The MAIN "RedHat Discontinuing RedHat Linux" Thread (Please Post Here)

[beley]

I just got an email stating that RH network support for RH 8 ends December 31, and RH 9 support ends April 31, 2004. They are discontinuing the RedHat Linux line of products completely, there won't be any more releases.

The new product? RedHat Enterprise Linux... and you can't get it for free. You can't download it or find it online anywhere. What does this mean to the millions of people who use RedHat? Is free Linux over?

Opinions? I think I'm going to have to find a new OS to use...

[fredg]

This isn't new news, but you do seem to be getting it rather late for some reason.

Where the free version of Red Hat is going is to Fedora. You can visit the project page here:

http://fedora.redhat.com

[beley]

Yeah, don't know why I just got the info. I did follow a link from the email and saw the information about the Fedora project. I wonder if that will be stable enough to upgrade our web servers to... we really can't afford a RedHat Enterprise Linux solution, as they cost about the same as Windows Server 2003 and more in some cases.

[CaptainPinko]

red hat spun its free version of red hat linux into fedora linux which is exactly the same as RedHat Linux 10 would have been... same bs about mp3 support and everything. so no need to panic, it just a name change. Enterprise software is called RedHat Linux and will feature older more proven and patched packages and Fedora will feature cutting-edges packages and no support... but with apt-get rpm built-in up2date is replaced (more orless) with "apt-get distro-upgrade" (or something, check the man page). Fedora's initial release was SUPPOSED to be today. the development is sponsored by redhat redhat ppl are involved and the site is even hosted by then. hold onto to your hat because there is no big deal here-- ignoring the zealots of course (but thats good policy any day).

http://justlinux.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=656171#post656171

[MaxWave]

I just received an email for my RedHat Network account. This is the most shocking sentence there.

"Red Hat does not plan to release
another product in the Red Hat Linux line."

More info here:
http://www.newsforge.com/software/03/11/03/1657205.shtml

What am I going to do!?

Ok, let me calm down. Here is my problem. I love RHN. I love being able to download an rpm by simply typing /usr/sbin/up2date rpmpackagename. I love seeing up2date find dependencies and downloading them for me. But what do I do now?

Is apt-get the answer? Are their other solutions out there?

[moojuece]

it will still be there AFAIK just going under the name Fedora Project.....

[fredg]

apt has worked for me just fine. But that isn't the real answer since Red Hat has announced end of life on their free distributions. And those dates have been published for a long time - this really isn't news.

The problem is who, if anyone, will be maintaining the old Red Hat packages? Unless someone steps forward, then apt, yum, up2date, etc. are all dead for all Red Hat thru 9.

If you want to stick with genuine supported Red Hat, you'll have to buy into Red Hat Enterpise Linux. Not cheap.

The other alternative, if you want to stick with something free that will be as Red Hatish as it can be, is to look at Fedora. Red Hat is a major sponser of that project.

[Hayl]

what are they doing for people who bought subscriptions to RHN that are not expired yet?

[MaxWave]

From: https://rhn.redhat.com/help/rhlmigrationfaq/

3) What happens to my paid RHN subscription if it expires after April 30, 2004, (the end-of-life date for Red Hat Linux 9)?

Customers whose paid RHN subscription expires after April 30 will receive a complimentary evaluation ISO and channel access for Red Hat Enterprise Linux WS for the remainder of their subscription. These customers also have the opportunity to take advantage of the 50% discount currently available on migrations to Red Hat Enterprise Linux ES or WS.

[Hayl]

ah, that isn't too bad then.

[MaxWave]

OK so here is the deal. I am afraid that the RPM packages for RedHat will go by the wayside. I feel that I should do the following:

Install another distro: (I.E. Debian?)
Start using "apt-get -u upgrade" on a regular basis

My current system is a web server that i use to host some frinds' sites and i play with PHP alot. LAMP is all compiled from source, but I depend on RHN to keep me up to date with security upgrades. Do u think this is a stupid move and being paranoid?

[Hayl]

not really paranoid... if they are making drastic changes then you should consider all your options and act accordingly (whatever works for you).

[je_fro]

There are enough folks around to keep on top of security issues. You can always compile from source, or switch...no big deal....

[ricstr]

OK so here is the deal. I am afraid that the RPM packages for RedHat will go by the wayside. I feel that I should do the following:Best thing to do in my opinion is change to another distro, then that way you can be sure that Red Hat cant let you down.

Mabey have a look at SuSE or JAMD I think they are very Red Hat like.

[fredg]

Originally posted by MaxWave
OK so here is the deal. I am afraid that the RPM packages for RedHat will go by the wayside.

Yes, probably according to the published schedule, but you never know. They could run out a bit further depending on how fast Fedora matures.

As to Fedora, I haven't looked at it yet, but I wouldn't dismiss it out of hand until you have at least looked it over yourself, or followed its mailing lists and forums to see how good or bad a replacement for freebie Red Hat it becomes. That is, if you are considering a distro switch, why not look at Fedora? At least the learning curve will be less steep.

As for discontinued Red Hat, the future lack of official supplied by Red Hat Errata RPMs might not be as bad as it sounds. If there is a security or bug fix needed for a package, then you can always get the updated source code and take a shot at building your own RPM using something like CheckInstall. You will have to follow bugtaq yourself though, since phasing out freebie Red Hat support will also mean no longer reporting bugs and security problems for it.

And you can always watch the Red Hat Errata pages for Enterprise Linux for clues. Any discovered problems with those packages will almost sertainly apply to older releases as well. You might even get lucky and be able to rebuild Enterprise Linux SRPMs on your older, soon to be unsupported Red Hat box.

