Red Hat 9 To Be Released March 31 716
Garfunkel writes "Looks like Red Hat is breaking tradition and skipping 8.1 and 8.2 and jumping directly to 9.0 RHN subscribers
get it a week ahead on March 31st. Available to the rest the world a week
later (April 7)." The website refers to the upcoming release simply as "9" -- which doesn't rule out future point releases, but could it be?
RedHat 10 to be released (Score:2, Funny)
RedHat X (Score:2, Offtopic)
Hah! (Score:5, Funny)
"Are you running Linux 9 yet?"
Re:Hah! (Score:2)
best linux ever! (Score:5, Funny)
redhat laboratories has announced today the future release of 'linux9 advanced server pro champion edition(tm)'. redhat scientists have announced that this will be the most numerically advanced version of linux ever sold. by abandoning older 8.x technology (found on previous releases), redhat has been able to accelerate the versioning capabilities of linux by nearly 10 percent.
numerically advanced versioning technology is an important step in bringing redhat to the enterprise. many enterprise customers, who run high-availability servers on big iron hardware, demand the stability and maturity that can only come from numerically advanced version numbers. moving to linux9 puts redhat in direct competition with sun microsystems' (SUNW) solaris operating system, which has been sporting version 9 release enumeration for over a year.
in other news, redhat has announced that linux9 advanced server pro champion edition(tm) will be distributed in a six dvd set, that includes 2 dvd's containing the basic distribution, and 4 dvd's of pre-compiled packages. additional dvd's supporting non-x86 architectures may also be available for purchase.
Re:best linux ever! (Score:4, Funny)
Odd... (Score:3, Insightful)
Could this be an early April Fool's joke?
Re:Odd... (Score:5, Insightful)
With no PR build-up, and no listing of new features on RedHat's website (can anyone else find any, because I certainly can't!) this release certainly looks like a bad joke, and if it's not an April Fools then it makes Red Hat look like a bad joke.
I'm using 8.0 now, and RH's games with registration and update-systems combined with their ridiculous "BlueCurve" rebranding (I'm sorry, but it just takes RH even farther away from any sort of standard, and forces it's users to go to RH for software updates), combine to make Red Hat look un-professional. Why should I buy any of their software, if they're just going to come out with a new major version months later and leave me in the dust?
I mean really, what warrents this? Is there a brand new Kernel major version that I've somehow missed hearing about? Does RH have the inside on a new blazingly fast XFree86? If this is serious it's a ridiculous marketing game, and if it's a joke it's wholly unprofessional!
As soon as I've time it's back to the source [kernel.org] and on to Gentoo [gentoo.org] for me!
Re:Odd... (Score:5, Interesting)
The next edition of RedHat I believe is supposed to include the new kernel threads stuff, with the glibc that supports it (hence re-implementing pthreads), it has a new compiler, and the new glibc. So probably the applications aren't binary compat with 8.0, so this is now 9.0. The price you pay for upgrading. It's not like the upgrade path doesn't work, and it's not like upgrading past these things will be vastly superior on Gentoo.
They are pushing out new big things, if you want to stay current, then upgrade to it. What's the big deal about the major version number? I really don't see why your panties are in a bunch with RedHat. Gentoo will do most of the same crapola to your machine that Redhat does when you upgrade, it just won't have a major version number change. Big whoop.
Kirby
Re:Odd... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Odd... (Score:5, Informative)
The regular ISO's they will see as something nice to do for the community, and have it be the test bed for new features, and the "beta/gamma" release of the upcoming Enterprise series. Then the new enterprise releases will have lots of software that has been tested and released on all kinds of hardware and they will have a very good chance of making a very, very stable release for the enterprise lineup.
Because they have the stable release, I believe you'll see fewer, and fewer X.1 and X.2 releases, and you'll see a lot more .0 releases. Somewhat because it will be enticement to have people buy the Enterprise line, and somewhat to keep the "beta/gamma" testing on the bleeding edge. It's a pretty clever scheme all in all. If they can pull it off, and keep the bugs in the .0 releases down, and put out a .1 to solve big problems in .0, I'll happily use the standard ISO on my desk, and happily pay the money for the Enterprise lineup for my servers.
