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Red Hat Software Businesses

Red Hat Releases Version 6.1 394

Posted by CmdrTaco from the download-and-play dept.
RaymondInFinland writes "Red Hat 6.1 appeared on ftp.redhat.com Only a i386 version but the release also comes as an ISO image. " Its not supposed to be official for a bit yet, and my guess is that it'll be pretty rocky downloading for a bit, but it is there.
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Red Hat Releases Version 6.1 More

Red Hat Releases Version 6.1

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  • force? (Score:1)

    by mattdm ( 1931 )
    This is drifting from the topic, but: if for some reason you don't agree with the dependencies the package thinks it has (if it thinks it requires X, or sound, or something, and it really doesn't) is there any way to tell debian's package manager to install the damn thing anyway? I really appreciate this feature of RPM.

    --

  • A mirror of the 6.1 ISO is available at ftp://heavy-ind.com/pub/linux /redhat-6.1/6.1-i386.iso [heavy-ind.com]

  • The last redhat release i played with (version 5.2) had sendmail 8.8, and bind version 4.9 or something... any reason for this? Both were known security problems (that had been fixed for a while) on the day it shipped AFAIK :P

    Aaah, Grasshopper: look at the patches inside the SRPM -- both BIND and Sendmail had the security fixes applied before 5.2 shipped. :-)

    Remember, when RH 5.2 shipped, BIND 8 was not in very wide use, and Sendmail 8.9 was quite new. Rather than release a new, largely untested version of something with possibly huge new security holes (which thankfully didn't actually happen, but it's a lie to claim that there was no or low risk at that point), they released the old, known-to-work version with a patch for the known security holes.

    A lot of stuff RH does may not be great, but don't slam them on this one -- they got it right, for certain. (Now, releasing pre-kernels may be another story, but there's a good argument to be made that said pre-kernel was much more stable than the official release at that point...)

  • 6.1 is a bug fix. That's what the *.* means. The major releases are done re-numbered in the first number. In case you haven't noticed it's pretty much the standard way of nubering programs.
  • What's realy needed is one tool that maintains it's own database and can install rpm's, deb's, and stuff you compile.

  • wrt RPMs, try rpmfind. www.rpmfind.net

    $ rpmfind will, when configured correctly, find any apps matching that, plus work out the dependencies needed that aren't met on your system, and offer to d/l it all for you. It's not perfect, but IMHO a reasonable solution.

    I'd like to a new packaging system developed, combining the strengths of rpm and apt together with standard tarballs for distribution and local/remote management. Such a thing would be really cool and kick everything else into touch.

  • If I didn't have to constantly be upgrading then I would still be using that "other" OS... It always needs fixed in some way.
  • It's not to let you ignore your screwed up whatever. It's to let you boot *one* time without it. Yes, you could do this in single user mode. This just makes it easy to start up your services one at a time if you chose.
  • Nope. kudzu handles updates. up2date handles actual package upgrades.

    --
    Jeremy Katz
  • Every time RHAT drops to 70% of its highest value they announce a release. No... I have been using RH since 4.1. They have a release about every 6 months. This is from before stock was ever mentioned.
  • In another paycheck or two, I'll be switching over to KRUD, Kevin's Redhat Uber Distribution. It is a mere $44 a year with monthly CD updates. I will no longer have get and install Xemacs :) No free support, but you didn't want that anyways.

    http://www.tummy.com/krud/

    "Kevin Fenzi, co-author of the Linux Security HOWTO, and a senior member of tummy.com has created a distribution based on Red Hat which includes the most up to date security and application errata. This distribution, called KRUD, also included a variety of other freely distributable software."
  • cheapbytes.com [cheapbytes.com] usually takes about 4-6 weeks to come up with their version. I've had very good experience with them.
  • Try rpm --freshen package.rpm

    It will upgrade any packages that are already installed. Nice for getting up to speed from updates.rehat.com.

    -Pete

  • Well, since it isn't "officially" released yet, you probably won't find an whats-new list from Red Hat util it is. Suppposedly that will happen on Monday. However, if you search you can find a whats-new list for the Beta release (code named Lorax) and extrapolate from there.

  • umm... you mean the file 6.1-i386.iso locatated in directory /pub/redhat/redhat-6.1/iso is only version 6.0?
  • This doesn't have the new Common UNIX Printing System yet? Or does it?
  • There is a difference. If package is free it is part of Debian, point. This is why potato has ~4000 packages as of right now. You don't have to hunt for packages on the web looking in various dubious places. Since those packages are part of the distribution, they follow guideliness of the distribution. Very often I saw dependencies break easily on redhat, just because those packages are not packaged by redhat, they sometimes don't have the quality of the main redhat packages.
  • I believe the previous poster was refering to the rpmfind tool that can be *downloaded* from rpmfind.net. It's a little text mode tool that lets you search for RPMS and will download them along with all the RPMS they depend on.

    I still don't think it's quite as cool at apt. But it does solve the major portion of the problem.

  • Re:Screenshots? - Here (Score:4)

    by VinceJH ( 14059 ) on Saturday October 02, 1999 @12:52PM (#1643300)
    f tp://ftp.ou.edu/mirrors/linux/redhat/redhat-6.1/i3 86/doc/rhinst/figs/cd-rom-gui/ [ou.edu]

    The trick is that any mirror of the actual distro. (an not just the iso file) will have this directory of images of the installer. They are from the installation manual.
  • I bet the very first "first post" post was both cool and funny. Glory for him who inveted it (and a kick in the ass for those who copied it).

  • Screenshots? (Score:3)

    by Booker ( 6173 ) on Saturday October 02, 1999 @10:40AM (#1643302) Homepage
    I tried to get an early beta to run, but the PCMCIA install was hosed back then, so I never got it going...

    Perhaps asking for screenshots is a little lame, but I'd really like to see what the graphical installer looks like. Anyone got 'em?

