Red Hat Announces Enterprise Linux 440
OldBen writes "RedHat has announced the product stable to replace the mainstream releases for enterprise use. RedHat Enterprise Linux AS replaces Advanced Server (with quite a price hike to go along), ES is targeted at "entry-level" servers, and WS is for workstations. See the details at RedHat's website."
What's this? (Score:3, Funny)
Does it include Majel Barrett-Rodenbery's voice?
Neato (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Neato (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Neato (Score:2)
Re:Neato (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Neato (Score:5, Informative)
Samsung Contact [samsungcontact.com]. It works. Server runs on Unix variants or Linux (currently RH and SuSE). You can use their PC client, their Linux client, their web client, or Outlook 98/2k/XP (with the Samsung MAPI drivers). I've been using it on linux since it was HP Openmail. Back then, there were some issues with MAPI driver functionality, but it worked pretty well. Since Samsung has gotten their hands on it, it is fantastic, no reservations whatsoever.
No, it's not free (beer/speech). Until someone is able to do this under some sort of OSS license, I'll gladly pay for Samsung Contact.
Re:Neato (Score:4, Funny)
After all, if you cant dazzle them with briliance, baffle them with bullshit.
"Red Hat Enterprise Server
Through a top-down, proactive approach we can remain customer focused and goal-directed, innovate and be an inside-out organization which facilitates sticky web-readiness transforming turnkey eyeballs to brand 24/365 paradigms with benchmark turnkey channels implementing viral e-services and dot-com action-items while we take that action item off-line and raise a red flag and remember touch base as you think about the red tape outside of the box and seize B2B e-tailers and re-envisioneer innovative partnerships that evolve dot-com initiatives delivering synergistic earballs."
Re:Neato (Score:5, Insightful)
An example of "It will just fucking work" in action. I just paid NetApp something like $1,300 dollars for a GigE card in a NAS box, and then paid some guy $375 to put the card in the box. Now the NetApp is going fine at GigE. (Btw, the $1,300 card is an Intel e1000 card that you can get for under $200). Where did all that $$ go to? In making sure that "It will just fucking work". That is where, although it could have been much cheaper IMHO.
An example of "It will eventually work after I dink around with it Linux style". I bought a Linux server for $5,000. I specified that I wanted a GigE card, RedHat 7.1, and the hardisk partitioned according to a dump of fdisk -l on another machine. The machine did not come with a power cord. The machine came with RH 7.2, and partitioned incorrectly. The machine also came with the wrong GigE card. I contacted the company, and for $145 they sent me the "right" GigE card. The only problem, is that the driver for the card is only ported to kernel 2.4.20 and I have to run 2.4.9, so I must now contact either the people that sold me the card and/or the card people for some kind of backport of the driver to kernel 2.4.9. The machine is still not in production because of the GigE card.
Announcements like RH's Enterprise Linux and the previous Advanced Server are welcome to me. I hope that soon I can pay someone for a real Linux solution, not parts of one. One that will "just fucking work!"
Re:Neato (Score:3, Insightful)
Also I had to buy a V480 for work. They don't sell the E450 anymore
Re:Neato (Score:3, Insightful)
It's fabulously superior in some aspects, and wholly inadequate in others. There's no "simply" to it. It depends on your application.
Enterprise AS (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Enterprise AS (Score:3, Interesting)
Pricing themselves out of the market? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Pricing themselves out of the market? (Score:5, Informative)
But one of the big advantages of Windows is support.
Now in the linux camp you can get free and supportless, or pricy and supported.
In the windows camp you only have pricy and supported.
Two vs One is still a win for linux over windows at that game.
Re:Pricing themselves out of the market? (Score:3, Insightful)
Where? The only good thing about MS' support is the knowledge base. And ever since google has newsgroup support, I find it just as easy to find answers for my Linux/FreeBSD problems.
Windowsupdate? "apt-get dist-upgrade"
I *do* like Windows, but support is definitely not Microsoft's forte.
