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Red Hat Software Businesses

RedHat 7.3 beta (skipjack) is out 368

Posted by HeUnique from the read-the-release-notes dept.
Just saw in Red Hat's FTP's - Redhat 7.3 (codename:skipjack) is available for download. There aren't lots of changes there, but you'll find that RedHat 7.3 comes with KDE 3.0 (rc3 is on this beta), you'll need to remove the Ximian Gnome before upgrade, and in general - read the release notes before testing this release. As always, don't try it on your main Linux partition, and use the mirrors. Annoucment is here (thanks to Linux Weekly News)
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RedHat 7.3 beta (skipjack) is out More

RedHat 7.3 beta (skipjack) is out

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  • X.3 ?? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by neo8750 ( 566137 ) <zepski@zepsk[ ]et ['i.n' in gap]> on Saturday March 23, 2002 @04:34PM (#3213946) Homepage
    I always thought Red Hat did X.0 X.1 and then X.2 before going to back to X.0. Have they always released a X.3 ?

    • Re:X.3 ?? (Score:3, Insightful)

      by dattaway ( 3088 )
      This 7.3 is good. I wanted to see a more refined 7.2 before a new approach was reborn. This is one step toward perfection before they release a new offspring.

    • Re:X.3 ?? (Score:5, Informative)

      by dytin ( 517293 ) on Saturday March 23, 2002 @04:41PM (#3213974) Homepage
      Actually, in the release notes, it says that this distribution is not 7.3, but actually 7.2.92

    • Re:X.3 ?? (Score:3, Insightful)

      by wray ( 59341 )
      Since the 4.0, release RedHat has done a .0 -> .1 -> .2 -> .0 release. I cannot comment officially on how this happened, but I was watching Rawhide, and up until about 3 weeks ago, RedHat had gcc 3.1 as their primary/only compiler, then all of the sudden, they reverted back to a gcc-2.96 and gcc 3.0.4 combo. I assume this was the point where they decided to release a 7.3 instead of an 8.0. Perhaps it had to do with the maturity of the 3.1 compiler, perhaps something else, but it is surely a deviation from their established timeline.

      As a sidenote, though I am very excited about gcc 3.1 which branched on Feb 28, I think that RedHat's move is a good one. They can use this time to perhaps plan an 8.0 release that will support x86-64 (Hammer) architecture.

    • Re:X.3 ?? (Score:5, Informative)

      by bero-rh ( 98815 ) <bero@reCOMMAdhat.com minus punct> on Saturday March 23, 2002 @05:18PM (#3214096) Homepage
      First of all, the article is bogus, we don't preannounce releases, the next release might be called 7.3, 8.0, 15.1, Linux XP or anything else.

      Second, there's no strict rule on how many versions of a major release we do.
      The major number is determined by changes in binary compatibility, so it will usually be increased when switching to a major new glibc or a binary incompatible gcc.

      • Re:X.3 ?? (Score:4, Interesting)

        by jmorris42 ( 1458 ) <jmorris@[ ]u.org ['bea' in gap]> on Saturday March 23, 2002 @07:33PM (#3214510)
        Ok, but PLEASE pass the word upline to make it a .3! RedHat 4.2 was rock solid, 5.2 was rock solid and so was 6.2. Haven't met anyone who thinks 7.2 is stable yet. Just yesterday I logged onto my laptop and had no icons along the left. Signed out and back on and they came back. All of the fifty some odd boxes that mere mortals use here on my site are still running 6.2 because of odd crap like that.

        I had hoped to move them from 6.2 to 7.2 but it still isn't ready for end users, even with an errata CD that is fast approaching a 2 disc set. It is common knowledge that that anything labeled .0 is to be avoided on production machines so doing an 8.0 release would mean we would have to keep patching up 6.2 for another year.
        • I still insist on taking 6.2 and upgrading just a few pkgs (by the tarball, not rpm) to bring it to full 2.4 kernel compliance.

