In a Clear Choice test of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4.0, (tested RHEL 4.0 Advanced Server, Red Hat’s most robust Linux distribution), ComputerWorld found huge performance gains over previous editions, beefed up security options and vastly improved hardware detection mechanisms.
Red Hat Linux 4.0 offers power, security
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Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
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If a MS test has good results everyone screams that MS are buying results. I’ll ask the question from the other side. The extremelabs.com website that the writer is the prinple researcher for has no details on it, so who is paying for the computerworld tests – they always seem to come out with great results for Red Hat. Or are you allowed question pro Linux articles.
http://shots.osdir.com/slideshows/slideshow.php?release=302&slide=3…
“Everybody knows Redhat is the Micro$oft of the linux companies.”
It always makes me laugh when I see that. Besides the fact that RedHat happens to have the largest market share among linux distros, like Windows has of OSes in general, what other paralells could you possibly be seeing???
The improvements are to be expected. Most of it comes from simply moving to a more-or-less contemporary kernel and newer versions of most of the tools / apps. RedHat had long suffered with a horribly hacked up 2.4 kernel (filled with back-ports of the 2.6 kernel) and outdated tools and libraries.
Now, RedHat has merely put themselves on-par with other Linux distributions that had already beat them to the punch…
Did you read anywere that they did this against m$? NO, they compared it to the previous 3.0.
If you run Linux in the Corp world, your going to do it with RH, maybe Suse.
Were even running RH on mainframes
bye vms…….
Don’t come back people and say you can run gentoo/arch/slackware/ubuntu…… We have major mission critical systems and the list goes on why the “SUPPORT MODEL” for RHEL makes sense.
Save the flames for a place were it would apply……
Hmmm this is a pretty good endorsement of Fedora Core 3…. RHEL4 is after all a fork of FC3.
Not really,
I run fc3 and rawhide on several box’s but this isn’t the place for FC that RHEL targets. You don’t put a bleeding edge linux on your servers. At least not Mission Critical ones.
Hmmm this is a pretty good endorsement of Fedora Core 3…. RHEL4 is after all a fork of FC3.
Actually, FC3 is a RHEL 4 alpha/beta
As for the RedHat vs other distros, well, you may put Slackware on your own private server and notebook (I do), you may put Fedora on your private workstation (again I do).
But when you need to roll out a 10,000$ server running a your business software in a 24x7x365 environment, paying 1000$ for RHEL license don’t seem like much.
Gilboa
use centos. its rhel without tech support
-at “Anonymous” who said: “use centos. its rhel without tech support”…
The whole point behind RHEL is that you are getting techical support. When your $10,000 24x7x365 business critical server goes down for whatever reason, you need someone to call. You won’t have the time to sit around and noodle with it.
@wireplay
Yeah, the directors/managers I report to don’t like the answer:
“Let me see what they say on IRC and the Forums”
😛
Actually, my boss doesn’t care where the answers come from, he ‘s a cheap guy and just wants it to work.
If your linux servers break, that means you’ve touched them…
The whole point behind RHEL is that you are getting techical support. When your $10,000 24x7x365 business critical server goes down for whatever reason, you need someone to call. You won’t have the time to sit around and noodle with it.
Yeah, the directors/managers I report to don’t like the answer:
“Let me see what they say on IRC and the Forums”
Don’t waste your breath trying to explain Enterprise architecture to a Linux zealot.
So this is their workstation offering, correct?
at Devilotx who said: If your linux servers break, that means you’ve touched them…
Unfortunately you are required to touch them on occasion… (patch/update, new software, config mod/update, etc.) You have the support contract as backup. No one likes calling support, but sometimes it’s a necesary evil — even a relief, in the event of an enterprise system failure.
at Devilotx who said: If your linux servers break, that means you’ve touched them…
Unfortunately you are required to touch them on occasion… (patch/update, new software, config mod/update, etc.) You have the support contract as backup. No one likes calling support, but sometimes it’s a necesary evil — even a relief, in the event of an enterprise system failure.
Oops on the double post.
at Renaldo who said: So this is their workstation offering, correct?
It’s my understanding that they are talking about the server class version. From the article summary: “tested RHEL 4.0 Advanced Server, Red Hat’s most robust Linux distribution”.
The whole point behind RHEL is that you are getting techical support. When your $10,000 24x7x365 business critical server goes down for whatever reason, you need someone to call. You won’t have the time to sit around and noodle with it.
But if you’re a single user at home you have practically the same fine OS at zero cost.The least thing one can do is give something back in return in whatever form that benefits the community,money,knowledge,bug-reports,help to new-comers etc.
use centos. its rhel without tech support
Besides Gentoo i also like to use centos.
If you want to pay $2500.00 (not $1000.00 … CentOS is a rebuild of AS and not ES) for a mission critical system, that is fine and dandy. If you have 200 servers, that becomes quite expensive … even if you use the volume licenses.
Being that you can legally install 5 copies of RHEL 4 when only buying 1, it doesn;t make much sense (at least to me) to pay $12,500 … or $25,000 for 10 servers.
Maybe for absolutely mission critical servers, a service contract from RHEL is good … but for test machines, I would rather keep my $2500.00.
and BTW … those prices are per year !
I meant … being that you CAN NOT install 5 copies if you buy 1 … you must have a RHEL license for each machine that contains RHEL … and it must be renewed annually.
