2. Operations
For those interested in the full feature list of the Taroon, refer to the Release Notes. Some new features will be mentioned below, but not all.
The GUI desktop is the familiar BlueCurve, without the OpenOffice icons, since this is suppose to be a server installation. Similarly, GIMP and other graphical tools are missing as well, which makes sense.
Some notable changes, advancements or additions
- Kernel is based on 2.4.21, with a lot of Red Hat internal patches. Check the changelog 'rpm -q --changelog kernel'
- Implementation of the Native POSIX thread library
- Default compiler is the gcc-ssa, although gcc is still available
- Inclusion of Eclipse IDE, while the required Sun JDK 1.4.1 has to be downloaded separately.
- Inclustion of tux, which is the kernel based HTTP server.
- Support of IPv6.
- iptables is the default packet filtering tool, you can setup basic firewall rules during installation time.
- The inclusion of 'redhat-config-packages' which helps solve dependencies when installing standard packages.
The following is the server list and their version.
- Apache, version 2.0.46, the default web server.
- php, version 4.3.2, server side scripting.
- Tomcat, version 4.1.24, the Java servlet container.
- Samba, version 3.0.0 beta3, which supports the Active Directory, thus making integration with Windows 2000 easier.
- vsftpd, version 1.2.0, the Very Secure FTP server, is now a full Sys V service, no longer under xinetd.
- NFS kernel implementation together with nfs-utils version 1.0.3, now supports NFS over TCP.
- bind, version 9.2.2, the default DNS server.
- sendmail, version 8.12.9, the default mailer. Postfix is available if you do not want to run sendmail.
- openssh, version 3.6.1, for encrypted communications.
- squid, version 2.5STABLE3, for content caching.
- imap-2002d, for POP3 and IMAP4 server.
- MySQL server, version 3.23, SQL server.
- amanda server, version 2.4.4p1, the opensource network based backup solution.
- Clumanager, version 1.1.73, the HA clustering solution.
Development tools
- perl, version 5.8.0
- python, version 2.2.3
- gcc-ssa, version 3.5ssa, 20030617 snapshot.
- gdb version 5.3, GNU debugger.
- DDD version 3.3.1, graphical debugger.
Graphical interface, if you really wanted it.
- GNOME 2.2.2
- KDE 3.1.2
On current production release AS 2.1, clustering solutions has to be configured using the command line tool cluconfig. In the latest beta version, the GUI tool 'redhat-config-cluster' takes over while other cluster related tools are still command line based.
3. Conclusion
The desktop looks more polished, together with the newer Mozilla 1.4 web browser. Evolution 1.4.3 is not in default installation. The access menu is still the same arrangements that is similar to RHL9.
The development tools got updated, perl moved to 5.8.0, and python _finally_ moving to version 2.2.3! The gcc-ssa while being experimental, is now the default compiler. The stable gcc compiler is now an addition grouped under "Compatibility Arch Support" of the redhat-config-packages GUI Package Management tool.
All the servers that shipped in Taroon are pretty up-to-date. AS 2.95 introduced Tomcat, Apache 2.0, Samba 3.0, vsftpd, compared to Apache 1.3, Samba 2.2 and wu-ftpd in the current released AS 2.1.
Seems like Samba 3.0 will be included in the final release of the RHEL. With the latest support for Active Directory, RHEL will be well positioned to take over file and print service. Tomcat would allow RHEL to act as a platform for J2EE solution. The improved cluster management will ensure AS to be the leading HA solution on Linux.
Compared to RHEL AS 2.1, AS 2.95 features an impressive improvement over the current version. No doubt the next production release of RHEL will continue to be the preferred platform for enterprise.
About the Author:
Boon Kiat works as a Principle Consultant at Integer Knowledge Pte Ltd, Singapore. A Red Hat Certified Engineer, he works on Zope, his preferred web platform when he can find some free time.
- "Introduction, Installation"
- "Operations, Conclusions"
