The update for the company’s Enterprise Linux product was released Wednesday, with added support for x86 chips and IBM JS20 blade servers. Up next, the new release of the cutting edge Fedora, News.com reports. Update and mini-commentary: Editorial at eWEEK: “Why Linux users hate Red Hat“. We don’t think so, Red Hat is still the most used/downloaded distro of all. However, it is true that people usually hate the No1 (just because it is No1) and favor any underdog. Having said that, I prefer Slackware because of its simplicity, app stability, fewer distro bugs and speed compared to Fedora.
Red Hat Updating Both Linux Versions
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
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I simply cannot wait for the final version of Fedora Core 2 to be released. It would rock.
I like Fedora, but I don’t feel this is the community based distro that RedHat promised. Maybe I need to buckle down and try Gentoo. Anyone have good or bad experiences in migrating from RedHat/Fedora to Gentoo?
I wait for FC2 too, but I think it will just be like RH9 with newer packages. The good thing is newer packages mean better performance (I hope) and being able to install apt/synaptic rocks beause RH9’s repositories are not as updated as Fedora’s.
March 14 – release final core 2 to mirrors.
Checking the dates on http://download.fedora.redhat.com/pub/fedora/linux/core/development… – everything matches..
http://fedora.redhat.com/participate/schedule/
That was test release. The FINAL is due on May 18th.
I moved from Fedora to Gentoo. Gentoo is better. Nothing more to say.
Maybe, but no ISO. I think most poeple will be downloading the iso.
Your statement contradicts the official release schedule (and implies that the schedule has slipped at least 7 days):
7 May Absolute devel freeze
13 May Export approval, mirror master populated by EOD
14 May Release to mirrors (morning)
18 May Release open, announced
Anyone who can say without a doubt if the schedule has slipped?
Here’s the reason I really don’t like red hat.. It’s performance, stability, useabilty, and overall package management are either slow, buggy, unstable, and extremely bloated at times.. Now I can’t blame them for making a buck, after all they are a business.. But after using SuSE, Slackware, and Mandrake.. Any of those three are much better..
I’ve using Redhat/Fedora for 1.5 years, And I can say it is the best distro for me for 6 reasons:
1.- Easy do download and burn ISOS
2.- Really easy to install
3.- Default desktop is GNOME.
4.- apt-get and Yum
5.- Forums support.
6.- At least in my PC Athlon XP 1800 is fast and stable.
I can’t waith for FC2 with GNOME 2.6 with Kernel 2.6 series.
Many thanks to FC team.
“moved from Fedora to Gentoo. Gentoo is better. Nothing more to say.”
thats your opinion and its pretty useless here.
FC1 was the best sytem I ever used, so I’ll definately be trying out FC2.
I like the fact that RedHat puts a nice corprate face on Linux so our bosses will accept it. I just don’t like their technical approach. I guess it’s the same as every other distro… There’s good and bad to each of them. I wish someone would out togther a distro with the best atribute from each distro. If Gentoo had a graphical installer like Anaconda, I would be set.
I dont hate redhat because it is #1, i hate it because I am still haunted by the days of dependancy hell. Yes I know there now exists apt-get for rpm but the pain it had caused me is more than enough to never go back to redhat. Thank god Debian found its way on to my computer.
I bought a laptop a couple of months ago, and for the first time, I simply repartitioned and reformatted the hard drive. I never had a chance to agree to Microsoft’s EULA. I put Libranet in there. It’s getting a bit long in the tooth, but of the install process involves updating. In short, while remaining pegged to Debian Sarge, I now run KDE 3.2 instead of 3.1.2. and my kernel is 2.4.25 instead of 2.4.21. Open Office changed from 1.0 to 1.1.1. Any Debian user knows that my case is normal for non-stable branch users.
Now for my question. I was under the impression that Fedora had begun incorporating Apt for RPM and YUM, giving the Red Hat “people’s Linux” a Debianesque flavor. I had thought that up to date Fedora 1 users were basically running Fedora 2 at this point. The excitement about the pending Fedora 2 release seems to indicate otherwise. What is the real story here?
Red Hat may be the most hated distro, but it is also the most misunderstood. Despitie Red Hat’s commercial interests: Red Hat Linux is 100% Free software (including Red Hat’s installer and system tools); Red Hat makes the complete distro available as ISO images (which is the prefered install method for myself and most home users, I would assume).
… but users complain that they do not include things like browser plugins and mp3 / dvd support, and realise that Red Hat Enterprise Linux is their cash cow. As for not including mp3 / dvd support (and I assume browser plugins) – There are licensing issues with these items, so they can’t fully claim, by bundling these, they would not be including 100% free software in the eyes of many. Secondly, Enterprise Linux sources are available, but it does include some value added features (the main thing being a support contract).
I commend Red Hat for making a free distro AND being commercial successful. They have never, as far as I know, included things such as proprietary items (see SUSE, YAST USED to be non-freely licensed, and other distros including Crossover office / Wine / any other strings attached to *encourage* you to buy the distro.