Kirby
Re:Odd... (Score:3, Informative)
Upgarding to the next RedHat release then becomes as easy as:
apt-get update
apt-get dist-upgrade
done
(I updated today, and already began noticing that it was pulling in some new glibc updates and so on.)
Re:Odd... (Score:5, Informative)
Dear Dirk:
You may know that Red Hat Network is the best way to keep your
systems running the latest errata and always up to date. What you
might not know is that Red Hat Network passed the one million users
mark earlier this year. We've listened to valuable feedback and have
added two items of interest to keep those users happy - early release
of Red Hat Linux 9 ISOs and improved technical support.
Beginning March 31, 2003, paid subscribers to Red Hat Network will
have access to Red Hat Linux 9 ISOs - a full week before retail store
and Red Hat FTP availability. Also, Red Hat Network subscribers will
receive dedicated Red Hat Network Technical Support.
Learn more about the benefits of being a Red Hat Network Subscriber:
http://redhat.chtah.com/
To purchase a Red Hat Network subscription:
http://redhat.chtah.com/
Thanks again for using Red Hat Linux. We appreciate all feedback
from our users and hope you enjoy Red Hat Linux 9.
Sincerely,
Red Hat
--
The above email is intended for people who have opted-in to receiving
email from Red Hat. If you think that you have received this email in
error, please accept our apologies. Simply click on the link in the
section below and we'll make sure you do not receive this kind of
email from Red Hat again.
http://redhat.chtah.com
Kernel version (Score:2, Interesting)
Thanks,
Adam
Re:Kernel version (Score:5, Informative)
Anyways, the nVidia drivers (the kernel module component) needs some changes to be able to run on the beta (they're available, but not from nvidia directly), but I suspect nVidia will have this released shortly after RH9. Additionally, some third-party stuff will have to be relinked, because of thread local storage stuff and the new NTPL -- Redhat backported a lot of stuff from the 2.5 series. Hence the 9.0 release (IMHO) since an 8.1 release would seem to imply that it's relatively backwards-compatible. It seems there are too many low-level interface changes to justify a point release.
Some drivers are already ready for the 2.5 kernel (as ready as you can get for software-in-progress), so you just need to hack the version numbers a little bit to get it to compile properly -- for example, the PowerVR drivers. Specifically, the VM API has changed quite a bit, so when RH backported these changes, they got the new API as well.
The beta looks really nice though, especially with GNOME 2.2. And CD burning is integrated in Nautilus (drag-and-drop, then click the burn icon, and it writes it to disc). Very nice stuff is on its way...
Re:Kernel version (Score:2)
DVD ISOs (Score:5, Interesting)
It would be kinda nice to download just about every package and put it on one DVD.
Re:DVD ISOs (Score:5, Funny)
Re:DVD ISOs (Score:3, Funny)
Re:DVD ISOs (Score:3, Funny)
That would be a downloading DVD. And, by some interpretations of the law, it would be illegal.
Hence: downloading DVDs are illegal.
So you're both right. (On the pedantic-grammar front, that is.)
Re:DVD ISOs (Score:3, Informative)
Knocking down pins is the way to win at bowling.
You wouldn't say "Knocking down pins are the way to win" would you?
Downloading is illegal.
Downloading 5 games is illegal.
Downloading a game is illegal.
Downloading a dvd is illegal.
Downloading 5 dvd's is illegal.
You get the idea; this grammar message sponsored by the RIAA and the BSA.
It gets simple if you just try the same sentence structure with a few different words.
Ximian, where for art thou? (Score:4, Funny)
And to think, I'm still waiting for Ximian to release it's version of Gnome for RedHat 8.0 [ximian.com].
Re:Ximian, where for art thou? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Ximian, where for art thou? (Score:5, Informative)
These days, Ximian seems to be focusing on three main products:
- The mono project, which isn't exclusivly Ximian but could give Ximian a big advantage c#/.NET arena, and incorporating Ximian Desktop
- Their RedCarpet Enterprise manager
- Evolution and other projects for some of the bigger *nix's like HP-UX and Solaris.
