First Look at RHEL 5 - From the New, More Open Red Hat

Susie D writes "Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 was released today, and Linux Format has an in-depth first look (with screenshots aplenty). With RHEL 5, Red Hat aims to become even more 'open', by using a shorter and clearer SLA, improving community involvement through its Knowledge Base, and providing the new Red Hat Exchange. But what you really want to know is, yes, it does include XGL for fancy 3D desktop effects."

CentOS...

[Ron Harwood]

So, start the timer... how long until CentOS 5.0 rolls out based on the RHEL SRPMS?

XGL?

[drinkypoo]

Now, I don't see any reason not to have XGL on the desktop - in fact it's a huge boon. But is it actually necessary on a server? Or more to the point, isn't it a horribly bad idea on a server? You should be running as little as possible on any critical machine... And if you have so many windows open on your server that you need a 3D desktop to manage them, perhaps you should be running all that shit somewhere else. And if you're using RHEL for a desktop system, for any reason other than being able to test things before deployment, you should have your head examined.

Any reason to switch?

[Seumas]

I used Redhat back in the day, just before I became a die hard Debian user. I'm wondering what exactly should drive me to want to switch to Redhat at this point? They seem very fractured to me and the whole "Enterprise" setup with a "free version where we develop everything" or whatever doesn't strike me as very appealing.

But I'll grant, I'm somewhat ignorant of the whole Redhat thing these days. Anything I should be enthralled by and jump into Redhat for? Not trying to bait or troll. Would seriously love to hear what people with more recent experience of RH have to say (especially if they're also familiar with Debian and others so they know where I'm coming from).

Can we curb the flaming and OS bigotry?

[jmorris42]

> But who's actually foolish enough to use RHEL for a desktop OS?

Anyone who needs a SUPPORTED system, say anyone deploying in Corporate America. Anyone who wants to run a commercial application. Remember, Free/Open hasn't conquered the world yet. World Domination IS coming... but it is just taking a little longer than some of us had hoped.

> You can get support for less retarded distributions (those, for example, which eschew rpm.)

You see folks, this is why Debian hasn't taken over, the OS is just fine; but the users/fanboys seem to be Team Amiga rejects. This package format flaming is just so 20th Century, these days there really isn't any practical advantage between them since .deb packages finally gained support for gpg signing and the rpm world got higher level package management sorted out by giving a choice of either apt-get OR yum/pup/etc.

> Unless you're getting the licenses for free, using RHEL on your desktops is a huge mistake.

Unless you are setting up an Animation studio and your preferred app is supported on RHEL. Or you are rolling out a CRM solution that is supported on RHEL. Or you are developing an application you intend to deploy on RHEL. Etc. Or in other words, if the desktops are making you money and you need supported software you should evaluate the cost/benefit of buying a RHEL support contract, exactly like any other product a vendor offers you.

But if you are a student living in mom's basement, you are quite correct that RHEL isn't for you. Keep right on with the server in the corner running Sid and your desktop on Gentoo.

Re:CentOS...

[spevack]

And that's a good thing. Red Hat likes CentOS. Between CentOS, RHEL, and Fedora, there are three "Red Hat Family" distributions that meet three very different sets of needs.

Every CentOS install is an install that is within the Red Hat family. For people who don't need to be able to call up Red Hat and ask support questions (but who still need an enterprise distro), CentOS is a great choice.

Re:Meh

[The Warlock]

Or they actually hire their own support staff instead of relying on Red Hat Technical Support, which is why huge businesses (such as Dell's corprate servers, i.e. the ones they use, not the ones they sell) run CentOS and not RHEL.

Re:Doing more with less

[curious.corn]

Especially because Windows support is limited to the 3R rule: restart, reboot, reinstall. That's all there is to MS support... you might even script it, if you were smart enough (or the scripting language good enough...) ;-)

e