Re:Pricing themselves out of the market? (Score:3, Interesting)
Mike
Re:Pricing themselves out of the market? (Score:2)
Re:Pricing themselves out of the market? (Score:5, Interesting)
Adding to your comment, another factor is that Linux can GENERALLY run a bit faster on the same hardware, assuming you run a server at init 3 (who wouldnt?) This gives you a little more horsepower per server.
Also, a company MAY pay the $800 for a few boxes, but install a free version of Linux for other boxes. Maybe their dedicated DNS boxes don't need the support, or their POP boxes. As you stated, they don't have this option with windows. They can PAY for support on the ones they need, get the other free, and run the same basic OS on all of them.
Personally, I have a few servers, all running Linux, and I pay $60 from Redhat for up2date priority access (a freaking bargain). It also keeps with with ALL my servers, telling me what servers need what patches, i just have to download and install the other servers manually, which is no biggie. I gladly have the $60 annual on autorenew, because I have the choice to run one for pay, the others for free. From my experience, RedHat offers good value.
Re:Don't forget to upgrade your OS (Score:5, Informative)
I wasn't very clear in my original statement. Get a testing box, install 7.2. Now download, patch, configure, build, and install a new kernel. Now put a 7.3 CD in the drive, reboot, select "Upgrade" from the installer and see how far you get.
I had to do these very steps to get a better VM and a new IDE (a driver that let me use DMA) driver for a machine at work. In order to get that box functioning, I basically had to make it "un-upgradeable". Therefore when support runs out in December, I will have to either:
a) re-image it, and reconfigure everything on it (at which point I should just buy Advanced Workstation, right?)
b) upgrade packages by hand
c) twiddle with up2date's config so that it think it's a newer release
d) done nothing, switch distros, hope, use apt4rpm, etc.
You wil be forced to do something. Red Hat has decided it.
As to them not supporting after a year, I need to check into this.
From http://redhat.com/apps/support/errata/ [redhat.com]:
I use, and PREFER 7.2. I have installed 8.0 on a couple machines, and don't like it quite as well, perhaps because I am just used to 7.2.
Pardon my French, but tough shit. You'll have to either constantly upgrade, buy AW, or you'll upgrade everything by hand. See the list above. My big beef with Red Hat is that in their move to get everyone on AW/AS, they have forgotten the "little guy" like you and me. You don't even have the option to pay for errata support, no matter how badly you need it. Even thought they'll still be making packages for the same release of AW (which will be almost completely compatible with the free version of Red Hat), they won't be making them available to people who want to install packages by hand. It's not just that up2date will stop working -- there won't be any packages anymore.
I worry about upgrading my RENTED RACKSHACK boxes. Its not advisable to update a box that is located 1300 miles away via ssh.
Agreed. That's a sticky issue. I'd make sure someone around there will be able to powercycle if you need them too. I'd also see about getting a failover box or a hot spare similarly configured.
Now if they follow thru with their EOL products 12 months after new release, then my opinion of RH would change, and I would be looking at other distros.
Their EOL plans are certain and definite. Start looking. I've been looking at KRUD (although I wonder where they will get packages), SuSE and Gentoo. The KRUD people, BTW, are evaluating EOL contracts to support older Red Hat releases. That may be a way out for you (and me), provided it's cheap enough.
Outside of building new kernels, which i can do by hand, i see no reason to switch from 7.2, period.
Really? Again, tough shit. Red Hat has made that decision for you. Or, at very least, forced you to decide. That force comes from business needs, not your needs. I'm personally fed up with Red Hat. I've been using it since 4.2, and I own RHAT stock. The thing I liked about Linux was that decisi
Re:Pricing themselves out of the market? (Score:3, Informative)
Hi,
Really late come to the party so to speak, but you sound like you could use apt-rpm. I do a lot of building test servers and there is nothing that makes it easier than running your own local ftp/apt server.
I mirror the RedHat 6.2, 7.1, 7.2 and 8.0 distros and update folders from my local redhat mirror. Keep it up to date with rsync and all you need to do to get an 'up to sp
Re:Pricing themselves out of the market? (Score:2, Insightful)
The product placement for AS is for Enterprise applications i.e. Oracle. For those of us considering moving Oracle from Sun to Redhat, this is a sweet deal.