          I really object to the 'illegal' gcc that redhat (and now mandrake) seem to be peddling. at least 2 products seem to object strongly to the 2.96 gcc (I remember reiserfs having a fit about 2.96; and I forget the other thing that didn't like 2.96, sorry)..

          my boss uses a sony vaio (shouldn't matter) and has NEVER had success with redhat 7.x and nfs. don't ask me why - but I have to statically compile nfs into the kernel or it won't work. 6.2 was just fine, though.

          it sucks that 6.2 was the last clean version - and it doesn't look like RH is going back to 2.95gcc, so I guess I won't really be spending time trying out any new RH release. oh well.

          • at least 2 products seem to object strongly to the 2.96 gcc (I remember reiserfs having a fit about 2.96; and I forget the other thing that didn't like 2.96, sorry)..

            Maybe that would be Mplayer. See here [mplayerhq.hu] and here [mplayerhq.hu]. From these links you'd think there's a little friction between the Mplayer guys and the Red Hat crew. Can't we all get along? :)
          • Agreed, and its a big deal to numerical types who use athlons. Our chem. dept. put together a cluster of dual 1.2 ghz athlon boards. Ran a test case using sandia labs MPQC (Massively Parallel Quantum Computing, GPLed by the way :-), comparing it to results from the prof.s single cpu 800 mhz athlon. The 800 mhz athlon kicked ass on the dual 1.2 ghz, until we researched the problems with later gcc and athlons, downloaded an older compiler, and recompiled MPQC. Then it rocked! Interested people might google for ATLAS (or take the ATLAS link after googling LAPACK).

          • I was quite pleased with the gcc 2.96 release. I got to start using some C++ features that I've been wanting to use for a long time, but didn't work with the older compilers. I submitted a few bug reports, but recent versions have been stable as a rock for me.

  • "Skipjack"? Noooo!! (Score:3, Funny)

    by kcbrown ( 7426 ) <slashdot@sysexperts.com> on Saturday March 23, 2002 @04:36PM (#3213953)
    It's a plot by the NSA to eavesdrop on everyone's encrypted communications! Don't buy it!!

    Oh, wait, this is Skipjack the distribution, not Skipjack the algorithm. Never mind...

    ...Unless RedHat is giving us a hint that the NSA had some "influence" on this distribution...

    Oh, my, in my paranoia I just don't know what to do!

    :-)

    • Like any of their other codenames were at all relevant? Perhaps they have ties to codebreaking in WW2? (Enigma) Or maybe South Park? (Cartman)

    • To the moderator who marked my posting "troll": I put the smiley in at the bottom because I wanted to make it obvious not to take the posting seriously. I guess I didn't do a good enough job. If there's anything else I could have done to make that clear, I'd certainly like to know about it...

  • Size? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by nabnerd ( 567997 )
    does anyone know what size and install of 7.3 will be? 7.2 was over 1.3GB with everything i needed.

    ~nab

  • size=ease of use (Score:2, Insightful)

    by oo7tushar ( 311912 )
    I find it particularly disturbing that Red Hat is growing "exponentially" in size. I'm pretty sure that they don't have to include all the options but they don't make it easy to disable them.
    Now many of you may jump on the bandwagon and say "Wait, Linux is not meant to be easy". I'll retort by saying: Red Hat should be easy. If you're going to target users with a desktop application then you don't make things harder. Desktops were invented to make things easier or more efficient to use.
    So it seems that if they do make it bigger, perhaps they should make it easier?
    size=ease of use

    • Re:size=ease of use (Score:3, Informative)

      by WildBeast ( 189336 )
      Sure but RedHat's market isn't the desktop. It's all about the server side for them. If RedHat was targeting the desktop, there CEO wouldn't have said that Linux will not make it on the desktop.

      You want a desktop distribution? Try Mandrake. A little bloated but pretty good.
      • SuSe is a more polished and solid desktop Linux than Mandrake. Personally, I prefer more work upfront for ease of system care later on, so I use Debian. Installing Debian is more involved than other distros, but once you get everything setup correctly, you are done until you need to build a whole new computer. Upgrading Debian works, and is trivially easy, unlike other distro upgrades.
      • Further more, RedHat has determined that the desktop is not profitable. In fact, even server side linux is not really profitable, but desktop linux is much worse. The only reason (money wise) to release a desktop version is for name recognition. In this respect, Mandrake walks a very dangerous line, but I expect them to push a server solution shortly after they finish their marketing.