Those bigger contracts are probably the only thing keeping Ximian alive at the moment.
why do subscribers get it ahead (Score:2, Funny)
The cult of Linux strikes again, in that case. Paying for advance release of this is a scam.
Re:why do subscribers get it ahead (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not a scam. If you don't want to pay, then don't. If you want to pay, then you'll not only get things a whole week ahead of time, you'll also get support.
What on earth does this have to do with "the cult of Linux"?
Re:why do subscribers get it ahead (Score:5, Insightful)
Rule 1 of the Mandrake Club (Score:3, Funny)
I'm not exactly sure how that relates to the Red Hat Network (which has pretty much become the "pay for timely upgrades to our free operating system" club), but I felt it was worth saying.
Unified Desktop (Score:2, Interesting)
what is the point of using another window manager, if the interface is **EXACTLY** the same. This doesn't even consider the quality of their interface, which is ok.
They also offer 0 customization on their interface, which is really annoying.
For now at least, I will stick SSHing into my PS2, and then using everything in text mode.
Re:Unified Desktop (Score:5, Interesting)
redhat still offers full customization of EITHER window manager, and if there is some esoteric g/kde setting i'm not aware of, download the newest k-rad alpha of whichever and install it. the point of the unified desktop was to make it appeal to corporate and grandmas without taking away either option.
within about 2 hours, i had my desktop looking and acting like mac osx (via kde) and my wife couldn't believe how wonderful it worked.
so, speaking as a person who's brand new to the unified desktop, and as an RHCE, either install whatever you prefer, learn how to install theme packages, or stfu.
Re:Unified Desktop (Score:4, Interesting)
Pain and Misery (Score:4, Insightful)
Hopefully this is just a marketing decision.
Re:Pain and Misery (Score:5, Interesting)
After an install alot of downloading is diffinetly required.
Re:Pain and Misery (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Pain and Misery (Score:2, Insightful)
Hey Boss! (Score:5, Funny)
Confusion (Score:5, Funny)
I suppose that higher numbers are better from the perspective of new users comparing products, although the race ahead didn't seem to do Mandrake enough good.
A day shy of April 1 is kind of fishy, though.
Lastly, imagine the chaos that will reign when Redhat releases Red Hat 10.
Yes, it will be "ten", as in the same version as the Apple OS X, also a UNIX.
Oh, but "X" is the windowing system for UNIX, you know, "eks eleven", which is much better than "X10", the same as the clunky old protocol for handling devices around your house. Not Windows, but "X Windows"...
It'll be like "Who's on First" all over again...
Re:Confusion (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Confusion (Score:4, Funny)
Yippie. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Yippie. (Score:4, Insightful)
I didn't see anything about the difference in numbers determining for how long a particular release was supported. In fact, I'm pretty sure that RH8.0 will be supported for 12 months - like they said it would be.
We won't convince them by taking a half-broken desktop that hardly anybody uses and claiming it's stable either.
Desktop Linux (which is what redhat linux is now) is still very much beta software. When it's actually fully competitive with Windows in every respect, then expect it to start slowing down in terms of churn. Everybodies up in arms because a major release number means things change and backwards compatability is sometimes lost. Maybe in future we'll all be using distros with 6 month release cycles still, but that doesn't mean there will be chaos in the realm.
You make it sound like the major version number is based on how many cool features something has. It isn't. It's based on significant loss of compatability/significant changes in the API/ABI levels.
Re:Yippie. (Score:5, Informative)
Its also why United Linux and Red Hat both have business oriented distributions which change much more slowly.
Alan
RHL 7.0 started out as Red Hat Linux 7 (Score:5, Insightful)
This leaves RHCE's in the brown smelly stuff (Score:5, Interesting)
I got my RHCE less than a year ago, at RH7.2. It was stated that RHCE's are valid for two releases - ie when 9.0 came about, I have to recertify.
Was I wrong to expect that since it took two years to go from 7.0 to 8.0, I might actually have been able to hold onto my certification for more than one year!?