Your comments about Microsoft pricing are valid, and I believe RedHat thinks so too. The new offering of ES, is I think 800$/yr for support.
And I don't work for RedHat.
Re:Pricing themselves out of the market? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Pricing themselves out of the market? (Score:2)
The source code too... that is where the real power is at.
Re:Pricing themselves out of the market? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Pricing themselves out of the market? (Score:2)
Re:Pricing themselves out of the market? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Pricing themselves out of the market? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Pricing themselves out of the market? (Score:4, Insightful)
Not that dumb.
They have a problem. They want it fixed. Fast. They want it fixed because they have a problem and do not want to have to research it themselves.
This takes resources, and the resources take money. To be able to supply the required support, Red Hat needs to be profitable, even lucratively profitable.
What Red Hat is doing is offering a wide array of different price points from very cheap to very expensive. (I suppose you could get IBM to support it for even more;)
The "dumb" CIO can target the price, and the support will fall nicely into line with what is reasonable at that price level.
Re:Tell me how... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Tell me how... (Score:5, Insightful)
I suggest reading the license - it states that the licensing is one copy of software per system (search for "Installed Systems"). Underreporting of systems can lead to a 20% fine.
Your licensing prices exclude support costs. That's all well and good for home users, but businesses generally want support. Bundle in support costs on that Win2k Server and you're well over $800.
If you're building a file server, then the client access libraries are going to kill you fast... even at $180 per WS license you'll end up ahead with RH.
As far as going with another distro - you're simply missing the point. What's costing money here isn't the software - it's the support. Most of the other distros don't offer support to the level that RH does, and that's why businesses gravitate toward RH if they're going to do Linux at all.
Clarification requested (Score:5, Interesting)
What parts are not open-source?
What's to stop someone from just posting ISO images online?
I'm just a little fuzzy on what's being paid for.
Thanks in advance for the answers
Re:Clarification requested (Score:2)
Re:Clarification requested (Score:2, Interesting)
Support.
Slightly on another topic -- you could be really rude in something like this and intermix different pieces and parts that are GPL and are not GPL (at the package level) to make it virtually impossible to figure out how to redistribute only the GPL parts. In fact, you could even group the packages so each package has both GPL and non-GPL pieces, so you couldn't break it up by packages and distribute some of them.
That would be really rude.
Re:Clarification requested (Score:2)
Re:Clarification requested (Score:4, Interesting)
Can RedHat enforce this considering the software they're selling me is under open source licenses?
If so, then it seems that the costs are per year, per server. For RHL ES, at $350/year/server, my modest 4 server shop would cost me $1400 USD/year, or over $2200 CAD/year. I just don't have the budget for this.
Really, all I want is access to errata. I don't need phone support, or email support, or any fancy RHN monitoring. Just let me download errata binaries so I can upgrade my servers and I'm happy. I'm willing to pay for that, but not to the tune of $2200 a year. There doesn't seem to be such a solution offered by RedHat.
Jason.
Re:Clarification requested (Score:3, Interesting)
So let me recap what you're saying:
Are you serious? Is RedHat serious? I've got to be missing something.
Re:Clarification requested (Score:5, Insightful)
How, exactly are you screwed? What did you lose?
You still get source with Red Hat.
You can still download and burn ISOs of their software.
When I got started in the biz, I would have given an eye-tooth for a company that would provide an OS on just the above 2 terms, but there's more!
You can still get access to security and bug-fix updates for free.
You can pay a small fee to get automated access to the above updates, but there are also equivalent free services from third parties (see freshrpms' apt-rpm service). This is essentially a free service, which RH is covering network costs on. Everyone knows you don't *need* to sign up for RHN, it's basically there as a way to say thanks.
You can pay increasingly larger fees to get increasingly larger services. This is a no brainer. Any company that doesn't give their customers the option of paying as much as they like should be taken out to the street and fed to the pigeons.