“Now for my question. I was under the impression that Fedora had begun incorporating Apt for RPM and YUM, giving the Red Hat “people’s Linux” a Debianesque flavor. I had thought that up to date Fedora 1 users were basically running Fedora 2 at this point. The excitement about the pending Fedora 2 release seems to indicate otherwise. What is the real story here?”
fedora core 1 yum is used to pull stuff for minor updates and other repos. you can point it to the yum repo for core 2 test versions or rawhide but its not very clean. since this is a major release and some of the updates themselves require the new kernel and dependencies it is recommended that you use the cd images and update to the next version.
“fedora core 1 yum is used to pull stuff for minor updates and other repos. you can point it to the yum repo for core 2 test versions or rawhide but its not very clean. since this is a major release and some of the updates themselves require the new kernel and dependencies it is recommended that you use the cd images and update to the next version. “
do not use yum <— it’s evil
use apt-get
I just upgraded fedora core 1 to fedora core 2 using apt-get.
just make sure you grab the gpg key and import them.
The whole upgrade process took 1 hour; not bad at all.
> I prefer Slackware because of […] speed compared to Fedora.
any bench ?
“FC1 was the best sytem I ever used, so I’ll definately be trying out FC2.”
If FC1 was the best system you have ever used, then you must have not used too many linux distros.
“If FC1 was the best system you have ever used, then you must have not used too many linux distros.”
yes. thats for people who dont have anything else to do. people normally install and stick with one distro
The big advantage Fedora has is its legacy. Developers are mostly testing against it because it is the industry’s “no1”, so you know that when you want a piece of software, there will be a Red hat-compatible package somewhere, or the tarballs are going to build without a problem.
That and its preference panels that allow for easy administration are Fedora’s great advantages.
However, personally, I can’t live with all these bugs it has (yes, I have filed some bug reports, but fc1 as fc2 are just not as stable was I want my OSes to be), and I can’t live with its slowness and complicated/patched-to-hell underpinnings. That’s why I prefer Slackware. But Slackware is not for everyone, newbie users with fast machines are better off with Fedora, SuSE or Mandrake.
Fedora Core 2 Test 3 is very promising. As the proving ground for a once-and-future RedHat desktop release, it is obviously geared toward the office and corporate user. In that context, it is a very responsive, good looking and professional piece of work. I’ve been a Slackware fan for years, and continue to use it, but Slack’s a whole different animal.
That said, the eWeek piece perpetuates the notion that RedHat killed its low-end distribution. It simply morphed it into Fedora. They don’t shrinkwrap Fedora and sell it in stores, but Linux zealots don’y buy software anyway. Szulik’s statement that most corporate users should, for the time being, keep on using Windows was a simple recognition of fact. They have no compelling reason to use Linux. At some point, I believe RedHat will create a very polished and sophisticated Liux release which they can sell into the corporate market based on reduced costs. (Note that the requirements for success in that market are not at all the requirements for success selling into the home market.)
I believe it is more a community feeling that some geeks want to be part of than real superiority of their prefered distribution. I have tried and used a lot of them: Fedora, SUSE, Debian, FreeBSD, etc. In the end the differences are pretty minor if you just see an OS as a tool that has to do it’s job.
The reason Linux users hate Red Hat is not that Red Hat represents “mainstream Linux.” The most common reason for hating Red Hat is RPM–Redhat’s Package Management system. It’s frustrating to many of us that our newbie friends try out Linux for the first time and have to deal with things like RPM dependency issues and RPM database corruption.
apt and emerge are such better systems, yet they are so much less popular. Red Hat doesn’t represent the fact that Linux is becoming mainstream–rather, it represents the fact that when a company tries to produce a “mainstream flavor of Linux,” it ends up being mediocre. Debian and Gentoo are examples of systems that are not mediocre, yet are still not mainstream. Slackware, though I’ve never used it, is much the same (basing this on Eugenia’s love for Slackware :-)).
He’s got it all wrong in this article.
rpm <=> dpkg
yum, up2date <=> apt
btw, there is apt for rpm (and dpkg).
“The most common reason for hating Red Hat is RPM–Redhat’s Package Management system. It’s frustrating to many of us that our newbie friends try out Linux for the first time and have to deal with things like RPM dependency issues and RPM database corruption. ”
this is just shooting the messenger. rpm is similar to dpkg in debian. yum/apt is available for fedora which does the dependency resolving. the number of packages is less than debian but thats not fault of rpm
pixelmonkey, Fedora supports using apt with rpms. I happen to prefer yum myself. Both make RPM packages as easy to use as apt-get.
I feel great annoyance every time I hear someone trashing RPM and claiming deb packages are better, or emerge, or whatever.
Look, the rpm command is equivalent to dpkg or ebuild, not apt and emerge. It’s a low level command. It isn’t its JOB to go out and find your dependencies.
do not use yum <— it’s evil
what is your basis for this? Is this your opinion?