  • - an interactive startup option (disable-able) ala choose what you want to start during startup for Windows 9x and DOS; so for when you screw up your sendmail config, you can still start without taking ages :)


    If you really screwedup your whatever config, then you should probably fix it, not ignore it. Giving this kind of options is, imho, probably a bad idea. Booting in single user mode would let you fix it without taking ages to start, and without letting your system half-running at the end.

    seb.
    --
  • Don't expect to see beowulf support in your standard RedHat any time soon. According to US export laws, beowulf-capable systems are, for all intents and purposes, munitions.

    Yeah, and you can buy a CD with such a system on any street bazaar in Russia.

    Export laws on software are a joke.

  • Anyone mirroring the ISO yet?
  • Kudzu handles identification of hardware, and will optionally let you configure new hardware. It doesn't do any updates.
  • 4.2 is the oldest supported release.
  • If you have rpmfind [rpmfind.net] you can just do

    $rpmfind --latest RedHat

    And that should update . . .hmm, maybe it is 'redhat', Oh, well, you can figure it out ;)

  • this has gotta slow down.. i think there should be some "service packs" and not new version #'s for minor upgrades and such.. i would have hoped redhat 6.1 would have waited until Xfree86 4 or something a lil more worth the version # change would have come out.. whats new? is there anything listed on the site? and one beta release is pretty balsy..
  • Does anyone know if APM is compiled into the default kernel with this release? It was for 6.0, which made it very difficult to update my desktop machine which uses a non-standard APM that causes an APM kernel to crash; a lot of desktops do, actually, so I thought it was a poor default choice.
  • When RedHat releases a new version they don't stop releasing updated packages for previous versions. I'm running a server on 5.2 and when a security problem is found, they will release an update package for 5.2 as well. So there's no reason to update the entire system to just get one security fix. I personally will never consider an OS vendor that does not do things this way. I don't appreciate being forced into a vendor's release cycle. Red Hat's release cycle is short but you're not forced into it so it's all good.
  • redhat should buy up a few distros to narrow it down and bring more talent in and spread some of the wealth.

    While I think that "narrowing it down" is generally a bad thing when it comes to Linux, I think that if they can afford Mandrake, they should snap them up. From what I can tell, they are basically the same, except for the fact that Mandrake is more polished. Redhat could benefit from the better setup, etc, and Mandrake could benefit from the spending power and brand name.

    Redhat and Mandrake seem to be going for the exact same market, unlike a lot of the other distros, so I don't think there would be any sacrifices in diversity.

  • Redhat's ALWAYS put out a new release every 6 months. This is good because generally it's about that time that there's so many updates from the previous version that nobody on a modem has an icicle's chance in hell of downloading all of them. (and indeed, 6.0 was at this point due to XFree86, GNOME, KDE, glibc, netscape, samba, apache, and all kinds of other security fixes and upgrades). Hell, I'm on a cable modem and keeping 6.0 up to date is painful.

    From a user point of view 6.1 is identical to 6.1 other than the nicer installer (it's about on par with Win98's, which means there's still room to go) and the automated update facility (finally - I almost switched to SuSE to get that :) This may or may not break some pretty canned certification, but the upshot is anyone who's used 6.0 can use 6.1 just fine. (and in fact anyone who'd used 5.2 could use 6.0 just fine as well - the only interesting admin change was that KDE moved from /opt to /usr :)

    And finally, if you're running a corporate IT cluster and it's working fine with no crashes and 5 months uptime DON'T UPGRADE IT EVER. Pay no attention to the shiny new boxes. I'm serious. Most IT people I know don't want to screw with anything once they have it working right, and with Linux that's quite possible. The only time you should upgrade such a system is 1) retiring the hardware for new boxen 2) a software upgrade requires it (ie, if Oracle 9 comes out and requires kernel 2.4).
  • 643MB ftp://rh61@128.253.254.56/6.1-i386.iso [128.253.254.56]

    SlashMirror: Where to put files for fellow /.'ers

  • yeah, i'm afraid my mocking wasn't clear (blunt subject line with the minimally helpful body) i was trying to demonstrate how the replier came off, poor taste from both of us.

  • Ternary DNS? (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    If you look at the Net [ou.edu] shot, you'll notice that they've a box for ternary DNS.

    I find this really amusing, because while Ternary is close, I think what they really were shooting for was Tertiary.
  • Bah.. Best? Of the ports I've tried, half of them didn't even compile (Various packages related to KDE).

    But then again, here are the problems with the various distributions of Linux I've run into as well:

    RedHat 6.0 - The included Gnome config just simply does not work correctly. I shouldn't have to right-click, minimize, then left click to get a window back in the foreground.

    Debian 2.1 - dselect is absolutly horrible, I'd rather not have a package selection interface than use it. It's included DHCP client doesn't work for me other than the first try, and the Netscape packages won't install regardless of what I do.

    TurboLinux 3.6 - No problems at all, other than it's based on glibc 2.0.7 instead of 2.1

    Caldera 2.3 - Again, no problems.

    FreeBSD 3.2 - Included package for DHCP client refuses to work even when I compile bpf support into the kernel and make the device files. Great.

    Linux Pro 5.4 - Why the hell does LinuxMall even bother sending this piece of trash?

    Linux Mandrake 6.0 - My particular CD won't boot. Bah.

    To FreeBSD's credit, it's the only free UNIX like that even boots off my HD now. Lilo just sits there and looks dumb. Joy.

    Out of this stack of Linux distributions (RH, Caldera, Mandrake, Slack, TurboLinux, LinuxPro, SuSE 6.2,) and a FreeBSD CD, I've found 3 reasonably usable distributions to me that work within a few hours after install - Slack 4.0, Caldera, and TurboLinux.

    Yay.

    Of course, all the zealots out there will flame me for stating my experiences and opinions. I don't care.

    By the way, all the distributions I tried were installed from CDs I bought from LinuxMall.
  • rpmfind.net also distributes a program called rpmfind that does the work for you, it just downloads everything you need and drops it in /tmp

  • There's a SCSI/IDE emulation module for NT? I'm aware of one for Linux but not for Windows NT. Remember, the original poster was talking about using the NT port of cdrecord.