Re:This leaves RHCE's in the brown smelly stuff (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:This leaves RHCE's in the brown smelly stuff (Score:3, Informative)
Still kinda sucks that the 8.* series ended so quickly though, certifcation-wise.
Re:This leaves RHCE's in the brown smelly stuff (Score:5, Informative)
This should probably have been announced at the same time but wasn't.
Re:This leaves RHCE's in the brown smelly stuff (Score:3, Insightful)
While that is not necessarily a bad thing, it does make you wonder what they'll do with RHCEs. Are they expected to pay out $$$$ to learn about the new window dressing and a couple of package changes or perha
Features & Verson numbers (Score:4, Insightful)
I've always thought that versioning should be more related to features & point releases than anything external, like "marketing".
I see a few reasons for the "9" over 8.1
I'd really like to see a list of "new features" so I can decide for myself. :)
Re:Features & Verson numbers (Score:5, Insightful)
Now, there may be political, marketing or contractual reasons that a major number is prefered, but since binary compatibility is not guaranteed between major releases, you'll usually find that the one leads to the other, and thus the original statement holds true (i.e. engineers are free to rev libs in a major release, so they do).
The reason that Red Hat would release a new major version so soon after 8.0 is almost certainly to track the latest desktop updates which have been fast-and-furious since 8.0 was released, especially from GNOME (2.2.x is FAR more reasonable than 2.0, which IMHO, Red Hat released too early).
Re:Features & Verson numbers (Score:3, Informative)
Red Hat increments the major number when binary compatibility changes. For example, 7.3, 7.2, 7.1, and 7.0 are all back-compatible, but 8.0 and 7.x are not (necessarily.) 8.0 shipped with gcc 3.2, which is what broke binary compatibility.
The problem (to my mind) is that Red Hat is releasing 9, when there was only an
Re:Features & Verson numbers (Score:5, Insightful)
Why? I'm still running RH7.3. The reason I didn't upgrade to 8.0 is mainly that the
Re:Features & Verson numbers (Score:5, Insightful)
Now we see the problem of judging an app by it's version number rather than it's reviews.
Reguardless of the version number, either wait until the reviews are in, or try it out on a machine you don't care about. A version number is meaningless.. even the difference between 9.0 and 8.1 is arbitrary.
Re:Features & Verson numbers (Score:4, Insightful)
Yeah, according to RH's research, 80 of the RH users out there are running 7.x or higher. But i'd suspect not more than 30% or so are running redhat 8, and most of those are desktop's, i'm sure, not servers. Which brings up:
There's a much bigger problem:
What about support for those of us running RH 7.x?? What happens when a vulnerability occurs in the code? How far back do you think they'll release patches? I know they don't continually patch 6.x now, so I'd imagine that they won't continue to patch 7.x after this release. That's going to leave me and my 50 computers at work running RH 7.x high and dry.
Cause, I'm damn sure not upgrading to RH 8. You may think it's buggy, but you don't know the half of it. Try running it on a server sometime - it CAN'T be done in a sane manner. The default install installed apache 2, but then tried to install a version of mod_perl that is incompatable with 2.0, so then it also installed 1.3.19, but then mod_php wouldn't work, no SSL support, etc. Good grief. RH 8 was buggy beyond belief.
So, now, i'm expected to update to something, either 8 or 9 on 50 comptuers at work, and not break anything in the upgrade?
Thanks, redhat. If you weren't what everyone asked for, i'd move back to debian or gentoo. This is exactly why no one wants to release binaries for linux. If you wrote something for NT 3.51, chances are it still works in 2k server. Not saying that IIS is better, but linux needs to work on the not forking so much thing, and leave some sanity in the backwards compatability.
The beta isn't all that special (Score:2)
I think the versioning is a marketing decision. It probably ties into Advanced Server and Advanced Workstation somehow as well.
-B
Keeping up with the Mandrakes (Score:2, Insightful)
free software (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:free software (Score:5, Funny)
He could, and then start praying for the link not to be posted on slashdot for the first week.