    • I find it particularly disturbing that Red Hat is growing "exponentially" in size. I'm pretty sure that they don't have to include all the options but they don't make it easy to disable them.

      I gotta agree, RH seems to be turning into Microsoft. Remember the bug list on RH 7.0? It rivalled Windows 2000.

      Unfortunately, I don't think it's unwarranted. RH is the defacto standard Linux distro and will probably be the one to take the desktop from Microsoft, if ever anyone manages to. Installing everything by default is as a consequence of tech support nightmares:

      • "I thought this thing had a webserver"
      • "It does, sir, go to Start, Control Panel, Add and Remove Programs, Internet Information Server. Stick your Windows CD into the drive, restart when prompted, and you're done."
      • "Stop it, that's too technical!"

      End-users *are* that stupid. I'd always thought it was an urban legend, but then I did tech support for a while, and was amazed to actually speak to someone who believed that the CD-ROM's drawer was a coffee holder.

      As a consequence of the stupidity of users versus the cost of tech support, Windows tends to install and start IIS by default.

      And any other mainstream operating system will have to tend to do similar things by default, both in order to remain financially viable and perceived as being easy enough for e-mail-virus-spreading simpleton end-users to be able to handle.

      Now many of you may jump on the bandwagon and say "Wait, Linux is not meant to be easy". I'll retort by saying: Red Hat should be easy. If you're going to target users with a desktop application then you don't make things harder. Desktops were invented to make things easier or more efficient to use.

      Absolutely. To viably get Linux onto the desktops of the masses, we need at least (but preferably only) one easy-to-install, works right out of the box distro that does everything. Red Hat appears to be it, though the consequences are necessarily going to be size and stability. However, I'd rather have a big, bloated and buggy Red Hat user base out there than the big, bloated and buggy Windows user base we have out there. At least it moves people to a real operating system, and once they're familiar with how UNIX works, they can go out and install any other UNIX variant of their choice and be reasonably competent. It also helps to slow down The Dark Overlord's plans for world domination.

      And, in my experience, bugs in a UNIX/Linux environment tend to be less serious than those in Windows, due to better security models and better coding.

  • KDE3 (Score:2, Insightful)

    by CanadaDave ( 544515 )
    That's nice that they have KDE3. I wish Mandrake had slowed down their 8.2 schedule so that KDE3 final could be included. But they don't like changing release dates, so I can wait.

    What are the cool new features included in 7.3? I guess it's mostly a bug fix release, but their must be some changes. Any improvements to the Redhat configuration tools? I've always liked Redhat better in general, I'm not sure why...but I liked Mandrakes drak tools so much, I switched to MDK.

    • As I understand it, Mandrake has been keeping pace with the qt libraries. The next version will be 9.0 and use qt 3 and kde 3. The reason for putting out 8.2 was to sort of wrap up a lot of patches and some new control tools.

      Personally, I think it was a way to really stress test the control center and new wizard features before blowing everyone out of the water with 9. If you look at the verion numbers, a lot of the Mandrake controls are right around 1. The ones I remember were at .96 or so. My guess is they will be version 1.0 with 9.0. Just a guess though.

  • Will the essentials be fixed? (Score:2, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I wonder if the basic tools are OK in this distribution. I've had to recompile stuff from RH6.2 to 7.2 because there has been so much broken in 7.x.

    Take grep for example - don't you think this is essential? Try this:

    Put some test text with scandinavic letters into text file, and try to grep it:
    grep -i "[Ä]" test.txt

    Hey presto - core dump. (At least this was the case with RH71)

    grep -i "[dhjklmnprstv][aeiouyÄÖ][dhjklmnprstv]ai" test.txt

    And nothing happens even if you would have text that doesn't match.

    I can live with it, but it makes one rather pissed when trying to do some scripting.

    And lets not forget the dhcpd, which simply doesn't seem to fire up correctly when started for one network interface in machine where there is many. Luckily dhcpd from rh62 works like charm.

    • Re:Will the essentials be fixed? (Score:2, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      From the man page:

      BUGS
      Email bug reports to bug-gnu-utils@gnu.org. Be sure to
      include the word "grep" somewhere in the "Subject:" field.