    --Joe
    --
  • "rpm -UvhF *" will upgrade only already installed packages. Although I think the -F option is fairly new - only arrived with RH6.0

  • Something I've been thinking about (Score:4)

    by EvlG ( 24576 ) on Saturday October 02, 1999 @01:36PM (#1643331)
    (Disclaimer: I've had most of my Linux experience with RedHat, so most of my comments about my usage apply to that.)

    I've seen a lot of talk about "make a server-only distribution." That's something I've been thinking about a lot lately.

    Today, pretty much every Linux distribution uses the same "super duty" philosophy: put every package known to man on the user's computer, start the same set of services, and there you go. Instant server. Instant workstation. Instant anything, Instant everything.

    This is troubling to me. I know that for my server installation, I don't WANT X, I don't want Netscape, I don't want GNOME or KDE or any of that other client-oriented, workstation stuff installed. It just wastes space sitting on my hard drive. However, Redhat's server install is the biggest of the 3 options, throwing EVERYTHING on the drive, leaving me with perhaps 300 megabytes of crap I just don't need. I even deselected X, and I still got some of the X11 packages installed!

    So why don't distribution makers make server oriented distributions and workstation oriented ones, keeping the 2 separate? Simple. Linux users are stubborn people, perhaps the most stubborn of any in the industry. CUPS comes out, and there is lots of talk about how the current system works fine, we don't need a new system. Berlin is in development, but a mere mention of that brings up the X zealots, ready to kill anyting anywhere close to being modern. About the only thing Linux users will upgrade for is the kernel, and only because it's chic to run Linus' latest and greatest. The current set of Linux users is a rather small subset of all the types of users out there. Mom doesn't need Apache, wu-ftpd, or nfs. Mom just needs StarOffice, X, GNOME/KDE/wtahever, and Netscape. Why force it on her?

    The fact is, separating workstations and servers makes a whole lot of sense. A lot of the security holes you see in servers come from client-oriented apps (Some of the GNOME bugs come to mind.) Similarly, for machines that only run workstation stuff, server stuff causes problems (wu-ftpd is an excellent example here). Why install stuff that won't be used?

    I wish distribution makers would realize this. The world doesn't need 50 distributions that can do it all; how about one that does one thing really, really well? It seems to me that it would make a lot more sense.

    Just think about it...a lean distribution, optimized to do what it does well. Now that would be something.
  • Both of these are fine, and I've used them both, but:

    1) The public betas don't give us any of the information I was referring to in my first post. I'd like to know why they choose what software they include and why they ignore others. If/when things like next-generation subsystems might be integrated. Why they stick to old versions of certain software. Why do they choose to add certain patches, and what their rationale is in their directory structure (which I personally happen to like for the most part). That's what I mean when I say I'd like to know where the development is headed.

    2) Rawhide is a good effort, but it really seems a bit haphazard at time (look at the kernel packages right now). The SRPMS often don't match the RPMS (or extra SRPMS are left around), and it's just not the same as having a group of packages that Red Hat endorses as being "reasonably tested and approved" for use by users who want/need newer software.

    3) Even if Lorax and RawHide did solve the problems of open development and new packages, I would still prefer two branched distributions. I'd rather see more server-side stuff on a Server Distribution CD when I'm installing the servers (optional PAM and apache modules, maybe a choice of databases, etc), and more client/workstation packages (where to begin) included on the Workstation Distribution CD.

    Am I way out in left field on my thinking?
  • A couple of canned install options (Server, Workstation, Home Computer, etc) and a Custom option is all that is needed. They already have most of this (Custom Install) but a few canned options wouldn't hurt.

    And you can always remove RPMs after install. I did this to get a Caldera 1.3 distro to fit comfortably on a 100MB HDD, including a 50MB Netware 4 server! You would be suprised to know how much stuff you really don't need to just boot and serve a few files, makes me wonder why I don't see more stripped down distros sold with network appliances. Then again, maybe I'm just not looking.
  • Debian has been releasing ISO images of its binary and source cd's for several releases now. I can't remember when they started, maybe with 2.0(hamm). So I would say that Mandrake and RH learned from Debian.

  • Seems you slashdotted yourself :)
  • Dude, put the coffee down . . I said PUT the COFFEE DOWN!

    >real Microsoft-like behaviour on RedHat's part.

    It's mainly a bugfix release, compile all the new updated RPMS from the 6.0 release and any new software that you would want to upgrade (KDE, GNOME, XFree86). You don't HAVE to buy this, from anyone, you don't even have to download it if you don't want. Personally if I have a stable system I am not going to mess it up just for the latest and greatest.

    Would you rather have it where they _don't_ release, and every time you install a new system you have to spend all day applying fixes and upgrading packages. I didn't think so. Just put the new boxes out there for the marks to pay for and only upgrade if necessary, you can even steal specific RPMS from the new distro and apply them to the old if you want.

    Anyway if they were really Microsoft they wouldn't release at all, just sit on the bugfixes and new features instead of replacing the current version with a newer one.

    >*ALL* of Linux is a fucking media circus

    Oohh, if it's popular it can't be good. Take me to some dark, dank corner where no one is and I'll be happy. That way I can be "Elite" with all my friends. Blech.
  • Is there any place on Red Hat's web site or ftp site where they list in detail what has changed between 6.0 and 6.1? Or between all of their releases, for that matter?

    --

  • They sold beowuld CDs a year ago, and I suspect they still do... The HW might be classified, but "the beowulf distribution" was nothing but plain RH, a couple of freely available programming environments (MPI, PVM) and a couple of small utilities. Nothing fancy, and I don't think most people bragging about it knows what is is: A cheap way of doing parallell computations, which are programmed in a certain way to take advantage of the multiple processors.

  • man rpm (Score:1)

    by vipw ( 228 )
    try -U with multiple rpms
    should make you not hate rpms so much
    don't get me wrong i don't like rpms either, but they're not so bad as you make them out to be. and yes i agree debian package system absolutely kicks ... now if it only installed right for me ... : )
  • > Not really. I mean this *is* a .1 release. nothing major. Basically this is just a "service pack" release, or as our arch enemy at Redmond calls it, the "Second Edition".