Being that you can legally install 5 copies of RHEL 4 when only buying 1, it doesn;t make much sense (at least to me) to pay $12,500 … or $25,000 for 10 servers.
Drop in the bucket when it comes to IT spending and worth the price.
Maybe for absolutely mission critical servers, a service contract from RHEL is good … but for test machines, I would rather keep my $2500.00.
The point of most DEV/TEST environments is emulate exactly what you have in your production enviroment.
> you must have a RHEL license for each machine that contains RHEL
No. For each machine that use RHN.
> and it must be renewed annually.
No. Only for RHN ( http://rhn.redhat.com/ ).
>at tobaccofarm who said: But if you’re a single user at >home you have practically the same fine OS at zero cost.
I agree completely.
at Anonymous (192.156.88.—) who said: If you have 200 servers, that becomes quite expensive … even if you use the volume licenses.
Being that you can legally install 5 copies of RHEL 4 when only buying 1, it doesn;t make much sense (at least to me) to pay $12,500 … or $25,000 for 10 servers.
Maybe for absolutely mission critical servers, a service contract from RHEL is good … but for test machines, I would rather keep my $2500.00.
How expensive is Microsoft comaratively (licenses, support contracts, and CALs), I’d imagine it’d be a pretty substantial investment for 200 servers.
How about Unix licensing… I’m not sure, but curious to see – if anyone here has knowledge of Unix licensing costs.
For development envs Centos sounds great, I’d keep my cash as well. Correct me if I’m wrong, I don’t think MS has a free OS for dev envs…
@my_name:
4. REPORTING AND AUDIT. If Customer wishes to increase the number of Installed System, then Customer will purchase from Red Hat additional Services for each additional Installed System. During the term of this Agreement and for one (1) year thereafter, Customer expressly grants to Red Hat the right to audit Customer’s facilities and records from time to time in order to verify Customer’s compliance with the terms and conditions of this Agreement.
Someone above asked about Unix license fees for a comparion. Since I use Solaris 10 I will quote their fees (from their webpage):
Solaris 10 Sparc/X86 (FREE DOWNLOAD OF SOFTWARE).
24/7 Live call transfer = $360 (a year)
8am-8pm 4hr reponse= $240
Software updates only (no call support) = $120
Those prices are per CPU socket. They do per socket pricing because lets say you have 1 CPU, that is one socket support. Lets say you replace that in the future with 1 CPU with 8 CORES, then that is considered only one socket. They are doing that now so you don’t get charged per core like some venders are trying to do (*cough* Oracle *cough*).
Personally I don’t think that is bad pricing support for a big iron Unix. Sun has done alot since Solaris 10 release to remain competitive with the Linux box sets being sold with support. I can also say from experience, that Sun tech support is pretty good.
I read an article somewhere where a guy sent off a question to RH support and found that his question was posted verbatim on IRC or Usenet or LKML by a “redhat employee”. So the question is that is this underhanded of Redhat to get answers from IRC/USENET and then charge you as if they had come with the solution?
I’m sure that this sort of thing happens with all companies providing “Support”.
Read carefully :
http://www.redhat.com/licenses/rhel_us_3.html?country=United+States…
I. Terms and Conditions
A. GENERAL TERMS AND CONDITIONS
The term “Services” as used in this Agreement means, collectively, the Support services provided under the purchased subscription and defined herein, RHN Services as defined herein, and any Learning Services purchased under this Agreement and defined herein.
(…)
1. TERM AND TERMINATION
1.1 Term. The term of this Agreement shall be for the duration of all Services provided under this Agreement.
(…)
Appendix 1
LICENSE AGREEMENT AND LIMITED PRODUCT WARRANTY RED HAT® ENTERPRISE LINUX® AND RED HAT® APPLICATIONS
This agreement governs the use of the Software and any updates to the Software, regardless of the delivery mechanism. The Software is a collective work under U.S. Copyright Law. Subject to the following terms, Red Hat, Inc. (“Red Hat”) grants to the user (“Customer”) a license to this collective work pursuant to the GNU General Public License.
1. The Software. Red Hat Enterprise Linux and Red Hat Applications (the “Software”) are either a modular operating system or application consisting of hundreds of software components. The end user license agreement for each component is located in the component’s source code. With the exception of certain image files identified in Section 2 below, the license terms for the components permit Customer to copy, modify, and redistribute the component, in both source code and binary code forms. This agreement does not limit Customer’s rights under, or grant Customer rights that supersede, the license terms of any particular component.
(…)
well. Red Hat has a big support division and those people dont post stuff on usenets at all
I read it very carefully …
so you CAN NOT use any binaries downloaded from RHN (ie all updates) on any of your isntalls without a valid and in date subscription for that machine.
RedHat can come and audit all your machines that have RHEL installed, see if any RHN only provided software is on the Machine, and require you to obtain the a valid license for any machines where there are RH binaries only available from RHN on them.
NOW … if you compiled all your own updated RPMS from source for that machine after the expiration of your license, you would be OK. But if you downloaded the valid RPM from RHN on a machine with a valid license and pushed it to 100 other machines without a valid license, you owe RH 2500 (per AS license) x 100 (machines) = $250,000.00
The RH license says they can audit any machine with their software on it whenever they want.
If you had CentOS on those machines, RH can not audit it … and the updates do not have RedHat as the provider/Distro and didn’t come from RHN … and you owe noone anything.