No! No! No! PREMIUM services are necessary. (Score:4, Insightful)
Red Hat Network & the Mandrake Club, etc., exist so the people who are willing to *PAY A PREMIUM* receive better or more prioritized service.
There are so many reasons this is wrong. By freeloading off of RHN, you're effectively telling Red Hat "Hey, we're not willing to pay for a product that you've spent time and money on. Since it's GPL, we're gonna get it for free anyway."
Red Hat spends time and money improving Linux, and sharing with the community. Whether or not you use their distro, like their politics, or whatnot, "Red Hat Linux" is pretty much what most people who've HEARD the word Linux think of.
By stealing the link and posting it to Freenet, you're cheating the people who paid a premium for early access.
Look at it this way: Just how much would you giggle if you placed an order and put down a deposit for a new Harley Davidson (Ferrari, Hummer, what the fuck ever), and someone was able to get their bike before you, without paying a deposit, because their buddy works for the dealership - making your wait longer?
Sorry to jump all over your ass, but Open Source companies NEED people willing and able to pay a premium to receive premium service. It improves public perception and a company's willingness to stay in business.
Freenet doesn't keep developers in Mountain Dew.
Re:No! No! No! PREMIUM services are necessary. (Score:3, Insightful)
Those that want to financially reward Redhat or Mandrake for their efforts should be able to, but there is nothing wrong with someone doing what they can to make GPL'd code more available to everyone else. Remember that RedHat did not write most of the co
You young whipper snappers! (Score:3, Funny)
Marketing stunt? (Score:2)
ugh, even linux does it now (Score:3, Insightful)
I would have thought that the linux crowd would be smart enough to be above that... which isn't to say that they aren't - perhaps it is the sales and marketing people at redhat that are retarded here.
They should just step it up to 34 and show their customers that all the others suck.
(of course nothing should ever go past version 42)
I guess they are keeping up with Slackware... (Score:2)
ttyl
Farrell
RHN EOLing all current and past products this year (Score:2, Informative)
I submitted a story on this prior to this one, but the gyst is this: Due to this move, anyone who wants to use RHN still will have 3 options:
install RH9 on their systems, overwriting whatever OS was there. Problems: long downtime to install OS then re-set everything up, depending on a X.0 release for everyth
Hope 9.1 is out before the end of the year... (Score:4, Insightful)
My 7.3 system is pretty mature. Moving from a well-patched x.3 system to a immature x.0 system seems like a potential can of worms.
Re:RHN EOLing all current and past products this y (Score:5, Interesting)
What it means is, starting with RH9, you have 12 months of errata. You'll be able to use RH9 until March 31st, 2004, a year after release.
This *is* inconvenient, because it means, at minimum, taking a machine down to kickstart it every year. THAT is annoying as hell, especially since you aren't going to deploy RH9 site-wide for at least 2-3 months (shortening the releases "lifetime" by 3 months).
I thought this was a huge problem until I looked at their ES [redhat.com] level enterprise solution. Since enterprise entitlements are $120 anway, paying $230 for an OS that doesn't expire for 3-5 years seems perfectly reasonable.
If your systems are mission-critical enough to NEED to be left stable for *years*, then going with Advanced Server makes more sense than any other distro - they stabalize the platform for 18 months between releases, minimizing your QA and upgrade time significantly.
Seems like a trend - pay for early download (Score:3, Interesting)
YellowDog [yellowdoglinux.com] offer early ISO's to people who pay as well, I guess it's a result of the fact that people mostly download GNU/Linux distros these days?
Breaking binary compatibility? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Breaking binary compatibility? (Score:5, Informative)
http://rpmfind.net/linux/redhat/beta/phoebe/en/
I think the two major updates that will definitely warrant a few "major" number upgrade will be the following:
1) glibc update from the 2.2 development branch to the 2.3 branch; the major feature would be the addition of the NPTL (Native POSIX Thread Library).
The release notes cite that legacy (LinuxThreads) applications will work with NPTL if and only if they conform to the POSIX standard.
2) The new and improved XFree86 4.3 (usability, eye-candy, performance, drivers, et al.).