This is a sound and reasonable model, and it does not take your shiny toys away or cause you to lose access to something you once had.
Why is everyone flipping out because Red Hat has added a pricing structure for upper-teir enterprises that is on-par with every other vendor? Should we all act shocked that a company doing business in the U.S. is actually trying to make money? Should we run around pretending that they're now somehow "evil" because they are making money?
At a higher level, why is there this slashdot knee-jerk reaction to any announcement concerning Red Hat? They come out with bluecurve and they're bad guys. They charge for automated access to RHN and they're bad guys. They announce an expensive product and they're bad guys. I swear sometimes I honestly think that if Red Hat donated a million dollars to fund cancer research the Slashdot headline would be "Red Hat Snubs Diabetes Research"!
Walking a tightrope (Score:5, Insightful)
What price hike ?? (Score:5, Informative)
Our shop has been evaluating the purchase of AS for some time now. It's been 1500US/yr and 2500US/yr
for a few months at least.
This latest offering is only adding ES and WS for
those who still need/want support but don't want the
full enterprise price.
Re:What price hike ?? (Score:3, Interesting)
1) ES will work for most people (those who do not need extra large memory, cpu, or clustering support). In fact, most of our servers do not use OS clustering and have 4 or less cpus, so ES would seem to work. But, we do run a fair number of 6gb ram Oracle boxes. And we would have to pay the AS prices for these boxes, even though we really do not need the greater support/features. We could build our
Nice support options (Score:5, Informative)
For a mission-critical business system (like one that MAKES REAL MONEY for a company) this is not a bad price to pay to keep running.
ALso, if you've only got one or two boxes like this, paying RedHat $2500 a year would be a lot cheaper than keeping a really good UNIX sysadmin around.
I think if you look at the competition (Microsoft and Commercial UNIX vendors), this would be pretty good deal.
Good but not great. (Score:5, Insightful)
However, I cannot believe that they don't offer some type of per incident support basis. There are a number of places here in Indiana that want to add RedHat instead of NT and or NetWare, for say 20-30 servers, but they don't want to pay $2,500.00 a server for 7X24 support! Both Novell and Microsoft offer a per incident support, and when I called to complain about this I was told that RedHat isn't competing with Novell or Microsoft, but Sun. I don't see it that way.
Re:Good but not great. (Score:5, Informative)
I'm guessing you're wanting 24x7 support, but not with 1 hour turn around or unlimited incidents. And if web support isn't sufficient (and, in general, I can't imagine a 4 business day turnaround being sufficient) then, yeah, I guess you're out of options.
But just how many calls would you need to put into MS or Novell before Redhat becomes cheaper? What about turnaround time? How long do your servers need to be down before that 1 hour turnaround starts paying back?
The second question is really the key one -- I suspect most shops could get along just fine with the Standard option, which is pretty dang cheap. And if you're just replacing a file server or the like then go with ES - which is $350 or $800 depending on your support needs.
As for who they're targeting - I'm not a sysadmin, but it would seem to me that ES is targeted more toward the Novell/MS and AS more toward Solaris/AIX/HP-UX. It's certainly not a hard line though. But, in general, it's a lot easier to port an application from another Unix to Linux than it is from Windows/Novell to Linux.
Why it costs so much (Score:3, Informative)
Completely cuts out the middle group of users (Score:5, Insightful)
For home/hobbiest users, there is the free downloadable Standard Linux. But, with at most 12 months of security updates, this isn't really a viable option for use in any environment outside the home (and not even for a lot of them). Personally, I want to use my computer, not be updating it all the time.
My situation at work is this: I'm a researcher. Since I'm one of just a few with any expertise, I'm the de facto sysadm for about 25-30 machines running RH 7.2 which we installed just about a year ago. We use the machines mostly as desktops. Lots of people don't run anything besides ssh, mozilla, and OpenOffice plus the usual suite of calculators, CD players, etc.
Since my real job isn't taking care of these machines, and since I don't want to interupt people's work, upgrading every 12 months is out of the question. But, spending $180/yr/machine on support I really don't need is also not a great option. All we need is security updates for these systems so we don't get hacked. That's it. I don't need Oracle certification, etc.