    I'm curious as to why M$ didn't just call:
    Windows 95 OSR --> Windows 96, and
    Windows 98 SE --> Windows 99
    considering the timeframe when both of those came out.

    Oh wait, I was asking M$ to do something LOGICAL. Silly me.
  • As the others have said the CDs have the upgrade option right there. But if you're like me and don't want to download 650MB before getting started, you can just download a few packages and install them.

    I've done this a few times now. I have many RPMs I've created myself so I like to double check that everything is working before moving on to the next package. The last thing I want is to have all daemons on my system to not be working right because RPM moved their config files to .rpmsave. In fact, I'm right now in the midst of upgrading to Mandrake 6.1 (from what was originally Mandrake 5.3). I'll just download those packages that apply to me, install them, make sure they work, lather, rinse, and repeat. It takes a few days with my 56k modem, but it'll be done eventually...
  • If your cdwriter is IDE you need to enable the SCSI emulation module (and use the SCSI CD-ROM driver.)

  • cute. (Score:2)

    by mattdm ( 1931 )
    Cute, but I don't think you've got enough data points to support your theory. I don't know how you can say that they're "very into" anything based on one and a half examples.

    --

  • Oh good god. Freaking conspiracy theorists. (Score:3)

    by Ian Schmidt ( 6899 ) on Saturday October 02, 1999 @11:08AM (#1643349)
    Redhat releases a new update every 6 months. They always have, they probably always will.
  • Hmm, yea 100KB/s that must suck..
  • And it doesn't add any nasty new buzzwords to our already overloaded language.

    Languages that feature overloading.. Usually something that is widely embraced in the programming world. How ironic. ;)

  • It was B0redAtWork. He once made a comment "Wow, first post again!" and it went down from there.
  • did you mean this as a joke? Ternary is a word.
    as in Primary, Secondary, Ternary (look it up at dictionary.com)
    If your refering to the Tertiary age, which was part of the Cenozoic era, I don't quite get the joke.
  • I hereby decree that from the moment Slashdot contains an article detailing a new program, new version, etc, be it free software or commercial, software or hardware, every single person viewing said article MUST, under penalty of going to Windows, download, install, purchase, and use for no less than fifteen minutes per week said software. There will be no exceptions no matter what the reason.

    There .. now at least there is a reason for people to bitch and moan about every article on here. "Boo hoo, I use Debian so I'm not going to load Redhat." "Waaa, my mommy said C rules and Delphi is for losers." "Oracle is made by Satan and is demonstrative (notice that word!) of the fall of Linux and mankind." "Rob/Hemos/Roblimo/Katz/etc are lamers because I don't find this topic interesting." "My ftp program beats anything else, so you all can go to hell! You go to hell and you die!" Is there any point to any of these people posting other than to whine? If it doesn't apply to you, just move on with life already!

    In closing, I'd like to say, "Sheesh."
  • I would wait a minimum of 30 days before I installed a new release anyway, to see whether the post-release updates were going to come as a trickle or a flood.

    And probably 90 days for a production system.


    --
    It's October 6th. Where's W2K? Over the horizon again, eh?
  • You're crying wolf. Linux and the associated softwre surrounding it are continually evolving. The kernel release schedule should make that patently obvious. RedHat is keeping as close to up as possible without losing some stability.

    Yes, they've made mistakes in the past, so what?
    You're free to create or use another distribution, fact is that RH's model is working for RedHat, why snivel about it?

    Any company large enough to support AIX environments will have at least one person with enough of a clue to (a) wait for stable releases, and (b) FTP. RedHat's done a great deal over the last year to legitimize what we used to have to _sneak_ onto machines. The value in that alone is worth the rest of it to me in my daily job.

    Having just gotten capital approval to replace some AIX boxen with both Linux and *BSD machines, and having played the patch/update game for quite a while in both environments (Linux since a .98p11 SLS distribution, AIX for about the same ammount of time) I'm perfectly happy to upgrade my servers when they need it, no matter *which* OS or vendor I happen to use.

    If you've paid for AIX and AIX support, you'd know there's no comparison in cost.

    I actually tend to buy more CDs personally than we do at work because the release cycle isn't long enough to match my work maintenance cycle. But then I buy more FreeBSD CDs too. FTP installs work just fine from work too, multiple DS-3's make it satisfactory to do.

    RedHat also makes updates available for the last couple of releases. Nobody's "forced" to upgrade for bugfixes if they're running a relatively new version-- even if they don't understand that they can apply the patches themselves and compile their own packages.

    If you want to complain about people being uninformed, educate them, if you're just whining because RH is being successful, you're more than welcome to try to build your own brand.

    RedHat isn't Linux. Linux isn't RedHat. Time you opened *your* eyes to that fact.

    Paul

  • Jeez. (Score:3)

    by rde ( 17364 ) on Saturday October 02, 1999 @08:24AM (#1643416)
    You'd think after the mandrake fiasco people'd learn to wait for official announcements.
    I know that it's where were were told it was, but it's possible Red Hat are waiting for a reason.
    News sources vying for market share may have a reason for being first with every story, but you'd think slashdot'd be above that sort of thing.
    Any attempts to log onto ftp.redhat.com before typing this are purely hypocracy on my part, but should not invalidate my point.
  • I have to wonder how much Mandrake has influenced Red Hat. I first gave Mandrake a try with version 5.1 because of the ISO image availability and I imagine that much of Mandrake's initial success was built on the ease of acquisition.

    It appears that the student is teaching the master.

  • this has gotta slow down.. i think there should be some "service packs" and not new version #'s for minor upgrades and such..

    Not really. I mean this *is* a .1 release. nothing major. Basically this is just a "service pack" release, or as our arch enemy at Redmond calls it, the "Second Edition".

    i would have hoped redhat 6.1 would have waited until Xfree86 4 or something a lil more worth the version # change would have come out..