I'm not going to panic and rush off into something completely new and different. I still have at least two months of guaranteed forthcoming support from Red Hat for all my 7.3 and 8.0 machines. That should be plenty of time to wring out a Fedora box and decide if it will fly.

[l01yuk]

It will just be new RH-only non-GPL code that people will be paying for, as well as longer test cycles. I expect RH will use Fedora as a test platform and to work the bugs from most of the code they then include in their corporate range, much in the same way as the Debian testing and stable versions.

[jblaha]

Hello All:

It's going to be an interesting upcoming couple of months for RH! They don’t realize people don’t like big changes. Never mind not many people read about the upcoming tech stuff their all too busy keeping up with today.

So what's the consensus for the Joe Linux USER, migrate to Fedora?

Regards,
James Blaha

[Brink]

and that's another thing that I've been wondering about, how can Redhat charge for linux? Do they add their own programs to it? They can't charge for any "optimizations" they make right?

[zizonus]

So what does this closing of RedHat support for products other than Enterprise mean in practical terms for someone using one of the RedHat Linux distros?

I'm running RedHat 7.3 and have been recently updating it ...

will I be able to keep it current with apt or up2date in the future?

Will I have to get an entirely new disto?

I hope not, as I've put some work into getting this one up and running ...

[CaptainPinko]

Originally posted by jblaha
migrate to Fedora?

i wouldn't call it migration, i'd just say that they are changing the name and logo


---


real question is will redhat continue to improve all those handy gui configuration tools for fedora or are they limited to their enterprise editions? i guess this is kinda our fault by not buying the boxsets...i at least gone mine from a book... i hope some of that went to red hat

[CaptainPinko]

http://justlinux.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=115744

[fredg]

Unless Red Hat extends 7.3 support out beyond their stated EOL date, then that's it. There won't be any eratta packages available from Red Hat for you to get with up2date, yum, or apt.

There is some hope though, but nothing concrete yet. Some of the users on the Fedora list are discussing continuing with support for Red Hat 7.3 and 9 via backported patches and then updated RPMs. See:

http://www.fedora.us/wiki/FedoraLegacy

[desmatic]

Horrrrrrrray!!! No more fricken Red Hat. Now I won't have to keep explaining why I don't use it anymore. Red Hat has just given the entire IT world a great reason to look elsewhere.

But out of curiosity, what are they going to do about mirrors. I mean, really, who the hell would want to donate the bandwidth for their bottom line. And now that I think about it, why would any linux dev even bother with a Red Hat product henceforth. There's nothing in it for them, except for maybe a usage fee for the software they've written!!

[ChaseMod]

OK, When I dove head first into linux, I depended on this site. After I grew a bit, I was sent out into the world to help aid and assist. I believed so much in the cause that I became hevily invested in the company ( and business has been good to me, I must say...). Now, I am a little confused. With Red Hat going corporate, I see profit margins improving as they cut expense. The geek in me sees them pushing us out, the very people who made them, and let's be honest, the sales team at work when every one else wanted windows. By alienating the geeks, the geeks stop pushing it, the less money... damn. Does anyone have a good grip on the future here ? (ha). Not so much from a investors standpoint, but from more of a Christopher Columbus point of view... We all left popular England together while everyone laughed. We smiled as we did well on our own, and now, it looks like the boss just sold the land out from under us. Who really wants to go back to England anyway, I don't. It almost feels homeless.

[phil_r]

I might be way behind in the news here, but just read about this...

The Register (http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/4/33760.html)

So no Red Hat 10? Anyone think this has any real implications for Linux as far as home user take up goes? Myself I cut my teeth on Mandrake 9.0 but use Red Hat 9 now with a vanilla 2.4.22 kernel tweaked to my liking.

Mandrake annoyed me with simple things, like apps not going into the KDE menu where they do under RH.

So what are people's thoughts?

Phil.

[goon12]

Here is the email I got yesterday

Dear goon12_,

Thank you for being a Red Hat Network customer.

This e-mail provides you with important information about the upcoming
discontinuation of Red Hat Linux, and resources to assist you with your
migration to another Red Hat solution.

As previously communicated, Red Hat will discontinue maintenance and
errata support for Red Hat Linux 7.1, 7.2, 7.3 and 8.0 as of December
31, 2003. Red Hat will discontinue maintenance and errata support for
Red Hat Linux 9 as of April 30, 2004. Red Hat does not plan to release
another product in the Red Hat Linux line.

With the recent announcement of Red Hat Enterprise Linux v.3, you'll
find migrating to Enterprise Linux appealing. We understand
that transitioning to another Red Hat solution requires careful planning
and implementation. We have created a migration plan for Red Hat Network
customers to help make the transition as simple and seamless as
possible. Details:

****************
If you purchase Red Hat Enterprise Linux WS or ES Basic before February
28, 2004, you will receive 50% off the price for two years. (That's two
years for the price of one.)

****************
In addition, we have created a Red Hat Linux Migration Resource Center
to address your migration planning and other questions, such as:

* What are best practices for implementing the migration to Red Hat
Enterprise Linux?

* Are there other migration alternatives?

* How do I purchase Red Hat Enterprise Linux WS or ES Basic at the price
above?

* What if my paid subscription to RHN extends past April 30, 2004?

****************

Find out more about your migration options with product comparisons,
whitepapers and documentation at the Red Hat Linux Migration Resource
Center:

http://www.redhat.com/solutions/migration/rhl/rhn


Or read the FAQ written especially for Red Hat Network customers:

https://rhn.redhat.com/help/rhlmigrationfaq/

Sincerely,

Red Hat, Inc.


