde. While I like the idea of a common theme for both gnome and kde and think that RedHat could have executed it better. They did a good job, but I'm still up in the air on whether it was necessary.

The Mandrake menu structure is more complicated than RedHats in that it has more choices and more submenus. The upside is that the labels are more specific, including a really basic "what can I do now" menu item for beginners.

Mandrake also has a winner in the Mandrake Preferences application. Very well done. RedHat's configuration tools are just as impressive, and I prefer their theme and icons, but they aren't as convenient.

The only big problem I had with RedHat was that Apache did start. A quick check of the logs showed that it couldn't resolve the domain name (dhcp_ipaddress as assigned by the dhcp server) but once I added it to /etc/hosts, it worked just fine. Mandrake's install of apache didn't have this problem.

It's really a toss up as to which one I like. So I'll have to try suse next.

Re: P2P! (Need all 5 ISO's?)

[mnordstr]

You only need the first 3, CD 4 & 5 contain the source code...

Re:Midnight Commander - still?

[Junta]

I would bet it would be excluded since RedHat 8 is Gnome2-centric, and, AFAIK, gmc was not ported to Gnome2. I think they even go so far as to compile mozilla with Gtk2, which, at this point in development, is a bad idea.