Red Hat EL 4.0 Released

diegocgteleline.es writes "As it has been noticed by some news sites, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4.0 has been released. RedHat's web site doesn't seem to have any reference, but with Red Hat being probably the most used distro in the enterprise and featuring for first time a 2.6 kernel, this is a major milestone for linux in the server arena. There're already some reviews."

The Relevancy of RedHat

[Caydel]

Now, I am not trying to start a flamewar here, but how relevant is RedHat anymore these days?

Now, don't get me wrong, I used it for a long time, and I'm sure we all did. However, Redhat fell behind the times a few years ago, and many of us moved on to bigger and better things. ie. Fedora, Xandros, Debian, Mepis, Knoppix, etc.

So how relevant would you say Redhat is the Linux distro wars of this day and age?

Compared to . . .?

[wakejagr]

From the article:

Conservative release cycles and a more exhaustive test cycle make Red Hat Enterprise Linux a safer bet for the business community--they don't have to chase the release of the week.

I guess they aren't comparing release cycles with Debian . . . maybe Longhorn?

All joking aside, I think RHEL isn't so much competing with other Linux distro's as with Windows. RedHat is trying to offer a choice to companies that are considering the jump away from MS: AS and ES for server machines and WS for workstations, solid support. I haven't used RH in a while, but I hear RPM hell isn't the "killer" app it used to be. Sounds like it's good competition for Windows.

Re:The Relevancy of RedHat

[wakejagr]

To the average linux user: not very.

To non computer geeks, who only hear about linux through mass media: almost as relevant as back in the day.

Re:Compared to . . .?

[hdparm]

Well, it has ousted Sun from pretty much all of the big financial organisations and is making inroads elsewhere but not necessarily 'attacking' Windows. It will be long and hard battle in all places that have Windows AD installed - there still isn't open-source replacement for it out there. Hopefully, samba 4 will give us leverage on that end as well.

I personally can't make much sense in using commercial distros for replacing Windows in a small / medium enterprise market - much easier to sell is free (as in beer) OS. Plus, FC3 does the job well on a server and on a client side - it's been rock solid for my needs (file, print, squid, email mostly).

Re:The Relevancy of RedHat

[Leghkster]

With much (most?) commercial database, email, etc. server software supported only on RHEL in the past, it's the familiar comortable choice for businesses that have already jumped. Remember the "E" in RHEL. More often, recently, I see Suse officially supported, but that's often a harder sell to the bosses. They've heard of Red Hat by now. How do you pronounce that Suse thing? ;-)

Call me when...

[ZuggZugg]

I'm no Solaris or Windows fan per se, but RHEL is still missing a few things:

-Xen or virtualization solution like VMWare, Virtual Server, Solaris Zones
-Fair Share Scheduler like in Solaris
-Better management tools with better documentation, particularly GUI tools to displace Windows installs

RedHat needs to integrate/clone/whatever the following solutions:

-A fully supported Samba + LDAP solution like IDEALX, to eliminate the need for MS ActiveDisease
-A mail/groupware solution with a client (suggest latching onto Mozilla project) to displace the killer MS Exchange+Oultook combo and Lotues Notes.

Don't get me wrong RHEL is a very good product given its age, but it could be better that's all.

If they can do the above in the next 12-18 months RedHat will be a serious contender...

Re:Compared to . . .?

[IntlHarvester]

I think RHEL isn't so much competing with other Linux distro's as with Windows.

Not at all. RedHat is very happy staying in the "Enterprise Unix" niche -- J2EE, financial applications, Unix, Oracle. They're stealing business like mad from UNIX/RISC companies and barely acknowledge Microsoft. Who needs Main Street when you have Wall Street?

RedHat has done almost nothing to compete in the "LAN" or Windows server market -- file & print, directory services, groupware, RAD apps -- they've simply got no answer to this stuff. (SuSE/Novell at least is building a product lineup.)

Re:Just to head off the kiddies....

[LizardKing]

What does red hat do to make that same kernel so much more stable than kernel.org? If an application is screwing things over, logical step is to drop it.

RedHat does the kind of stress testing using common usage patterns and edge cases, and on a scale that loosely organised volunteers currently don't. I'm not saying that Debian (for example) couldn't come up with a project that does this kind of thing, but this is the area that RHEL appeals to (non-pointy haired) bosses.

The conservative release cycles of RHEL are because the users can't afford the downtime required by the frequency of Fedora upgrades (and Gentoo is a non-starter for enterprise users unless you're a masochist who likes getting ragged on by your boss when the system crawls during an emerge).

Well that's f*cked off the Debian and Gentoo amateurs ...

Re:The Relevancy of RedHat

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you so sure that you are the "average linux user" anymore?

Flamebait or no, I'm guessing most RedHat users are the 7 Year+ UNIX Sysadmin guys and not the crowd trying to use Linux to watch WMV porno and play Halflife in their mom's basement.

Re:I think it's still premature

[avida]

Every RHEL major version is supported for five years at least. This is why you go with RHEL.

Re:Linux 2.6

[crow]

It is significant for everyone who uses Linux. While most other distributions have been using 2.6 for a while now, Red Hat is what the big corporations pay attention to. This means that people who develop software for Linux can no longer point to Red Hat as an excuse for not supporting 2.6.

In other words, the whole world can now pretty much agree that the 2.4 kernel and the software that runs on it is in maintenance mode now.

dingdingding we have a winnah...

[doc_traig]

I run a tight shop and when WebSphere doesn't play ball on a production server for some reason I need to know that, as a last resort, I can scream at someone. Preferrably both the app and os people.

I haven't needed phone support yet, but if I did, I could go that route. And the clients like that. If they like it, it's successful.