3) Extended attributes (EA) and access control lists (ACL) finally come to Red Hat's distribution - giving per-file control par with NT and other OSes that have already had EA and ACL.
4) The inclusion of Gnome 2.2 fine tunes Gnome 2.0 to a better degree.
So far, the glibc update (which seems to branch off the glibc that is shipping with Red Hat Linux 9.0) that was given to Red Hat Linux 8.0 users seems to be wreaking havoc with regards to threads implementations; a few examples:
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla/show_bug.c
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla/sh
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla/sh
It should be noted that Red Hat has been extraordinarly adept with the inclusion of compatibility packages to allow legacy applications to continue working with their newest offering.
Re:Breaking binary compatibility? (Score:3, Interesting)
I'd note that this one (related to symbol versions) is a problem whenever glibc is upgraded. One solution is to compile against the LSB, which will force your binary to use versions other than the latest ones. You lose new functionality, but it means your binaries have some chance of running on older distros.
Re:Breaking binary compatibility? (Score:3, Interesting)
Mandrake 10.0 (Score:2, Interesting)
I really think we could have seen kernel 2.6 before a 9.0 came out, or, at least readiness for it.
Anyone know if RH 9.0 will have the required tools already there for 2.[56].xx?
beta tested (Score:5, Informative)
My impressions as a person who uses this as a desktop at home and is normally a Mandrake kind of user:
It is a very easy to use and install and stable distro. I don't like that they include almost no configuration tools. To make it a good desktop distro I had to download a lot of extra rpms because the cd's with the distro are packed with server/workstation rpms. Also, though not RedHat's fault, NVidia's glx driver doesn't work properly with the new kernel and some weird dis-optimizations to the code have to be done in order for it to work (as of mid Feb; haven't checked lately). This is an issue with all 2.5 and 2.4.20 and above kernels, IIRC.
It is very similar to 8.0 (but they might have changed some things in the last month). The biggest gripe I have is that they use GRUB as the bootloader, but have no configuration utility for it. I'm a LILO person, but I thought I'd install GRUB to see if it was better. The man pages weren't very helpful and RedHat includes nothing to help, either. I went back to LILO, but since RH has no priority for it, there was no graphical options for LILO, just text.
It works for what it is supposed to work for: servers and workstations. As a desktop user that wants to have a simple and easy distro, I switched to Mandrake 9.1 rc1.
Re:beta tested - Grub config (Score:5, Funny)
Or they could do what IBM does... (Score:3, Interesting)
Stable version needed (Score:4, Interesting)
If they are going to pitch themselves as "Commercial Linux" they really need to act like it. And no, their "Enterprise" offerings are only going to be applicable to a very small customer base, the ones who would be buying Solaris or HP-UX; i.e. Enterprise computing applications. not the computing lab or departmental server market. If they are departing the small/medium/education markets I really wish they would announce that so we could be putting energy into investigating alternatives NOW instead of when the crunch hits Dec 31.
Blimey. (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm running RH8.0 ATM, and am a big newb to linux. I am wondering what one needs to do after an 'upgrade' install when they have previous drivers/settings already installed/setup:
Does the 'upgrade' ape all my settings?
I have read here that I will need to wait for new NVidia drivers to come out, then go through the hassle of figuring out how to install these. I'm guessing I need to uninstall my 'old' drivers (as per nvidia's readme) *before* I would install the new ones?
My Logitech mouse just needed a bit of tweaking to get working in X, in XF86Config. Will this setting be gone?
I *just* finished figuring out how to compile/install/blah some drivers (http://opensource.creative.com) for my SB Live! 5.1 Platinum. Will these needed to be uninstalled before I 'upgrade'? Or perhaps removed and reinstalled *after* the 'upgrade'?
Hope someone can answer these, and lend a calming hand. Thanks!
Re:Blimey. (Score:5, Funny)
Welcome to Linux.