But, I don't see any way in RedHat's plan to give me minimal support for a long period of time (2-3 years) for a reasonable cost. Of course maybe their update RPMs will be available somewhere since, after all, this is free (open source) software. Barring that, it looks like RedHat will cost us a lot more than MS would.
I'm also of the opinion that this model of release every 4 months is not viable anymore. Things just aren't progressing that quickly any more. IMO, RedHat should be making a new release of their standard product every 18-24 months and releasing service packs that update critical packages like the kernel and X (to deal with hardware compatibility), security updates, and maybe essential applications like KDE, GNOME, mozilla. I'd be more than happy to pay a reasonable amount ($50/yr/machine) for something like this.
Re:Completely cuts out the middle group of users (Score:2, Insightful)
Ah, but that's the beauty of Open Source - you don't *need* RedHat to give you 2-3 years of support for reasonable cost. You can get that from someone else. If there are enough people like you out there to support a business model that satisfies your needs, then someone will probably start one (if there isn't one already).
updating made easy, w/o the RHAT (Score:2, Informative)
apt-get update; apt-get dist-upgrade
Re:updating made easy, w/o the RHAT (Score:3, Insightful)
And as I understand it, won't one of those commands update me to the latest distribution of RH not just fixing the software I have, but replacing a bunch of things that don't necessarily have problems? That means new things break, people come asking "How do I do this now? It used to
Re:Completely cuts out the middle group of users (Score:4, Informative)
How about $60?
Red Hat Network Purchase Information [redhat.com]
Red Hat Network Basic service level: $60/year per system subscription
Red Hat Network Basic service provides software management, priority service, and access to Instant ISOs (full versions of Red Hat Linux) for individuals with one or more systems. A Basic subscription is required for each system supported on Red Hat Network. A Basic subscription to Red Hat Network provides:
Re:Completely cuts out the middle group of users (Score:2)
Thank you. I was just saying this to someone else. I have been on this plan for two years now. worth every damn penny and then some. it works, everytime, very fast. AND (as i stated elsewhere) they let you register your UNPAID systems and get info/emails about them, free. You don't get to use up2date with them, but you at least KNOW when they are out of date.
IMHO, Redhat has a great thing with this program.
Re:Completely cuts out the middle group of users (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Completely cuts out the middle group of users (Score:2)
You're paying for.. (Score:4, Interesting)
I think it's a good move (Score:3, Interesting)
Good idea I guess, but I'll pass (Score:2)
Re:Good idea I guess, but I'll pass (Score:2)
(what if you want Apache or some other "server software" on workstation for testing?)
Well, I might be playing devil's advocate, but what's stopping you from pulling the Apache (or other software) rpms from apache.org (or appropriate site) and including the rpm in your install script? I'm not trying to be a jerk, just legitimately wondering. A simple "rpm -iv apache*.rpm" (or similar command depending on your needs) would seem to do it and not violate anything.
Still Too Much (Score:3)
I use RH now, and have for years. But I'm actively looking for another distro. Plus, I'm tired of the marketing b.s. that accompanies their segmentation of the market.
Re:Still Too Much (Score:2)
Maybe you should take a look at Redhat Linux (according to Redhat this is suitable for those who want minimal support). Redhat Enterprise Linux is probably not the Linux you are looking for. Redhat Linux (no Enterprise) can still be had for as little as US$39.95.
This is a serious question (Score:3, Interesting)
Do they do heavy system modification to change how Advanced server handles memory or threads or something? Sorry, I'm ignorant here, I have always used redhat from the ISOs and pay for entitlement.
Re:This is a serious question (Score:2, Informative)
2. There are no binary ISOs
Red Hat does to lots of customizations, and if download the source rpms, you can look at the changelogs to see what they've done.
If you download the source rpms and build a system yourself, you'll have trouble getting patches for that system - in fact, they're not available at all via RHN unless you pay the subscription fee to the right channel.