Limit 10 units. Higher volume purchase inquiries should contact a
regional Red Hat sales representative. Contact numbers available at
http://www.redhat.com/solutions/migration/rhl/rhn

--the Red Hat Network Team


That email is the reason I downloaded 2 new distro's ( Debian & Gentoo ). I have been using RedHat for sometime now, and was extremely happy with it. I don't see myself paying for it though, I dunno, that's just me.

-goon12

[fredg]

Yes, this is old news. The only thing new about it is that Red Hat is making it official news to anyone who has been paying them for some form of support - paying RHN subscribers for example.

If you read their blurb fully, they mention Fedora, and provide a link to the Fedora Project site. If you read enough of what's there at Fedora, you'll see that Fedora is going to be what freebie Red Hat was. The whole shebang is fully explained.

So, if you were happy with freebie Red Hat and want to stick with that type of thing, then look at Fedora. They've done at least three test pre-releases, and were supposed to have 1.0 out this week.

If you want real, genuine, supported by Red Hat Red Hat Linux, then you have two choices:

1) Buy a copy of Red Hat Enhanced Linux. Not cheap.

2) It's open source. Download the SRPMs and build it yourself. There is at least one HOWTO out there for this, but it's for the no longer current Enhanced Linux 2.1. Maybe that doc will get updated soon.

[Icarus]

Red Hat is no longer going to produce a "home user distro" and are focusing their efforts on the business front (they have been doing this for years, just was never as vocal about it)

The Red Hat home user distro has been moved over to http://fedora.redhat.com and will be a comunity driven distro that you can say is forked off of Red Hat (migrated from is more accurate)

I don't see anything wrong with this, Fedora 1.0 is what Red Hat 10 was going to be anyway, just a new name (trying to get away from those RedHatX jokes I bet :D)

If you've used Red Hat and liked it, use Fedora...it is the new Red Hat, not to mention not bad either ;)

[lrhogusa]

I heard the rumors quite a while ago and just got the official word today or was it yesterday.

We are using RH7.3 servers and still migrating our workstations from OS/2 Warp to RH8.0 which just came out when we first started migrating. Our OS/2 workstations have been running 24/7 since 1994. We went to Warp in 1999 for that Y2K thing.

We added new peripherals along with the migration so that makes the job even harder.

I'm not going to worry about what RH is up to. That time will come after the migration and bug killing is done.

[bgunn]

Red Hat has said it will not be supporting current versions of Red hat in the future. What about Fedora? Will the fedora community be supporting these older versions of Red Hat? What will happen to all those people running servers on RH7.3/8.0/9?

Ben

[tmcG]

I echo the concerns of other re the seeming lack of support for RH 7.3/8/9. I have just installed RH 8 and recently purchased 9 and now support is very limited!

I will check out fedora though as mahdi suggested but i think it is a blow to the home user....

It may make me do what goo12 did and switch distros:(

[Bowtie]

Yeah, Red Hat is bowing out of the home user market and Suse is getting bought out by Novell. I'm wondering what is next. Kinda pisses me off about Suse. Hope it doesn't go in the crapper after the purchase.

[raz0rblade]

SuSE and Redhat aren't the only distros ;)

That's why Linux is so great, loose one or two, there's still tons to pick from :D

[Gertrude]

I don't think Novel buying up Suse is that bad of a thing. With a company as big as Novel getting into the game, it may make more hardware vendors think more about releasing drivers for Linux. I think drivers are one of the biggest pains currently. There is nothing like looking at the latest hardware, and realizing that if you were to use it on Linux you could only use half the features that are available on it.

[Brownstixzz]

I've been beta testing Fedora for the last 3 tests. It's actually not all that bad. I really like the feel of it and look. It had some kinks that has been worked out at each release.
There seems to be more control from the community which has made a difference from the previous releases of Redhat (Go Figure).
Redhats strategy makes sense but it makes it really hard for typical joe moe to obtain Fedora when all he has is a dial up connection in rural so-so land. I realize that people on the .com online vendors will have disks avaliable. But you have to know about them to begin with.
We really need more media penetration.
I really do not agree with Matthew Szulik recently stating that "Windows will remain the right platform for home users, at least until Linux has had more time to mature".
That damn guy said exactly one year ago that Linux is ready for the desktop. We have such and such software now and we are ready to take on Sun and then Microsoft.
I sat there and listened to him on Cnet for 15 minutes about it on a interview. I wish I still had it!
Now he's telling us to stick with Microsoft.
He needs to take that money from Microsoft out of his a$$.
I do not know about you folks but I'm sick and tired of hearing about "Linux is not ready for the desktop". It is! We just need a little more vendor driver support for there products and nothing can stop us.

The whole Novell/SuSe/IBM deal. I think will be something very interesting to develop and mold. I think this is one deal that will not be sour. They are claiming support from the Desktop to the enterprise. Which is good! Not everybody knows where to turn for help when they start out on Linux right away. I remember my days starting out back in 2000. I was lost for some time.

Anyways, Enough of my ranting and raving.


JD

[andycrofts]

I was thinking this morning about this Red Hat move. Good and bad.
One thing I guess we'll be seeing a lot less of is the "Powered by Red Hat" logo, as a lot of us (broke, shoestring types) run our servers on RH. Some of these sites provide a lot of interest, get a lot of hits. Nice, free advertising.

Second, I pretty well cut my teeth on RH. I like Bluetooth (even tho' on one of my machines I've gone Ximian Desktop - which I'm not so fond of). I like the way it's organised, and I know my way around /etc, etcetera..
Because of this, I'd expect people in IT positions (which I'm not) who also started with RH in college, or at least at the pre-proper-job phase would prefer to continue with it. In that I think it's bad.
Good for Red Hat keeping it well focussed on the enterprise, however.