    Yes, but Linux 2.4 and Xfree86 4 are pretty radical changes. Don't you think that should get a version 7 number? That won't be for a few months yet anyways. Certainly way to long to wait to upgrade something that was released even longer ago.

    -Brent
    --

  • Re:broken redhat (Score:3)

    by guacamole ( 24270 ) on Saturday October 02, 1999 @11:45AM (#1643432)
    I see that many people suggest rpmfind. So let me point out the differences (and inferiority of the rpmfind aproach) 1) Debian's dselect and apt not just download the package that you need, they also solve the dependencies and conflicts automatically (apt-get) or interactively (dselect) and download or remove the packages that depend or conflict. 2) apt-get and dselect do not just download packages, they also install them. 3) This is the biggest difference. Debian package management was designed with network installs/updates/upgrades in mind. If a program is a free program (GPL, BSD, etc) then it is most likely a part of the OFFICIAL main Debian distribution. This means that you don't have to look in various places for packages, everything is in one place. Second, the packages are usually of higher quality, since they are a part of distribution and they MUST meet all the guidelines of the distribution. If a package is buggy, the distribution will not release until it is fixed (or removed from main tree if it is too late)
  • Really nice guys, those RedHat people, huh? If they can't ripoff the end users, they'll get the businesses instead. I think maybe I'll just switch back to an all-AIX environment. At least AIX doesn't come out with bugfixes daily then say 'oh, screw you. Here's a new version you have to buy.' They can sit on a version, release bugfixes, and integrate them into the next version, a year or two down the road.

    Pfah. RedHat. It's sad to see what Linux has become.

    Redhat is NOT Linux!

    There are many GNU/Linux distributions Redhat is only one of the many, don't like thier attitude then use one of the others. Anyone can make a GNU/Linux distribution and not all are going to be wonderful. so what? there are plenty of others that are great distributions.

    If you want to abandon GNU/Linux thats your choice, but don't abandon it just because of one distribution/distributer is not to your liking.

    Ethan
  • Wow.. looks nice.. i'm going to burn my copy of the iso and see these for myself now. :)
  • ISO image as their names imply are universal :-)
    i already burned iso of debian from a mac and it worked very well! :)

    ---
  • Redhat offers the - Red Hat Member More program.

    http://store.redhat.com/commerce/store.cgi?page= /more_rh_rhmembermore.html

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    15% Discount on all Red Hat, Inc. retail products* during
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    Additional "members only" specials reserved only for
    RHMember More program members.
  • Actually you are incorrect. Go to http://www.rpmfind.net or ftp://ftp.rpmfind.net . They have nearly every rpm created with numerouos versions.

  • Re:how to burn an ISO image on a CD from NT? (Score:3)

    by kovi ( 52074 ) on Saturday October 02, 1999 @08:53AM (#1643553)
    Well, I guess this is wrong place to ask such a question... but what'a hell.
    Moderators, please kill me, cause this is completely off topic.
    First, I have no fintest idea about the software to write CD on WinDos. Never seen/used any.
    Therefore I'd suggest to go for cdrecord. Nice UNIX command line tool recently ported to NT (alpha stage, but quite stable :-)

    Find it at:
    ftp://ftp.fokus.gmd.de/pub/unix/cdrecord/alpha/w in32/

    Then get your iso image and just type:

    cdrecord dev=3,0 -v speed=2 -dao iso_image_name.iso

    dev is SCSI number of your CD writer, dao means disk at once, speed means speed. Ah, if you CD writer is IDE, then I don't know. Best woud be to sell it and buy SCSI :-)

    Good luck :-)
    kovi

    PS Sorry for style/typos I had too much beer

  • Redhat 6.1 - its worth it, but hold off please (Score:5)

    by barlowg ( 5396 ) on Saturday October 02, 1999 @08:54AM (#1643560) Homepage
    As opposed to those who believe that Redhat should have waited for Linux 2.4 or XFree 4, I don't realistically believe that either of those will be available for some time. One of the major advantages of Redhat is that they follow a regular release schedule for the most part. (Twice a year)

    As for this release just being an update, that if for the most part true. The main focus of this release was the introduction of the graphical installer. This is and excellent installer, easier than previous Redhat installs and far easier than other Linux distros and Windows installers. (My roommate did extensive testing of it in lorax) Kudos to Matt Wilson for his excellent work.

    As for the announcement of this on /. before it was officially released by Redhat, I think a huge mistake was made. /. often warns that downloads may be rocky for awhile when it reports on a new distro release or a new kernel, but part of the reason that this is true is that the mirrors don't have time to get it before /. users start pounding it. I think many of us dislike the "first post" mentality that clouds useful discussion on /. and we should be fed up with /. following the same model for news when doing so is inappropriate.
    --
    Gregory J. Barlow
    fight bloat. use blackbox [themes.org].

  • What are you talking about? (Score:3)

    by Cardinal ( 311 ) on Saturday October 02, 1999 @08:56AM (#1643563)
    What are you talking about? RedHat isn't fragmenting anything by releasing a new version of their distro.

    People shouldn't be getting "6.0" training, I'm not even sure they should be getting RedHat training. I would suggest teaching on two levels:
    • Administrators: Learn the core system of Linux, a typical layout of files, runlevels, daemons, etc. Then learn how some distros organize those files differently. I administer a company with Debian and RedHat systems, I know this works.
    • End users: End users don't care what distro they're using. Seriously. They barely care if they're using Gnome or KDE, but that's what they should be taught, because the theory is that's all they'll need. Gnome apps, KDE apps.
    Errata is released almost constantly as bugs of a sufficent severity are found. But that doesn't help people who buy RH on CD and don't have the bandwidth to be downloading big binary patches like the updated X packages.

    I would tend to agree that jumping to 7 over a window manager and kernel would be silly, but nobody's doing that. :) I would even go so far as to say jumping to 7 when XFree86 4 and Linux 2.4 comes out is a bit of a stretch. For example, when RedHat went to 6, it switched to glibc2.1, a newer X, and Linux 2.2. This is a pretty big deal. But I bet 7 will come about when we see XFree86 4, Linux 2.4, and either (or both) Gnome 1.0.50 (or 2.0) or KDE2.
  • All I can find is broad-overview sorts of what's new lists. I want something detailed.