TWENTY-NINE (Score:3, Funny)
Cheating? (Score:2, Interesting)
Well, it just goes to show... (Score:3, Funny)
No, wait, you CAN put RedHat in the Enterprise, but you-no wait...crap...nevermind
This isnt bad (Score:3, Informative)
No, its not redhat.
We charge over $20,000 for A SINGLE USER.
This is very _very_ competatively priced.
If you don't like it don't buy it (Score:3, Insightful)
I think the simple solution to people not wanting to pay the Redhat (damn where can I put the $) tax, is to not pay it - use another distro.
That's what's so great about linux, you don't like redhat don't use it, you don't like Slackware don't use it, you don't like Debian don't use it etc etc etc.
I thought the whole thing about OSS was choice, we just need to convince those brainwashed by Redhat (such as Oracle) that they should aim to support other distros, come up with a certification program so that people can build their own that is supported by Oracle.
Just my humble opinion.
Does stock RedHat change? (Score:2, Insightful)
For many companies, tho, the certification for standard vendors like Oracle are extremely important. If you don't have these, it doesn't matter how free your operating system is.
Per machine? (Score:2, Interesting)
Can anyone clarify for me whether these "subscriptions" are explicitly licensed for exactly one machine? Am I allowed to download the workstation product for $179, create CD's, and then install it on 100 machines? I understand the problem of only having purchased 1 entitlement for the Red Hat Network; the question is am I permitted to install it on N machines for $179, or am I required to pay N times $179?
The Red Hat WWW site is surprisingly uninformative about this question.
Re:Per machine? (Score:4, Informative)
From RedHat's License Page [redhat.com]:
- 4. REPORTING AND AUDIT. If Customer wishes to
- increase the number of Installed System, then Customer will purchase from Red Hat additional Services for each additional Installed System. During the term of this Agreement and for one (1) year thereafter, Customer expressly grants to Red Hat the right to audit Customer's facilities and records from time to time in order to verify Customer's compliance with the terms and conditions of this Agreement.
(Emphasis mine.)So the answer is, it is X dollars ($1500, $800, 350, $180, whichever product / service level you want) per year, per system. That may be competitive if you want or need business hours or 24-hour phone support, all the fancy certifications and other features you get with RHEL, but if you just want access to binary erratas for a 3-5 year product life span, that's not realistic pricing, IMHO.
Jason.
Red Hat is inching up (Score:5, Informative)
Journal filesystems hitting maturity, logical volume management, asynchronous I/O for the database guys, TPC-C benchmarks (unaudited though?), improved clustering
There are still things Linux lacks (last I checked) that the conventional UNIX vendors have added to their systems over the last five years: things like hot-swap memory, hot-swap CPUs, memory failure resiliency (OS quits using memory if recoverable but warning-sign single-bit ECC memory errors get too great), kernel hot-patching, multipath IO, workload management stuff, and ever-more SMP/NUMA scalability.
Still, seems like Red Hat is making great strides. Hat's off! (ugh, sorry about that, couldn't resist.
--LP
Re:Red Hat is inching up (Score:2)
Aren't these commodity PC hardware shortcomings?
Re:Red Hat is inching up (Score:3, Interesting)
Well, I sort of agree with you. However, Sun/HP/IBM were calling their Unix offerings five years ago 'enterprise' without having any of those features (even though the mainframe mostly did). I've never seen a really firm definition, although I certainly have my own views about what the phrase should mean. While I agree a bit with your point, it's also not quite fair for the 'enterprise' guys to constantly redefine the ent
I just keep liking Red Hat less and less (Score:3, Insightful)
I once thought of Red Hat as a geuninely good thing, and I do have to give them a lot of credit for helping make Linux more widely accepted in the workplace.
But over the past year or two, based on their activities as a company and the merits of their distribution, I've been trying to convert all of the Red Hat servers at my workplace to Debian as time permits.
I simply cannot bring myself to pay the up2date tax when apt-get is free and just plain works better. So instead I waste a lot of time tracking down and trying to install release-specific RPMs, which is a huge pain. Even Microsoft provides free updates for their operating systems (which, in many cases, cost less than an equivilant Red Hat license).