I'd have been happier with them if they'd even released a 'home server' edition, with Apache/SQL/PHP/Postfix etc...and supported it. Wouldn't need much. That'd get them out of one of the biggest headaches, supporting myriads of hardware variants.

Now, as a lot of the Enterprise code's GPL, all I need to do is find where Red Hat's put it on their servers, which I think the GPL mandates....

Or will we have another SCO fiasco?

My "kaks' senttia".

[chatins]

As a current RHN subscriber, it seems like Redhat is making a calculated move. My $60 a year was not enough to keep the kernels and eratta coming for RHL. All new updates are scheduled to end April 30 2004.

Redhat has bribed current subscribers with fantastic deals on enterprise products. I for one am going to load up before the February 28, 2004 deadline for work related projects. I will use fedora on my own desktop, come February.

I see the same beta ISO for severn (redhat 10) is also on the fedora site, although somewhat harder to download due to restrictions on the number of users.

Good news is up2date is now going to be free. Given a choice, most users would like to see kernel and eratta updates automatically for free.

[bagi011]

So, for the Red Hat 8.0 server home user, is moving to Fedora the same as moving to any other distro?? Or is there going to be some sort of migration path? Is rawhide the same as up2date?

Seems to me like Fedora is going to have all the latest and greatest bleeding edge technology, which would be fun to run at home :cool:

[Bowtie]

I know there are hundreds of distros of linux available. It's just the fact that once I started using Suse 7.1 I was hooked. I've tried Slackware, I'm not quite versed enough to use it yet. Redhat, I use it from time to time for experimentation. Gentoo, forget it; if I want to dedicate a computer for a month for compiling that distro, then I'll consider it. Debian, damned distro never likes my hardware. Mandrake, used on my laptop since it was the only one that I could get cofigured for the LG lcd. Results vary for different people and different distros. I simply like Suse because it works with little hassle and I've got some serious seat time in with it. Perhaps the Novell/Suse thing could be good. Don't know yet. Makes you wonder if the United Linux project is dead. I guess it would be a shot in the arm for linux in general to have such backing. Time will tell.

[fredg]

Originally posted by bgunn
Red Hat has said it will not be supporting current versions of Red hat in the future. What about Fedora? Will the fedora community be supporting these older versions of Red Hat? What will happen to all those people running servers on RH7.3/8.0/9?

Ben

Maybe, maybe not.

See:

http://www.fedora.us/wiki/FedoraLegacy

[Rickdog]

Redhat basically decided to take a big healthy poop on their home use customers to focus on business clients. I would expect that before long there will be no updated version or support for RH linux period. If this keeps up, linux interest will vaporize and condense back into interest for the new XP product. Major entities have had a knack for doing stupid things throughout history, this is not the first nor will it be the last. Bye, bye Redhat.

[rbrimhall]

Bye Bye Red Hat Hello Fedora...

I think people are missing the point... Fedora is still Red Hat it's just called Fedora... It is free... it will have up2date functionality as well as apt and yum support... I'm really not too concerned about the name change... can't figure out why everyone else is...

[mhacleth]

I myself am using RH9.

Reading posts that says RH=Fedora is quite calming.

For newbies like me, it's quite fuzzy on how to go about shifting to fedora.

But I'm confident that the gurus here will be willing to guide us.

Mhac:D

[CaptainPinko]

Originally posted by mhacleth
I myself am using RH9.

Reading posts that says RH=Fedora is quite calming.

For newbies like me, it's quite fuzzy on how to go about shifting to fedora.

But I'm confident that the gurus here will be willing to guide us.

Mhac:D

most likely there will be a "upgrade installation" option in the installer. worse comes to worse all i can imagine is that you'd have to tar up your /home directory (to save all your settings docs etc), back-it up. do a clean install (the easy part). untar your backed-up /home (thus restoring your settings), then just reinstall your old rpms lying about or just use yum to add whatever not included applications you need.

this should work unless due to version changes of some programs the way your settings ar stored are changed... but thats not likely and if so it'll be for a small minority of apps


the only change i can see is that there will be more releases with bleeding-edge apps (that i would ahve installed manually anyway), i can afford to reboot once a week due to a crashed app i'm not a telco... that is half of the reason for the split (the other being the $$$ mentioned x1208973db098a9cf times already)

[mhacleth]

I wish it were as easy as downloading the RPMs and installing it in my RH9 box.

Once our DSL goes 256, I'll grab that ISO from Fedora and give it a try.

I guess, just linux will be flooded with help cries from newbies like us.

Please bear with us....:p

[aNoob]

few months ago switched to Slackware after 3 years of using RH (7.0,7.1,7.3,8,9).Pissed about 8 & 9 and switched distros.Couldn't be more happier.I love Slack now!

[Bowtie]

The more I read and think about it, maybe it's not such a bad deal after all. Think about it. Red Hat is trying to establish a financial foundation to run off of. Suse has been doing the same thing, somewhat. Once there are actually some funds and financial backing floating around for the developers, things could really get interesting in the linux world. Red Hat really didn't do such a terrible thing. All they did was switch their brand name for the home user. I would imagine that corporate users have at least heard of Red Hat so that was a plus. I guess having an open source project with the same name would make the enterprise world a little stand-offish. So I myself can't really blame Red Hat for trying to forge ahead in the linux world. I just hope they remember all us little guys who helped them get there and that their motivation doesn't turn to greed.

[bagi011]

Here is the review of Fedora Core 1, there is an upgrade for existing RH users, so I'm happy ;) .

Fedora review (http://www.osnews.com/story.php?news_id=5066)

[kingmaximus]

I upgraded from RH9 and running super cool, with automatical updates..................................

[chatins]

I think that's one of the first screenshots I've seen of Fedora, Core 1. Impressive. I like blue curve over aqua but if you want to go with #3...