    --

  • FreeBSD (Score:2)

    by drwiii ( 434 )
    This is a bit off topic, but Walnut Creek CDROM [cdrom.com] just started shipping FreeBSD 3.3 [cdrom.com] CD sets yesterday. If you enjoy open computing, and want to expand your horizons while supporting a wonderful project, it may be worth your while to pick up an official copy of FreeBSD along with that shiny new Red Hat 6.1. (:

    --

  • Hi,

    Check out http://www.rpmfind.net/ for a nice rpm repository.

    They have a web index, but the easiest way to use the database is with the 'rpmfind' command. For more info on that go to http://rufus.w3.org/linux/rpm2html/rpmfind.html It has some nice options, including downloading dependencies for rpms, checking for upgrades, etc.

    Emre |=)

  • Red Hat Versions & Updates (Score:5)

    by Can ( 21457 ) on Saturday October 02, 1999 @09:06AM (#1643584)
    I really wish Red Hat would open up their development process a bit. Or, at least tell us some of their plans. I realize they don't like to pre-announce features and be accused of vaporware, but it would be nice to know what their thinking is in terms of when packages get updated and when they don't. Or when/why major version numbers increase.

    I also know Red Hat is trying to strattle the line between stability for servers and functionality for users, so maybe it's time for two development tracks? One that has a smaller, with a core set of sever-type packages and an server-centric installer. This distribution would get the current treatment of quarterly, well tested updates, and emergency security patches.

    But then there should also be a second distribution that is more of a "rolling release" system that maybe gets a bi-weekly set of updates. I think this second distribution is needed to keep up with the active development in the area of user applications.

    Both packages would have a lot of overlap, in fact the RPMS should generally usable on either distribution. But for example, we don't need GIMP and the latest version of XBill on servers, but it might be nice to have newer version of GNOME for the desktop distribution since there is such a big difference in the software in four months.

    I realize this may not be the ideal way of doing things, but we need to keep two things in mind:

    1) Linux is still under heavy development on the client end. In one month, Linux has gnoe from completely unusable on my brand new laptop to almost fully functional thanks to new releases of software. We need this kind of functinoality in the biggest distribution.

    2) Microsoft has shown what kind of a mess you can get into when you try to maintain everything from the consumer-level system all the way up to the highets end server-level systems all in one bundle. You get a compromise that doesn't work well for either.

    So, at least for another couple years while Linux is in such constant development, wouldn't it make sense to treat Linux distributions a bit differently?

  • Re:Redhat 6.1 - its worth it, but hold off please (Score:3)

    by bjk4 ( 885 ) on Saturday October 02, 1999 @09:07AM (#1643590) Homepage
    Official mirrors *do* have time to get a copy ahead of everybody else. As I understand it, there is a private server that mirrors can copy from. They get their copy a few days ahead of schedule, and should they abide by the rules, they do not open the directory until the official announcement.

    -Ben
  • If you've actually used Red Hat, or Linux for that matter, I wouldn't expect you to make comments like "suckers who got 6.0 training need 6.1 training" - that's just not the way it works. If you know how to use Red Hat 5.1, you can probably do just fine with 6.1. Linux changes every day. Red Hat rolls up those changes every 6 months or so, with their new features as well.

    And of course, anyone trained on 6.0 who thinks 6.1 will be confusing (!) well - they can just keep running 6.0. :-)
  • Gnome 1.0.50 (which is a major-effort coordinated release) is *almost* ready to go - so I'm surprised that they didn't wait a week or so for that. Ah well. Easy enough to upgrade. Or maybe it's already in there?
  • Redhat 6.1 has an upgrade option. I tested it in the beta of 6.1 on my home pc, and it worked great. It checks the rpm install log, and then just Upgrades everything that you had installed. Not everything will need to be reconfigured, some things might but not everything. Make sure you are not using a USB Keyboard of Mouse, or the cool installer will not start.
  • I still disagree.. This is leading to market fragmentation. 6.0 is still *FULL* on the shelves at *EVERY* store i see that carries it. Dell, Compaq and other Vendors now have to do a costly revamp to install 6.1 on machines unless they don't plan on upgrading and then whats the point of following redhat if you don't use the latest.

    I firmly believe that this should have been a PRE-RELEASE for 7.0. I believe Beta Xfree86 4.0 should have been included, i believe the beta kernel should have been included, and beta of whatever gnome or kde it wants to use in the 7.0 release should have been included. This would create a market presence.. everyone would be able to toy around with the latest and greatest, vendors wouldn't have to revamp, but would have a roadmap of whats coming..

    beta's aren't simply to test, but are also for market acceptance, revamp of installation methods and procedures, sales training, literature planning, advertising and marketing.

    ALso, putting out a huge maybe even kludgy beta release would offer the *FIRST* production os to work out the compatibility bugs.. bugs could be killed alot quicker if the applications were interopable and interlaced from the get go.. that way the whole system as a whole gets upgraded, bugs get squashed and the system develops as a piece to function together..

    This *IS* market fragmentation.. and NOT what we need. IS groups run stable systems, IS groups will upgrade workstations for the latest and greatest, but never a rollout on such a short product cycle would happen in any instituin of a good size..

    I run a companies oracle financials package on oracle and hpux, i am responsible for 200+ workstations that monitor assembly, marketing, inventory and process control. no way in HELL i could implement redhat on these systems with such a short market life. 2 years is what any company expects as MINIMUL life in market, 3 years is the ultimate goal. 6 months is a sham..

    again, these are my beliefs.. no reason to flame, but just what i feel. so don't reply with "then don't say anything or don't buy it" because this does'nt explicitly relate to redhat, but the linux market in general.