      Large repetition counts in the {m,n} construct may cause
      grep to use lots of memory. In addition, certain other
      obscure regular expressions require exponential time and
      space, and may cause grep to run out of memory.

      Backreferences are very slow, and may require exponential
      time.

      Have you mailed in your bugs?
      Or better still - try to fix it yourself.

    • Put some test text with scandinavic letters into text file, and try to grep it:
      grep -i "[Ä]" test.txt

      Hey presto - core dump. (At least this was the case with RH71)

      Sorry, no core dump on my systems (RH7.1 and 7.2).


      grep -i "[dhjklmnprstv][aeiouyÄÖ][dhjklmnprstv]ai" test.txt

      And nothing happens even if you would have text that doesn't match.

      Works for me.

      (what you meant was "text that does match", I take it)

      -jfedor
    • I can't reproduce this on any of our boxes, including 7.1, 7.2 and current beta installations.

      A backtrace submitted to Bugzilla [redhat.com] helps getting things fixed - how are we supposed to fix something we don't even know breaks for you? (Chances are this is a very weird local setup problem)

    • I use foreign chars a lot in text files and in MySQL databases and have never had any problems. Check your environment variables, your i18n and l10n files (wherever they are) and if that doesn't help try the rawhide grep. (I'm using grep-2.4.2-5 fwiw).

      Also I believe there are other goofy things like character equivalence classes for foreign characters that might be of use, for instance to find all "A"'s accented or not....read the locale and regexp man pages etc.

  • KDE 3.0 rc3 (Score:2, Interesting)

    by AntiNorm ( 155641 )
    Was Mandrake 8.2 supposed to come with this as well? I seem to recall reading somewhere that it (mdk 8.2) had both KDE 2.x and 3.0rc3 available. But I can't find 3.0rc3 anywhere on it.

    • Re:KDE 3.0 rc3 (Score:2, Informative)

      by thue ( 121682 )
      on Mandrakeforum [mandrakeforum.com] tom says: Update Mar 20, 2002: It looks like KDE 3.0 RC2 is not included in Mandrake Linux 8.2. My apologies for any confusion my contrary statement in this article might have caused.

  • Where is CUPS? (Score:2, Informative)

    by lessthan0 ( 176618 )
    I stopped using Red Hat circa 7.1 because of their very broken print system. I checked the CHANGELOG and found no reference to CUPS. Why the hell don't they start including CUPS like every other major distro? It is the best print system out there for *nix IMHO.

    Oh well, life is good with SuSE so that's where I'll stay.

    • Re:Where is CUPS? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Sc00ter ( 99550 ) on Saturday March 23, 2002 @05:03PM (#3214041) Homepage
      Why don't you just go install cups? Why must you not use something just because it doesn't come with the dist? I agree, CUPS rocks, and I use it, on my RH7.2 box.

      • Re:Where is CUPS? (Score:3, Insightful)

        by garcia ( 6573 )
        this is a common problem w/the up and coming Linux users and goes to show why distributions like Mandrake continue to exist even when *I* (being of middle ages Linux) can't stand bloated shit.

        Users feel that everything should come standard w/each distribution. Just b/c a distrib is not using X does NOT mean its broken. In fact RH is known for its excellent testing.

        Stop being so lazy. Sheesh.

        The youngins just need to learn ;)

    • Re:Where is CUPS? (Score:3, Informative)

      by nconway ( 86640 )
      From the release notes linked to in the article:

      Currently, Red Hat Linux offers Sendmail and Postfix as two Mail Transport Agent (MTA) alternatives. For print daemon alternatives, the choices are LPRng and CUPS. The configurations for LPRng and CUPS are completely separate. If you switch from one printing system to another, you will have to reconfigure your printers.

    • Re:Where is CUPS? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by bero-rh ( 98815 ) <bero@reCOMMAdhat.com minus punct> on Saturday March 23, 2002 @05:15PM (#3214077) Homepage
      CUPS 1.1.14 is included, and Qt, KDE and wine are compiled with libcups support.
    • CUPS is here. I'm running Skipjack right now, and using CUPS 1.1.14. I had 1.1.10 installed fine on 7.2 using packages from cups.org, but these packages came with the install. As far as I can tell, CUPS is integrated pretty seamlessly with the KDE print interface and the Foomatic stuff that they're using now. CUPS wasn't enabled by default, but it was just a matter of setting it to start automatically.