[syztem_krash]

As most of you has heard, Red Hat as announced that it is going to stop all suppport of Red Hat for the desktop. I have to admit that I was a little saddned by this announcement. Anyone who has ever asked me which distro should I go for, I always tell them to go Red Hat...

I just recently signed up for one of their developer training courses and now starting to think about canceling... I even know a couple of people who had stock in Red Hat and sold within the first couple of hours of Red Hat's announcment....

I started this thread to get your thoughts on Red Hat's move... Let your oppionons be heard....

[Nu-Bee]

You are a few days late:


http://justlinux.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=115731

And, it's even in the right forum....

[aNoob]

Originally posted by bagi011
Here is the review of Fedora Core 1, there is an upgrade for existing RH users, so I'm happy ;) .

Fedora review (http://www.osnews.com/story.php?news_id=5066)


Hmmmm...
I will download it tonight.That doesn't mean i will uninstall my Slack! I will give it a whirl on my laptop. Man,I'm disoriented with so many distro's!
Top ofthe top is that RedHat now reccomends Windows.What a crazy world!

[Icarus]

I upgraded from Red Hat 9 to Fedora Core 1 on my desktop this weekend, very nice. The changes are subtle and good, Gnome 2.4 is a tad faster also (I have a very choaked filesystem so it's easier for me to notice that Nautilus only takes 40 seconds to open my home directory then a minute :))

Also put this on my laptop (Dell 600m) and everything was smooth. Without ACPI in the boot it worked fine, but could not find the battery and other minor bits like 'shutdown -h now' would not power off, but when the lid closed it would completly turn off. Using 'acpi=on' in the boot fixed the battery problem and shutdown, but then the lid doesn't power off...I haven't tried and speedsteping yet, but I hear it needs to be done manually.


Now for the big "UH-OH"
The default kernel was compiled using gcc 3.2.2 and the default gcc install is 3.3.2
You can probally guess the problems with this when trying to compile a new kernel module (nVidida for example)...errors and failures

Most of this can be worked around by doing a "export CC=gcc32" then running the installer

Still can't get the Linuxant driverloader to start, doesn't fully make the module so it doesn't exist to load. I hope this gets fixed/figured out soon, untill then Gentoo works great on the laptop ;)


Once I got the nVidia drivers installed everything worked great, only burned one CD so far but it did not go into 'can't unallocate SCSI device' hell I use to get.

Also, DO NOT USE Drawers!! These are terribly broken! This was pointed out in the test releases but looks to of not been fixed.
When you make a drawer and load it up with launchers, it works perfectly.
Reboot, all the launcher become nothing and the icons merge with the Drawer and stop working. So my Drawer that contained all my quick launch game links, became nothing (Ack!), I had to make another panal to hold these, there was an hour of my Sunday axed (I have a lot of custom links)

Final verdict...Fedora good, wrong GCC compiler bad!

Now...where's Mandrake 9.2 for the non-subscriber? :)

[mhacleth]

First I use Nvidia GeForce 2.
Second I use Linuxant for my modem.

I think I'd better wait for you guys to give it a test run.

Newbies like me feels like we're having a heart attack coming.....:eek:

[randrade]

This is a slap in the face to all linux zealots out there!!! I, and all Windows users, saw it coming!! Were you all really foolish enough to think that the something-for-nothing Linux business model would really last?? You just fooled yourselves. Now that Red Hat pulled the Free Beer sign and #2 Linux player SuSE got bought out by Novell, expect Linux to take a huge nosedive!!

[chatins]

randrade,

This is the best thing that could have happened to Linux!
If you haven't noticed the URL is fedora.redhat.com.

I have the new core 1 up and fine tuned and it is an order of magnatude better than XP. Powerful video, great audio and
scans and prints faster and better than Winblows.

Redhat has done us proud on this one. And free for life too!
I'll think about parasites like randrade when my vexira subscription runs out or catches its first virus.

[bosox79]

I have been running fedora for about a week now and I love it, my system seem's much more responsive then it did with RH 9 Ialso love the fact that fedora is going to be more community driven. I have not had any major issues as of yet. ;) :D

[mhacleth]

Does Fedora Core 1 have built in NTFS support or is it possible to compile the NTFS module?

Mhac;)

[bosox79]

Originally posted by mhacleth
Does Fedora Core 1 have built in NTFS support or is it possible to compile the NTFS module?

Mhac;)

no it does'nt, but you can either recompile your kernel with support or get a precompiled NTFS module (see my sig) :D

[blackhawk714]

I was just wondering what you guys thought about the Fedora project. Should I try it? Well, any thoughts, flames etc? :confused:

[mm-sources]

I was interested in that too...I use gentoo right now but I'm kinda tired of complication and just want simple linux, but when I used Redhat in the beginning it was rather slow....How's it doing on the speed now?

[mrjones]

Well, I switched from another OS <ahem> to RedHat 9, then shortly thereafter Fedora came out. So i figured I would follow the mainStream and get it. Now I am an up and coming linux user, still my knowlege falls short of what this is all about. Id like some feedback on what everyone who uses Fedora thinks about it, how about 3 likes and/or 3 dislikes.

btw my likes/dislikes are compared to a narrow view of distributions :confused:, ive used mandrake, slackware, and redhat, and thats about it....i wish that knoppix would come up id like to try that...
im not trying to start a flame war about better distros than this, i just want to know what people think of Fedora

Me?
Likes:
1) Simple for me to use, great support
2) Infinitely configurable
3) Just plain cool

Dislikes
1) Reminds me of a certain OS, in certain ways like the file manager (sometimes have withdrawls, lol but im getting better)
2) Actually RedHat 10, which isnt really a dislike, but redhat imho had something going
3) I am rather reluctant to mess with the kernel due to possible total system failure and innability (meaning i dont really know how) to fix it

visit my website http://jonesnet.fdns.net/ to see Fedora work as a web server!