  • No, RedHat 6.1 is _not_ an unstable release!!! RedHat does not use the kernel version numbering system for it's distro. Some non-kernel space does use even/odd, but not all of it, and certainly no distros that I am aware of!
  • Not every project follows the Linux kernel convention of making odd-numbered releases devel and even-numbered ones stable. Red Hat doesn't. (Although historically their .1 releases haven't been the most stable, it wasn't on purpose.)

    --

  • I love the fact that Linux is constantly being improved and new releases coming out, but I worry that the early announcement of Mandreake 6.1, and now RedHat 6.1, could hurt the community. Or, rather, the world's perception of the community.

    Things like this could very well foster the idea in the media and the "mainstream users" that Linux users are greedy, immature, impatient, I-want-it-all-screw-you-hippie-gimme-what's-mine-a nd-it's-mine-because-it's GPL'd-right-now people. Yes, the stuff's on a public FTP server. But it has yet to be announced as officially released.

    If RedHat felt that the time was right to tell the world, they'd tell the the world. But announcing the release before the mirrors are ready, and before RedHat is ready (if they were ready, they'd make the announcement themselves) is bordering on irresponsible, IMHO. The whole thing isn't even posted yet, just the i386 binaries!
  • Yes, but its generally not a good idea to take a brand new release, especially something that has the potential of being buggy like GNOME, and just throwing it into the release. Redhat spends time testing any major new released add to their distro. Plus they would generally want to tune thier distro to work with GNOME, not to mention tuning a specific desktop for thier users. But, if what you want is GNOME and X 2.4 just simply thrown in their, wait till they are released and throw them into redhat 6.x yourself. But unless you really know what your doing, you will have an interesting time trying to customize.

  • RedHat probably did something wrong wrt mirrors (Score:5)

    by Yenya ( 12004 ) on Saturday October 02, 1999 @09:25AM (#1643619) Homepage Journal
    I am a maintainer of ftp.fi.muni.cz [fi.muni.cz] (aka ftp.linux.cz [linux.cz]), which is one of the official mirrors of RedHat Linux. On the RedHat mirror-list they asked us (mirror maintainers) to mirror the 6.1 release, but to not make it available until Monday 4pm UTC.

    But: They left their FTP servers open for public downloads of the RH6.1, which does not make sense for me (they have a separate host rh-mirror.redhat.com for mirrors downloading).

    Does anybody have an explanation for this?

    -Yenya

  • They should start selling update cd's.
    Sounds like you have a good business idea. Go get some venture capital money and post your URL. Just make sure I get a cut for the idea.

    LSL [lsl.com] updates their GPL RedHat CD [lsl.com] constantly. From their web site:

    Many times after an official distribution is released, bugs are found and updates are posted to the distributor's ftp site. The GNU General Public License allows us obtain the software and it's updates from a distribution site and creating a CD ROM with the site's contents. This ensures that you have the latest material and updates for the product and have a more recent version than the official distribution.
    -Brent
    --
  • RedHat doesn't use the even/odd convention. Mainly, because that would be very confusing in a retail environment (no distribution uses this method AFAIK).

    5.9 prior to RedHat 6.0 was Starbuck and the beta for 6.0. 6.0 is Hedwig. Lorax is 6.0.50 and 6.0.55 and is the beta for 6.1. 6.1 is an actual stable release (no, I'm not saying what it is :) There will probably be another public beta in 5 months or so that will be 6.1.X, and it will be followed by 6.2 (which consequently should be out in 6 months +/- a few weeks).

    --
    Jeremy Katz
  • Well, yea they have got a few more million in their pockets, not to mention the fact that 6.1 being an odd number probably means its an experimental release. (BTW, now that linux is gaining popularity.. do we need to start teaching the PLBs about odd/even releases, if we don't we'll have problem on our hand we the boss starts telling us to upgrade to such and such x.3 or whatever.) Anyways yes, I would hope 6.2 would come out soon, just like 6.0 came out shortly after 5.9 (which was really not 5.9 and geez I've already forgotten the name) Personally I thought that lorax was 6.1 and 6.2 would be the next release.. guess I was wrong.. btw.. whats the name on this release... is it still lorax?

  • My Take on 6.1 from Beta Testing->Release (Score:5)

    by Unknwn ( 646 ) on Saturday October 02, 1999 @09:33AM (#1643639) Homepage
    I've been beating pretty hard on the 6.1 beta (lorax) since it's release.

    To say that at first there weren't any bugs would be a lie of course, but I've seen _great_ leaps ahead over the course of it. At the beginning, it took some work to get it to work.

    But, through lots of beta testing, and lots of late night hacking by Matt Wilson, it's now to the point that it's the easiest installer I've seen. Much easier than Caldera's graphical, in large part, because it gives you a lot more freedom in the install. The GUI install works for CDROM installs, NFS installs, and (untested, but should work I believe) hard drive installs. If the GUI installer doesn't work for you (or you don't want it even), never fear. There's still a text-based installer for low-ram machines, and ftp or http installs.

    Other nice neat things in 6.1 (for those wondering)
    - kudzu: kudzu does hardware detection and will start the appropriate configuration tool. Very neat
    - an interactive startup option (disable-able) ala choose what you want to start during startup for Windows 9x and DOS; so for when you screw up your sendmail config, you can still start without taking ages :)
    - up2date: service to give access to a priority server upon registration and then will give you the new rpms in updates and give you the opportunity to install them, just download them, few other options
    - fsck has a progress bar :)
    - rp3: an easy-to-use ppp configuration tool. I haven't actually completely tested this one being on ethernet and all, but it appeared to work
    - XFree 3.3.5, 2.2.12, GNOME 1.0.40 stuff (newest when it mastered...), KDE 1.1.2, glibc 2.1.2

    Think that's most of the good interesting stuff. As I said, it's shaping up to be _really_ solid from what I can tell.