I'd still rather administer a Red Hat server than a Windows server because it IS still Linux after all. But as a company, I really can't see much difference these days between RH and any of their enterprise-level competitors.
Differences between Enterprise and other Redhats (Score:4, Informative)
Very useful for the suit to choose which Redhat is suited for him
RedHat raises their rates... (Score:2, Insightful)
If you *need* the support for your servers, this might not be the worst deal.
But for workstations, this seems to be terrible. $299 for a basic workstation? I can get Win2k Pro for $150 or so with limited
Paying for Linux (Score:2, Informative)
Does Enterprise offer Indemnity protection? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Does Enterprise offer Indemnity protection? (Score:3, Informative)
Then you may have a problem, because most non-Linux vendors won't offer you that indemnity either. As MS customers are finding out with the SQL Server lawsuits, for example. At least with RedHat you have the ability to produce the source to prove it's not the suing party's software.
Re:Does Enterprise offer Indemnity protection? (Score:3, Informative)
confusing (Score:3, Insightful)
So does this mean if I want to run a test server on my Redhat WS system, I won't find server packages on the CD? So how many flavors of Redhat are their going to be now, five? 3 Enterprise flavors, desktop, and download edition? Are they all going to use different packages? Will 8.1 download packages work on WS? So far the press releases have been really confusing, RH might want to think about clarifying what will be changed/allowed/restricted.
The big advantage of Linux is that is supposed to be cheaper and less restrictive! I realize that Redhat comes with lots of software besides the OS, but lets face it, it is free software, so your not going to convince many hobbyists that paying $250 for Redhat WS is a bargain. I realize on the enterprise level $250/machine isn't bad, but it sure as hell isn't a bargain.
Mindshare (Score:3, Interesting)
If the free download and the "Enterprise" what-ever are too different, it will have an impact.
I wonder what situation this leaves Cheap Bytes and other CD copiers in?
Red Hat Small Business Edition... or else! (Score:5, Insightful)
I predict Red Hat will round out it's product line with a Small Business Edition with the following features:
Why will Red Hat do this?
This is a warning to Red Hat: you are alienating your small business customers! Give me a product that meets my business needs as outlined above, or I am going to take my business elsewhere.
You have been warned.
It's all about the pricing... (Score:3, Insightful)
$800 USD a year is worth it IFF you're a medium to large company which is doing well and has a good established client base. A little downtime is acceptable, but tech support is still vital so it's as minimal as possible.
$60 USD a year is the price they should sell Red Hat Linux at with up2date support, and perhaps a month of phone support to let new sysadmins call in with setup questions. This, almost anyone can afford, and it's a good bargin *IF* you get permenant access to errata.
I work for a startup company, we cannot afford the $800 price point for Enterprise Server, and we have competant people here who don't need phone support (well, once in a blue moon for things like PERCRAID3 controllers...), but without the up2date access... it's not worth $5.
Red Hat.... you are in a position that Bill Gates wishes he was in. You can afford to charge big money for all the support that costs you money to maintain, AND you can still collect peanuts from individuals who would like an easy-to-maintain system that isn't windows. Wise up!
Windows XP is something like $300 retail, and it will have a good 5 years of free online updates. That works out to about $50 a year plus $50 for the box. Multiply that by a few million home users, and that's the market you're ignoring.
Think about it... you already do the work to generate the errata, all you need to do is keep mirror sites up to date (most mirrors do this automatically), and keep your up2date network functioning.
Current - Redhat Up2date Server Clone (Score:3, Informative)
Current [tigris.org] is an open-source implementation of an up2date server.
I've used it, and it does work, however I'm waiting for multple channel functionality and some other features before I switch to using it instead of apt.
Re:Why the cost? (Score:2)
You don't really believe that support is free, do you?
-BrentRe:Why the cost? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Why the cost? (Score:5, Insightful)
Ever notice the difference in working with software that nearly works, and software that does work? It's a lot easier if you buy something that end-to-end works out of the box. Not remembering a lot of custom compile options, specific setup preferences. Pissing about in meetings deciding whether to use
And it's a familiar Linux environment for your admins.