[David Anderson]

I'm torn on my feelings about this. Lets all remember that Red Hat is a business and they need to do what's best to make their business sucessful. If that means focusing on enterprise, so be it. Remember Linux itself is primarily a business product, yet we reap many benefits from it.

I'm just upset that Red Hat isn't offering some way for end users to continue to support them. I would mind putting up $179 for the enterprise product, but not each and every year just to continue using it! Couldn't I pay the $179, get the year, and then cancel aftewards? Would I be illegal then? Or would they just not give me any support (which would be fine). I'm guessing to go this route I have to fork out $179/year, which I just can't do.

My big concern here is that I'm working on becoming RHCE certified. So, when studying / preparing for RHCE certification, will Fedora will okay? Will all the Red Hat tools still be there (redhat-config-whatever, etc.)? I wonder how Red Hat is going to handle that with their RHCE training? I imagine that is going to focus on their enterprise ws.

My main reason for even using Red Hat is to get more familiar with it for the eventual certification. I've setup Slack servers in the past, so I'm somewhat comfortable and somewhat knowledgeable in editing config files by hand when needed. I know that having a dependance on any distro specific tools is foolish, so save that lecture.

I suppose I could continue to support them by starting to buy some of their stock, which I've been wanting to do for a while. I still believe in them as a business. And perhaps as the Linux market expands, they will offer something to home users wanting support.

[Hayl]

<i havent read all the posts in this thread so i apologize if someone has already pointed this out>

as i see it :) basically, what you are doing by using fedora and reporting bugs to the fedora project is providing a beta-testing service free of charge to red hat so that they can very cheaply develop their commercial product through fedora that they sell at a large profit to their commercial customers. and you don't even get support at all from red hat for helping them.

imho - that is a scam and i am very happy to not be a part of it.

anyway - just my view on things.

[David Anderson]

Originally posted by Hayl
<i havent read all the posts in this thread so i apologize if someone has already pointed this out>

as i see it :) basically, what you are doing by using fedora and reporting bugs to the fedora project is providing a beta-testing service free of charge to red hat so that they can very cheaply develop their commercial product through fedora that they sell at a large profit to their commercial customers. and you don't even get support at all from red hat for helping them.

imho - that is a scam and i am very happy to not be a part of it.

anyway - just my view on things.

Right, well, as you said, don't use it if you don't like it.

Keeping in mind that we've been using their software, free of charge, for many years. Why not give them something back for their hard work?

[Hayl]

Originally posted by David Anderson
Keeping in mind that we've been using their software, free of charge, for many years. Why not give them something back for their hard work?

hmm.... well u missed my point totally. actually - when i used to run red hat a long time ago i paid for it, and i also have donated to gentoo and debian projects.

i have no problem paying for a distro or for support.

[fredg]

Originally posted by bgunn
Red Hat has said it will not be supporting current versions of Red hat in the future. What about Fedora? Will the fedora community be supporting these older versions of Red Hat? What will happen to all those people running servers on RH7.3/8.0/9?

Ben

Unless someone picks up where Red Hat leaves off, those folks are going to be SOL.

There is at least one group who are getting organized with the goal of continuing to support selected discontinued Red Hat releases. You can read their mail list here:

http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-legacy-list/

Another option that shows a lot of promise and is actually bearing some fruit is rebuilding Red Hat Enterprise Linux from sources such that it doesn't violate any of Red Hat's trademarks. There is at least one mail list assosiated with that, but it's not an organized project per se, just a place to bounce tips and howtos around:

http://www2.uibk.ac.at/zid/software/unix/linux/rhel-rebuild-l.html

And there is at least one individual that has "gotten there" with a RHEL 3 rebuild and has RC quality ISOs and files out. It seems to be somewhat known in the circles of people who would be very interested, but apparently the producer doesn't want a whole lot of attention at this time so I won't post the URL to his site.

Another one with the same goal that is public, but doesn't have a release quite out is cAos:

http://www.caosity.org/

[David Anderson]

Originally posted by Hayl
hmm.... well u missed my point totally. actually - when i used to run red hat a long time ago i paid for it, and i also have donated to gentoo and debian projects.

i have no problem paying for a distro or for support.

Then what's your point? Mine is that the vast majority of home users are running free copies of Red Hat. Why not allow them to contribute back to the company? I see nothing wrong with this. They're not forcing you to do anything and they do clearly state that work from Fedora may go back into Red Hat's Enterprise Linux.

[Hayl]

Originally posted by David Anderson
Then what's your point? Mine is that the vast majority of home users are running free copies of Red Hat. Why not allow them to contribute back to the company? I see nothing wrong with this. They're not forcing you to do anything and they do clearly state that work from Fedora may go back into Red Hat's Enterprise Linux.

i thought it was quite clear what my point was. if you don't get it then... oh well.

i never said they were forcing anyone to do anything.

[nugget15]

I just heard on TSS that Red Hat is now enterprise editions, is this old or new news?

[Vador8088]

Hmmm…well Fedora Core 1 is the current news basically Red Hat has changed its focus to corporate enterprising environments canning support for Red Hat 6.0 – 9.0 (Well they haven’t just yet, but I got a end of life notice). Enter the Fedora 1 project, still a Red Hat “sponsored” distro, but most of the support will come from the community and you can now receive updates for free instead of paying for a subscription to the Red Hat Network.