Re:Blimey. (Score:3, Informative)
Having said that, though, RPM isn't so hot at mixing your customized configuration with the defaults included in new packages, so you should always backup
After the upgrade, do a search for all the files in
redhat apt-get up2date (Score:5, Interesting)
Also redhat doesn't seem to be doing very well w/ kde. I am not sure whether it is because kde3.0 was really buggy or something happened w/ the 7.3->8.0 transition but I wouldn't mind a redhat that was "un-unified." At the very least, a kde/konqueror that was usable then, since many people think the unified thing is a good thing
Anyway maybe talking to a few people and seeing if it would be possible to collect a cd of non-gpl but "open" developer software (Kylix 3, intel compilers 6.0 (kind of a weird license)) would also be nice addons.
At the very least I think defaulting/forking redhat to include apt
the security updating issue w/ the current incarnation of redhat. Its also I think obvious that redhat will never release the up2date server source and have obvious reasons for not incorporating apt into the offical distribution so it may require the redhat' wrapper trick to get apt in there.
In any case, i'm curious as to what you guys think, one the one hand i think its a bit "assholish" as it deprives them of one of their obvious revenue streams, on the other hand I think for those of us who run clusters or whatnot or even want to auto-redistribute custom software onto our own nodes having access to the equivalent of our own up2date software (which apt is a better version of to be honest) is a reasonable task, and furthermore wrapping around redhat (like mandrake did) is somewhat what open source is all about as well, especially as redhat and redhat-compatible rpms/source(i.e. ati/nvidia/vmware drivers) is a bit ubiquitous.
-bloosqr
Seems strange (Score:5, Insightful)
However, I can't really see what Redhat are going to put in this release to justify a +1 version upgrade.
I agree with other posters that frequent version changes will threaten the release of 'industry standard' apps on the RH Linux platform, and as such Linux in general because of the perceived volatility of the environment.
However, strong sales of 8.0 might have given Redhat the impression that consumers look favourably on 'integer' releases, when really I think 8's popularity was almost entirely due to the well-publicised 'out of the box' antialiased fonts and UI work. If it was called 7.4 it would still have been very popular for these reasons.
It would be nice to see Redhat give a clear rationale behind it's numbering scheme and clear up the confusion that obviously reigns in this area.
why do I feel like we're heading down a bad path? (Score:3, Interesting)
Most RH users cannot handle FreeBSD (Score:3, Informative)
BSD systems make great servers, but they make only so-so desktop systems. Most disgruntled RH users are better off trying Mandrake.
Hmmmm, (Score:4, Insightful)
End of Life blues. (Score:3, Informative)
RH8 has an EOL of 12/31/03 and this new version will give me an EOL of 03/31/04. I got several clients running RH 7&8 that I was looking at moving off to other distros or I upgrade NOW to RH9 and delay the next "forced" upgrade for 3 months. This is not going to encourage me to stay with RH. We need longer EOL times.
Sucks for RHCEs (Score:5, Insightful)
I am not overly pleased about this. The changes from 7.2 to 8.0 were not overly significant in my opinion, and 9.0 isn't going to be that different from 8.0. How could it be? There has not been enough time between them for major kernel changes or radical security modelling to alter, etc.
RedHat != Microsoft (Score:5, Informative)
1) RedHat releasing this as a major version number is consistent with their numbering schemes in the past and is likely not a marketing plot. RedHat does major number versioning when binary compatibility is broken between versions. The Native POSIX Thread Libraries used in the latest beta Phoebe broke binary compatibility with a lot of applications. Thus, a new major number is warranted.
2) RedHat has an interesting challenge in that it must balance the "release early, release often" philosophy to satisfy those of us who like having cutting edge distros with the need for corporations to have some longevity in their releases. RedHat has found a good balance here. These consumer releases are going to continue to be released every six months to satisfy those who want its raw power. They will continue to be free, and RHN update services will continue to be free (though recently they've asked for about ten seconds of your time to complete a five question marketing survey). These six-month releases will continue to have same QA process as always. RedHat is willing to continue to invest so much into these freely downloadable versions because the feedback they get from them helps them work on the slower release versions. Redhat has said this more [redhat.com] than [redhat.com] once [redhat.com] during a recent thread on the phoebe list.