(Of course, this all assumes that the new Red Hat stuff actually satisfies all that.)
Re:Why the cost? (Score:5, Insightful)
The way the vendors of these large products (let's use Oracle as an example) cover their asses in "product reliability" is to "certify" specific versions of Linux that they've tested and feel pretty confident about saying, "Yes, this will run stable and we believe we can recommend it."
So we end up with products like RHAS (and now RHES) and SLES 7/8 from the major Linux players. This helps make sure that -everyone- has covered their asses.
See, you and I know that we can take a copy of Oracle 9i and put it on a copy of RedHat 7.3 and expect it to perform rather reliably, right? We've worked with both the products enough to understand their quirks and how to support them. But if something does go wrong along the way your boss wants to hear something more than, "I've done this before and it worked! I have faith in the setup I've recommended." Your boss wants someone he can point a finger at and expect that they're going to provide a solution.
I've had a very hard time in the past few months bowing down to the concept of paying $799 for a copy of something I can pretty much download and patch-up myself. But the guys with the shirts and ties still think it's cheaper than a Sun/Veritas licensing solution, and it definately is cheaper than a Win32 alternative, so they're willing to shell out the cash. Why should I argue with them when after it's all paid for, it's still Linux. ;)
Bottom line? All of these certifications and extra costs for support we'll probably never use is a way to generate revenue while everyone is covering their ass and their product.
My $.02 anyway...
Re:Price Hike? (Score:3, Interesting)
Personally, I download the free version and subscribe systems I manage to the RHN service, which makes updates simple, and is well worth the $60/year.
Re:Price Hike? (Score:3, Informative)
We do both!
Normally download the
Oh, and my computer now has a nice "Powered by RedHat" sticker now! Worth the price alone!
Re:Price Hike? (Score:2)
NOOO!!!! EVIL!!!!! (Score:2)
My OS longs to be free!!!!
Re:Hmmm (Score:2)
Re:Hmmm (Score:2)
Re:Why do people continue to use red hat? (Score:2, Informative)
RPM is actually a pretty good packaging system, and RPM-based distros are what will bring linux to the consumer, because the common idiot can run the system.
You _CAN_ use a stock kernel, and they offer many precompiled kernels that you can use. The files are in an acceptable location (i.e. configs are in
Also, you can DOWNLOAD it, so you arent paying $$$$$. Anyhow, I prefer Debian/Gentoo, so dont call this a redhat plug.
If only there was a perfect operating system... (Score:2, Funny)
OK, I'll bite. (Score:2, Insightful)
As far as I can tell, Red Hat does not have "files in the wrong place" any more than any other Linux distro - instructions for a lot of things intended for other distros are still very useful guidance for RH users like myself.
The packaging system may not automatically resolve dependencies, but it's bloody good as it is. I download an RPM, and use 'rpm -ivh' and I'm up and running 99.9% of the time. If I need some other RPMs, it'll tell me. If I need to su to root to install, it'll tell me. If it can't
Re:Well, what should I get? (Score:2, Insightful)
Pay for ONE SYSTEM to be on the red hat network. Tell up2date to keep the files it downloads. Write a script to grab all of those and install them on the rest of the machines too. (Assumes default install etc...)
Better yet, be a real geek and type ftp updates.redhat.com and then use get.
Re:Well, what should I get? (Score:2)
I dunno, I like the automatic md5 checksuming rhn does, I like that I can manage everything from a single place...
true, I could do that myself as well, but...for $60 a year, is it worth my time? Even with a couple dozen servers? Maybe, maybe not.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Unbelievable (Score:3, Insightful)
Don't be a liar/drama queen that doesn't even happen.. Red Hat does not have nor will they ever have a monopoly on linux. They sure as shit don't have a desktop monopoly like MS does. So what was your point again?
Oh but I forget your own of the resident Microsofties who regularly trolls Slashdot defending MS and spreading semi-FUD about linux in every post.