    --
    Jeremy Katz

  • Re:broken redhat (Score:3)

    by Aaron ( 1233 ) on Saturday October 02, 1999 @09:33AM (#1643641) Homepage
    re rpm:
    RPM uses -i for install, -U for upgrade, and -F for freshen. Have a bunch of RPMS, and you just want to install the updates for what you already have? Freshen them (rpm -Fvh *). Unfortunately, I have seen this break down, especially with kernel rpms. As for the central depository, anything that comes out of redhat proper doesnt depend on anything not in the distribution. 3rd party RPMS are different, but I have never had a problem finding requirements at freshmeat.

    re: flakiness.
    6.x (i am currently using rawhide), gnome issues aside is quite stable for me, and is current as far as i know. And actually, even gnome is decently stable now.

    I like redhat myself, but I havent tried debian yet. One of these days, when I have an extra machine to play with, i might.

  • How is that fragmentation?

    I've been upgrading my (not RedHat) system at home ever since I first got it up and going with packages from rpmfind, or tarballs, or whatever. There are web sites out there with uptimes of months and even years who don't feel the need to upgrade with every distribution's minor release.

    The whole GNU/Linux system doesn't magically update everything in one big chunk just once or twice a year. You might be thinking of the *BSDs, which are much more monolithic in only that regard.

    If you're arguing that beta testing releases leads to market fragmentation, then I could understand how Windows might have a monopoly (since Microsoft's beta testing seems to be less powerful than that of many free software projects).

    On the other hand, your statement that beta tests are for marketing purposes leads me to believe that your definition of beta is much different from mine.

    GNU/Linux is a system in a state of refinement, not rapid evolution. Yes, that's a generalization, and yes, RedHat has a history of pushing the envelope. For the most part, though, what you see on a distributed CD is not the sort of thing that Microsoft or Bethesda or Take 2 will charge you money for -- a first look at spaghetti debugging code. Since the difference between minor versions is small, a decent upgrade utility will take care of the big needs.

    Perhaps you've noticed that RedHat still provides upgrades and bug fixes for versions 5.x and older?

    --
    QDMerge [rmci.net] 0.21!

  • Re:Red Hat Versions & Updates (Score:3)

    by barlowg ( 5396 ) on Saturday October 02, 1999 @09:34AM (#1643643) Homepage
    Redhat did have an open beta, it was called lorax. I believe it was announced on /. Lorax included the graphical installer and featured two releases for testing. There was also a mailing list for discussion of bugs and things that needed to be added or chnaged. If this is not open development, I don't know what is.

    Secondly, your wish for a parallel distro with the newest of everything has been around for quite awhile. It is called rawhide, and it is the current status of Redhat's development. If all you want are updates, Redhat has those too, and they come out pretty frequently. Though the boxed sets may not offer the stuff that came out last week, the updates do. In 6.1, getting updates is even easier. Seems they have a nifty gui update tool, and if you buy a boxed set and register, you get access to a separate (and probably faster) ftp site for updates.
    --
    Gregory J. Barlow
    fight bloat. use blackbox [themes.org].

  • It would have been more polite to wait for the
    answer on the mirror list.

    This was a goof on redhat's part... they were
    going to keep it restricted until Monday.

    Anyway this is a much better state of affairs
    than the 6.0 release, which leaked from a few
    mirrors before it was available on redhat and
    before other mirrors had a chance to get it.

    Our mirror completed around midnight. I'm not
    eager to hose our bandwidth quite yet, so I'm
    keeping it private til Monday.
  • Two RedHat execs told me last week in a formal meeting (lots of witnesses in the room) that 6.1 was going to be launched 18 Oct, to coincide with the launch of their 24 x 7 international support offering.

    They weren't very happy when we mentioned that we also use some Mandrake. They went off on a very stern sermon about how Mandrake were freeloading on RH's hard work on the RedHat brand. Then they told us how we were best to stick with them, since they retained "a 70% market share", whatever that means. Not a very Open Source way to market to a corporate customer that's only interested in Linux because it's Open Source. They looked like a couple of Oracle salesmen, who'd been given a few weeks of Linux training in RTP. I think we're going to take a good, hard look at Debian soon.

    --
    JF
  • Every time RHAT drops to 70% of its highest value they announce a release. On 8/23 they were at 63 after an opening week high of 89 and they announced a beta. That got them to 123. Now they're at 87 and sure enough, they announced a release although not an official release for a bit yet. I predict their stock will have another peak and drop back to 70% at which time an official release is announced. Red Hat is very into pushing software releases according to market value and using high version numbers to instill confidence. They rarely get on portals unless they bump up the version numbers and bump up the version numbers they do, with a vengence.
  • Debian mirrors are maintained with rsync. I do agree than adding an `rsync' method to APT would be a good idea.

    Cheers,

    J. Rodd

  • I'm sticking with Mandrake, you fscking lusers! Er..

    Joke!

    One good thing does arise from all of the bitching, whining, first posting, and other offtopic idiocies.. These morons make it quite clear who is and is not worth listening to, as they all lump themselves quite neatly into.. that's right.. the latter.

    I want some filters that make it to where I can't read posts from certain users. Blocking out articles isn't very exciting. Filtering out those with very, very low signal/noise ratios would be a Good Thing, especially since more and more people who you'd think would stick to AC trolling are actually getting accounts. At least those without accounts are easily filtered (and yeah, hard thresholds of 1 are highly recommended.. every once in a while I look to see what the ACs have to say about my comments.. talk about unfounded, uncreative, unintelligent deragotory flames that could only be unleashed from the mind of an impotent psychopath with so low self-esteem as to validate the notion of pressing various baseless insults, biggotry, and other "high-minded" prejudices upon a person solely for the purpose of cracking their self-confidence and/or ego.. it's kind of sad, really, especially because these "brave" souls can't even log in to say those kinds of things.. they have to snipe from the sidelines like good little cowards.. ;).

  • The update agent does require registration (and is one of the perks of buying the boxed set from what I understand). It basically allows you to have "guaranteed" bandwidth for updating without relying on ftp.redhat.com, which does get very bogged down. I still need to check if it has to update itself off of the priority.redhat.com servers or if I can get it to get information from other ftp servers (aka my local mirror...)

    --
    Jeremy Katz

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