Please don't start villifying RedHat. They do a lot of good for the whole Linux community, pay many of the best developers of our favorite projects, and give Linux a wider acceptance in the RealWorld (tm) which helps all of us.
-jag
Official explanation (Score:4, Informative)
/dev/null ? (Score:3, Interesting)
early april's fool?
New Versioning Scheme: Where to after 9? (Score:3, Interesting)
Yes, the next major release of Red Hat Linux will be Red Hat 9 [redhat.com], but:
Something that nobody so far has picked up on, is that this is just the start of an entirely new versioning scheme. Red Hat's operating systems manager, Matt Wilson, has suggested that the release following 9 may not be 9.1 or 10, but rather something entirely different [redhat.com]. This makes sense in the light of Red Hat's recent announcement of its Enterprise range [eweek.com]. I guess Red Hat Linux may no longer exist in its current form, but rather branch into Red Hat Linux Enterprise and Red Hat Linux Personal, with a new version numbering scheme to boot, maybe starting again at 1, or maybe even based on the year it was released in.
Matt Wilson explains (Score:4, Informative)
On Mon, Mar 24, 2003 at 03:45:26PM -0500, William Hooper wrote:
> > Red Hat 9.0? What happened to 8.1?
>
> Binary compatibility. RH always goes to x.0 when they don't preserve
> binary compatibility. Now you know why some people (like me) think it was
> silly to be calling it RH 8.1 beta in the newsgroups.
In the past, this was indeed the case. Red Hat Linux 9's
incorporation of NPTL does mean that certain applications that
function on older versions of Red Hat Linux (like 8.0) will not work
without intervention on Red Hat Linux 9. For example, some Java JVMs
do not work properly because they make certain assumptions about the
thread model that are no longer true. Most of these applications can
still be used by specifying that you wish the older thread libraries
to be used through LD_ASSUME_KERNEL=2.4.1 and LD_ASSUME_KERNEL=2.2.5.
But there's something a bit more fundamental that I want people to be
aware of. In the past we would never have tackled something as
massive and invasive as a new threads implementation just after a ".0"
release (in this case, 8.0). We were able to do this, and bring this
great new technology to a mass audience, because we've changed the way
we consider technology to incorporate in Red Hat Linux. In the past
we would have felt it necessary to wait a while for a ".0" release
because we had to support a series of releases for years.
With the introduction of the full family of Red Hat Enterprise Linux
product we now have the flexibility to incorporate the best technology
that both the Open Source communities and Red Hat have to offer when
they're ready, instead of having to hold back.
One example of this sort of thing that caused a lot of negative
feedback in the past was the delayed incorporation of Python 2.0 in
the Red Hat Linux 7.x series. In the new model we would be able to
get the new releases of major subsystems like Python in the
distribution as soon as they have been proven stable.
I hope this sheds a little light on "why 9 and not 8.1".
Cheers,
Matt
msw@redhat.com
--
Matt Wilson
Manager, Base Operating Systems
Red Hat, Inc.
Re:Red Hat X (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Spank Spank (Score:4, Interesting)
Umm I have seen that break more servers than a Linux upgrade ever did..
Re:An ovboius attempt... (Score:2)
Re:hmmm (Score:2)
Re:Catching up with slackware? (Score:2)
Is to note that in that topic Linux is inferior to Windows, they left a lot of time ago the 90's, then they jump to 2000, and now they are using letters because they are higher in the ascii table. If I were designing distribution numbers, I would jump over roman numbers (X is already used, and XXX would look as a pr0n distribution), and go to chinese (or another
Re:Dizzy (Score:3, Interesting)
7.2 may be old, but it's Rock-Solid-Stable(TM)
Re:Dizzy (Score:3, Funny)
It's not?! I just spent all day downloading the ISOs, damnit! I guess that's what I get for using in-span.net [in-span.net] as a mirror....
Re:Scam (Score:3, Insightful)
Um, I wouldn't call selling a legitimate product a scam. You seem to believe that Redhat is obligated to provide ISO's for you free. Why?
-Brent