  • gcc3? (Score:2, Informative)

    by nd ( 20186 )
    Anyone else notice that there are no longer gcc3 packages included (as with RH 7.2, although it was optional).

    Skipjack includes only an updated version of 2.96.
  • ...if this is a reply to Mandrake's 8.2 release? I mean, Mandrake offers everything RedHat does, and more, in my opinion. Maybe they're worried about losing their chunk of the biz.

    Maybe not.
    • It isn't.
      It doesn't work the "Oh, we need to push a new release out of the door, let's call the current rawhide a beta!" way.

      There is a QA cycle even for beta releases to make sure people who aren't asking for it (by using rawhide) aren't getting completely broken stuff.
  • From the release notes:
    The standalone upgrade mode (typing linux upgrade at the boot prompt) is no longer supported.

    So how do I upgrade?

    -jfedor

  • Comment removed (Score:3, Interesting)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Saturday March 23, 2002 @05:16PM (#3214084)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • Did you try using Red Carpet?

      ("Get Software" from the "System" menu or just run "red-carpet" from the command line)

      -jfedor

  • What? No ISOs on RHN? Grrr..... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by weave ( 48069 ) on Saturday March 23, 2002 @05:26PM (#3214126) Journal
    I talked my boss into paying a few grand a year to redhat for their workgroup Redhat Network to 1) make my life easier and 2) to support the company and 3) priority download and ISO image downloads to paying customers.

    So I gleefully logon to grab a set of beta ISOs and get some real value out of this subscription and what do I find as far as 7.3 beta goes? Jack. :-(

    Come on Redhat...

    When 7.3 final comes out, will it show up on rhn at the same time it goes on the public ftp site at least?

    • Re:What? No ISOs on RHN? Grrr..... (Score:5, Informative)

      by turnerjh ( 271 ) <cturner@pattern.net> on Saturday March 23, 2002 @10:30PM (#3214957) Homepage
      Due to popular demand, Skipjack ISOs are also available on Red Hat Network, just as other ISOs are (ie, subject to the same restrictions, meaning Paid Basic service or higher).

      The URL is:
      https://rhn.redhat.com/network/channel/download_is os.pxt [redhat.com]

      Sorry for the delay, folks. Enjoy the beta!

      The next official release of Red Hat Linux will also be made available vial the above page on the day of release, under the same terms.
    • Ya, I went ahead and got basic service partly because of the "Instant ISO's". So imagine my surprise when the last beta never showed up, and when I went to check the instant ISO page there was nothing on there yet for this one either.

      Let's suppose for a second that people who are paying monthly fees for support actually use Redhat, perhaps on a server farm even. And therefore, out of the universe of RedHat users, are probably going to be interested in doing some testing of the beta's as they come out.

      I complained about this before, but it's good to see it on Slashdot.

      The response I got was "Oh, wait. Pensacola is only in Beta, it cannot be downloaded through RHN." to quote the email.

      Folks need to realize at least historically, those Instant downloads were a) actually not very fast at all, and b) didn't carry beta isos and c) might not actually be up until the rest of the world has gotten them and it's trivial to pull from a mirror.

      I'm hoping this will change. It's simple to do, and folks paying are likely to appreciate it. And while I may think it's neat, telling your boss you couldn't download the RedHat beta from RedHat (who you pay thousands to) and instead had to download it from some server in Belgium is going to raise a few eyebrows.

  • gcc 3.x (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Pr0xY ( 526811 )
    i was just curious when the gcc in redhat will be updated to 3.x, now that the multiple inheritance issues seem to be solved in the latest version, what is holding things back?

    • Re:gcc 3.x (Score:3, Insightful)

      by bero-rh ( 98815 )
      Mostly the fact that 3.0.x -> 3.1 will break binary compatibility yet again, and will be out soon.
      Releasing a .0 release with gcc 3.0.x would mean having to do gcc 3.0.x throughout all .x releases, even after it's obsolete.