Check this out http://fedora.redhat.com/ I installed it on one of my machines, I has some new features of RH9 and the updated Kernel.
http://fedora.redhat.com/

[homey]

It is old news but since you mentioned it, I think they have made a grievious error along the lines of Coke dumping the original flavor which brought them to fame.
I think the Redhat desktop system had more value than they realized.

[amgeex]

Which one do you think it'll be? I'd bet on SuSE, XandrOS, and maybe Fedora.

Paid Distro: XandrOS
Freebie: Fedora

[bosox79]

my vote goes to fedora on the desktop anyway:cool: at least my own desktop for now;)

[Darksamurai]

I'm thinking after the come up with a little bit better "user friendly" installer, Gentoo would be a good contender!

Although I gotta admit... I've never used Fedora, so I'm not sure on that 'un.

I'd also say Mandrake, but I hear they're walkin' the line of bankruptcy...

[BaVinic]

I'd have to say Fedora Core, however, having just installed it, I may be changing my vote. so far, i find FC1 to be a really bad hack of RH9, nothing original, except the GUI bootsplash, and even that is not orignal. badly modified, in that it does not follow Linux standard naming conventions, or paths. but then again, neither did RH8 or 9.

anyway, enough babbling.

:D

BaVinic

[rbrimhall]

" in that it does not follow Linux standard naming conventions, or paths"

Is there such a thing as "Linux standards?" I've heard of desktop standards, web standards, etc. but no Linux standards as far as I know... please explain.

[Vador8088]

Gentoo would have my vote, and yes I wish it had a friendlier installer. I installed it about 2 weeks ago and the installation is fairly technical but fun. Of course we know not every body out there find writing your fstab or boot loader configuration files “fun”. If Gentoo had RH 8,9 or Fedoras installer it would really own.

[BaVinic]

well, you're right, as far as I know, there is no actual "Standard" for Linux. poor choice of words on my part I guess.


BaVinic

[bosox79]

Originally posted by Vador8088
Gentoo would have my vote, and yes I wish it had a friendlier installer. I installed it about 2 weeks ago and the installation is fairly technical but fun. Of course we know not every body out there find writing your fstab or boot loader configuration files “fun”. If Gentoo had RH 8,9 or Fedoras installer it would really own.

I agree about the installer but hopfully that will change at some point I saw this on the gentoo forums the other day

http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic.php?t=55293&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0&sid=228d81724e50b1cd22fe3332d9dd4041
:cool:

[copeja]

I think it will be SuSE as the official successor. SuSE is trying for more home users and has a very good installer. I think the Linux standard is
Linux Standard Base v2.0. In the install for SuSE and Mandrake you can check a box that makes the install
Linux Standard Base v2.0. In Gentoo you install lib-compat and that will make it Linux Standard Base v2.0
The idea is to make it easer to write programs so they will install in all distros. The web site is
http://www.linuxbase.org/

[lazy13]

It'll be interesting to see what Novell has planned for Suse. After purchasing both Suse and Ximian it seems like they have big plans.

As for me, I like Debian, and with a new installer for 3.1 (Sarge), I'm sure a few more will try it on their desktop.

[Rommani]

Redhat was not a dominant force with say 80 % market share (desktop), so there won't be a big void that some company needs to fill. I think that the same people who used Redhat will be going to Fedora. I never really liked RHL much, a bit to buggy for my taste (just an opinion). I really hope that Mandrake will stay alive, even though I don't use it, I feel that they are needed. I always felt that SuSE knew what they were doing, really slick distro which lives next to Slackware in my box. So yes, I voted SuSE, since there was no Slackware option ;)
BTW SuSE Linux 9 will be avalible on FTP from this weekend on.

[amgeex]

There are several efforts to promote Linux "Standards", here are some:

LSB - Linux Standard Base - Link (http://www.linuxbase.org)
FHS - Filesystem Hierarchy Standard - Link (http://www.pathname.com/fhs/)
FreeDesktop.org - UNIX/Linux GUI Standards - Link (http://www.freedesktop.org/)

Anyone has checked XandrOS site recently? It seems to me that they have some good stuff in there, I think that they could replace RedHat very well. They've got a very good installer (from what I've read), user friendly 'n all. And they've got (ripoff name comming) "XandrOS Networks", which is like RedHat Networs, updates 'n patches, support, etc. I may actually buy that to see what's it like.

[Dutch Mafia-boy.]

I heard on TechTV that Rehat is going to start charging money for the upcoming regular desktop/server versions??

Anyone else heard this??

[mhacleth]

Just installed FedCore1.
The only problem is I have HSF modem.
Guess, I'd buy me an external modem.

Mhac:o

[l01yuk]

It was a real pain for me this RH thing. I decided to go with RH for my servers because it is relativly easy to install (so others but me could re-install it if we had a disk crash) and is more server oriented than mandrake. I hadn't really used suse so I thought I'd go with what I know.

Now though I will either have to go with Fedora, which sounds risky for servers, or pay. So I have decided on training people on a debian stable install and going with that. Something I wish I had done to start with.

I have to say that for all the corporate facing input into RH over the years debian is still much easier to configure for networking, easier to update and easier to adminstrate generally. Why anyone bothers with a corporate distro that has only just figured out the idea of a stable tree is beyond me. Also, why does a distro aimed mainly at servers default to such a big deskop? Why not iceWM or blackbox? They should at least be choices on the install menu. </rant>

Couldn't help myself there, don't flame me too much.

[chatins]

The RHL 9 Pro set that was selling over the summer for $149 was $19 at my local CompUSA. A sad commentary on the state of the Linux publishing biz. (Yes, I bought up all remaining copies.)

In the future company printed docs will be hard to come by - but who ever read them anyway?

Are we becoming a society that needs to be connected to the net to do Linux? I used to think the hive was just part of Windows...

[jodef]

I recently installed RedHat 7.3 no major problems however in looking around realised this is a fairly old version of the software.I am not a fan of running outdated stuff security issues mainly.Do I get Fedora or can this thing be updated? Tried the inbuilt updating service it failed.Where can I get updates if there are any and are they ez to install.
Thx.:confused:

[merker19]

Hi All:
I know this website used to be LinuxNewbie.org, so please dont' groan too much as I post a newbie question.

I know that Red Hat has recently pulled support for their home version of their Linux distro in favor of putting all their energies on the Enterprise version of their product. I've been looking around the web trying to find out how this impacts me and from what I can tell Red Hat will be continuing support for their Red Hat Home version until the middle of '04. If I were to continue using RH, would I be able to compile my Linux kernel when the newest kernels come out? Is it worth continuing with RH? Will my OS become antiquated in a number of years due to lack of support from RH?

Would it be better if I just abandoned ship now? The reason I ask is that I'm still playing around with my install of RH Linux 9 Server edition and it's still fairly new... also, I've been playing around SFTP and I've been exposing my PC to the world and tripwire has caught 400+ violations (which I'm still trying to understand) so it wouldn't be so bad if I had to do a re-install now... so I could scrap RH in favor of another distro. What do yall think?
TIA!
_merker19

[Satanic Atheist]

Go Mandrake. It's rather similar in that it uses RPMs and the interface is quite easy to use (and is like RedHat's).

Your kernel will work since you can grab a package from RPM repositories for stuff like Connectiva and Yellow Dog and they should work fine. Note, should, not will.

If I were you, I'd try Debian though, or Slackware. You tend not to get dependency problems with these two as well as the satisfaction of no longer being a pure newbie!

Lastly, newbie questions are still welcome here (we were all newbies at one stage) just please don't be one of these lamers who posts "Help a Newbie!!!" or "Help!!!" since we're more likely to strangle them than help them.

James

[merker19]

Lol. I work in IT so I would never scream "HELP! I'm a newbie!" I'm more in favor of the calm approach where someone posts a question and someone posts an answer/suggestion.

So I guess the answer to my question is: abandon ship! Just curious, but will those who continue to use RH have more of a difficult time updating their OS, RPM's, and features? I know it was really handy having the Red Hat site around to look up features like Samba and Tripwire (although, I wish they had gone into more detail on how to analyze the data in the logfiles... I don't quite understand all the violations that occurred on my box).

As I type this I'm downloading the ISO's for Slackware and if there's enough time today I'll go for Mandrake as well.
Thanks James!
_merker19

[chatins]

I just saw the boxed Redhat Workstation 3 at Staples for $89. Redhat Boxed Lives!! :)

[SuperTUX]

Red Hat sounded corny anyway:p

[nugget15]

I heard the news, didnt think anything about it, then I made the swich to linux. With Mandrake's finincal problems, Redhat with the Enterprise edition around 200 to 300. I didnt know what distro to go to that I would hope be around until I got on my feet in Linux... :( So I hope I can get enough knoladge on Linux befor one of those two go out of "date" to say.

[Lc3]

I odn't understand the problem, why not just get a free copy of the new RedHat Enterprise from someone who bought it, it's GPL isn't it. As for RHN, just either buy a subscription (if you currently do so for RHL9/8/7..) or don't (if oyu currently don't)

Am i missing somehting?

[EnigmaOne]

Originally posted by Lc3
I odn't understand the problem, why not just get a free copy of the new RedHat Enterprise from someone who bought it, it's GPL isn't it. As for RHN, just either buy a subscription (if you currently do so for RHL9/8/7..) or don't (if oyu currently don't)

Am i missing somehting?

Uh...yeah...as a matter of fact...you are.

If "why not just get a free copy of the new RedHat Enterprise from someone who bought it" is any indicator; I'd say it's a firm grasp of personal ethics.

[Lc3]

Originally posted by EnigmaOne I'd say it's a firm grasp of personal ethics. [/B]

:( okay that felt uncalled for, but i'll get over it.

What's wrong with that if you only want it for personal use? If you're using it for business purposes, chances are you would buy it and get the full support anyway, os theres no issue there.

Surely we're entitled to play with whatever distro of Linux we want, asuming its posable to ger a copy of it. If you can't afford RHE and don't want to use it without paying, get Fendora or even get a different distro entirely, theres plenty of distros you can get for nothing.

And when I said am i missing something i really ment, is there some change i don't know about e.g. are they removing Demo accounts in RHN or something i didnt know about?

[chatins]

I finally took the big step and deactivated all my RHN accounts. This was in part because of broken promises by Redhat and partly because the products and support have slipped so much over the past year.

[Kaligraphic]

Originally posted by Lc3
I odn't understand the problem, why not just get a free copy of the new RedHat Enterprise from someone who bought it, it's GPL isn't it. As for RHN, just either buy a subscription (if you currently do so for RHL9/8/7..) or don't (if oyu currently don't)

Am i missing somehting?

Not all of Red Hat Enterprise is GPL'ed. There is, however, a "RH Enterprise without the RH" distro called White Box Enterprise Linux (http://www.beau.org/~jmorris/linux/whitebox/).

[blackbelt_jones]

Tried SuSE and Tried Fedora, and they're both slow and buggy next to Red Hat 9, so I'm sticking with Red Hat 9-- support or no support-- until such time (if ever) a new stable version of Debian is released.

There. I'm glad that's finally settled.:cool:

[blackbelt_jones]

Originally posted by EnigmaOne
Uh...yeah...as a matter of fact...you are.

If "why not just get a free copy of the new RedHat Enterprise from someone who bought it" is any indicator; I'd say it's a firm grasp of personal ethics.


Yeah, that was definitely uncalled for.