      It's better to just skip 3.0.x and get a 3.1 or 3.2 based distribution out when it's ready.

  • Version names (Score:5, Interesting)

    by omega9 ( 138280 ) on Saturday March 23, 2002 @06:39PM (#3214356)
    I'm sure most of you know that Red Hat's versions names are all related to each other in some way. Here's a breakdown starting from 7.0:
    • 7.0-Guinness
    • 7.0.90-Fisher
      Carrie Fisher and Alec Guiness were both cast emembers of Star Wars
    • 7.0.91-Wolverine
      the fisher and wolverine are both members of the weazel family
    • 7.1-Seawolf
      The U.S.S. Wolverine and U.S.S. Seawolf are both submarines
    • 7.1.93-Roswell
      The Seawolf was the first sub powered by a liquid metal cooled reactor. It was completed exactly 10 years after the Roswell incident
    • 7.1.94-Roswell (no name change)
    • 7.2-Enigma
      Enigma is the name of a UFO museum in Roswell, NM
    • 7.2.91-Skipjack (7.3 beta)
      Skipjack and Enigma are both encryption algorithms


    Reference: Freshrpms [freshrpms.net]

    • SSN Skipjack (Score:4, Interesting)

      by dpilot ( 134227 ) on Saturday March 23, 2002 @08:43PM (#3214674) Homepage Journal
      As someone else mentioned, the Skipjack is/was a submarine. It was the first nuclear submarine with an Albacore-type hull. In essence the first 'true' submarine that was truly optimized for underwater, and not a surface ship that temporarily sinks.

      Also FYI, the Albacore has been made into a museum, and is the BEST submarine tour I've ever been on, better than any WWII boats, and better than the Nautilus. The WWII boats are too old and worn, and the Nautilus is all behind plexiglass, and they've torn it up too much putting stairs and such in. The albacore is a single level, pretty much accessable from stem to stern.

      Former submarine nut, until someone told me in second grade that I would be too tall to be on one. Still, it got me to read 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea at age 9.
    • Enigma is more famouse for being the German code machine during WWII. Germans thought is was unbreakable. Story goes that a group of Poles stole the machine and gave it to the Brits, they figured out how to use it and crack the German communitaction.

      More information and a picture here [cia.gov]
  • Does anyone know if 7.3 has the patched zlib -- and more especially, any packages that include a static zlib recompiled with the patch?
  • Damnit... I'm still downloading Mandrake 8.2 ISOs. *sigh*
  • Glide3, XFree 4.2, cups, (e)ruby, evolution, still has gcc 2.96 but also gcc 3.x, kde 3.x, kernel 2.4.18, mozilla .9.9, netscape 4.79, and more. pretty sweet....

    I hope they release this as 7.3 and not 8.0.

  • robo-bero (Score:4, Funny)

    by ahde ( 95143 ) on Saturday March 23, 2002 @11:48PM (#3215151) Homepage
    does redhat have a dozen people all reading slashdot and answering questions with the same login

    the real bero is probably still busy defending the choice to include gcc-2.96 on usenet

    • Re:robo-bero (Score:3, Funny)

      by bero-rh ( 98815 )
      Oops, I've been caught. Ok, time to tell the truth. I'm actually a shell script; a combination of wget, grep, cat FAQ and
      line 119: syntax error: unexpected end of file

  • What about Enlightenment ? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by The_Lightman ( 568612 ) on Sunday March 24, 2002 @08:57AM (#3215871)
    I just looked at the RPMs in Skipjack. Seems like you decided not to include enlightenment (0.16) in the next release. Now, that's kinda disappointing. I know for sure there are still a lot of ppl still using it.

    I hope you'll include it in the next release.

  • Postfix *and* vsftp (Score:3, Interesting)

    by geirt ( 55254 ) on Sunday March 24, 2002 @04:41PM (#3217201)

    Yes !!!

    postfix-1.1.4-3.i386.rpm

    vsftpd-1.0.1-4.i386.rpm

    I must be dreaming, postfix and vsftp in the next redhat. I am going to upgrade my servers to 7.3 when it is ready. Yes, definitely, yes, going to upgrade ...

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