If it’s evil, why? Why should I use apt? Why isn’t apt evil? What makes yum evil? Do the developers put evil cantations in the code and curse you when you use it?
Obviously I’m curious…
Well said. Most of these folks don’t know what they’re talking about. They bash RPM because they tried to install some off-the-wall package without the required dependencies. RPM complained, and they blithely ignored it. Too laxzy to find and install the dependencies. Result? Things don’t work.
Dependencies exist regardless of packaging system, even if you compile from source. Yum and apt and all the rest just automate the “get the dependency” issue, but you always need to do it.
Fedora Core 2 uses the 4k stack patch in the kernel which breaks the currently lastest nVidia drivers. Users who which to have 3d applications run will have to compile a vanilla kernel or else wait for updated drivers from nVidia.
IMHO Yum and up2date are poor replacements for Apt and Synaptic.
I think that Yum and up2date just don’t do as much work as well, and they are the shortcoming of an otherwise good distro.
Red Hat should rethink these two choices, but I don’t think they will because they are probably afraid of not being the one centralized sources for updates.
that’s exactly the reason why my second distro was debian. I know that redhat has had apt and up2todate and yum for some time now, I think the lack-of back in the day is why many people switched. Frankly, I never understood why RedHat wasn’t all over something like apt-get back when they first saw debian using it.
I have nothing against RedHat, but imo, they should have had something like apt since close to day one.
Please. Next time you interview someone from Redhat or Fedora.
Ask them why is fedora or redhat products so slow compared to distro’s like slackware.
I don’t know of any other reason of why the community is still supportive of RH.
FC1 may be cool. May be too cool even, because even though it’s old, people still use it with such a passion.
But don’t be presume that the community at large gives a damn for Fedora Core.
“I don’t know of any other reason of why the community is still supportive of RH.”
” community at large gives a damn for Fedora Core.”
why are you contradicting yourself?.
why would the community be supportive if it doesnt give a damn?
Neither you or I know what % of the community still supports RH due to the success of FC1. Don’t you see the people jumping ship? See for example: http://osnews.com/story.php?news_id=6440
I hear people talk about Apt, Yum, and Up2Date but they rarely mention Red Carpet. In my opinion, RedCarpet does a terrific job as a package manager. It has both GUI and command line interfaces. I know the other package managers have gui but they are not as well designed as Red Carpet.
Just my .02 cents.
Okay, well let me respond to some of these responses ;-).
First of all, I know that dpkg corresponds to rpm, but on a Debian system debs are almost never installed directly with dpkg (exception being kernel-package debs). apt may be a frontend to dpkg, but for 99.99% of the cases where you want to get software installed on a debian system, you won’t be doing a direct dpkg -i <packagename>-<version>.deb, but instead with an apt-get install <packagename>.
That’s all to say that on a Debian system, dpkg and apt-get are pretty much inseparable, considered as one. Extra layers are added by mature tools like aptitude and synaptic.
That said, I know recently apt was “ported” to allow rpms, along with yum sources cropping up, Ximian with their rug, and Redhat with up2date. But these are all fragmented layers upon rpm’s package management. For the most part, Redhat users are used to installing packages directly, either by finding the RPM online or by going to organized sites like freshrpms. (Yes you can add a freshrpms apt source, but that is a case-by-case thing. None of these frontends to web repositories are wholly embraced by the Redhat community, or even the open source community at large, in the ways in which Debian is).
When I first switched to Debian, none of these tools existed, btw, and in fact most of these tools have only come into common use VERY recently.
Compare all these fragmented frontends with the unified dpkg/apt system, where the offical sources at Debian.org have thousands upon thousands of packages known to be of good quality and to work with the distribution. I can apt-cache search just about anything and find a result.
When weighing all of this in, even with recent advances in how you can grab packages in Redhat, Debian presents itself to be a much better system (better integrated, more widespread, and more unified). In addition, I have even have newbies giving me calls where they had their “rpm database corrupted” even in Redhat 9! I have no idea how to deal with these problems, but I know firsthand that they do exist. Meanwhile, I have never heard of dpkg’s database getting corrupted in Debian (though who knows, I suppose it’s possible…?).
Bottom line is, for me, the major _pro_ to using Debian is its package management, and I always mention it when comparing it to Windows (with its add/remove programs madness and registry hell). With Redhat, that doesn’t seem so much the case. Package management seems more to be “enough to get by.” Redhat’s real strengths are in its configuration panels and ease-of-use right out of the box. But speed and technical architecture are not really there, or at least not to the same degree.
Obviously there are a lot of options for package management in Fedora Core. Why complain about choice?
The detault setup is to use yum, with up2date as the front-end. So, the interface is consistant by default.
More advanced users (or at least ones who care/know enough) can easily change to apt. The repositories, as far as my experiences go, are compatible with either yum or apt.
So, there’s absolutely no loss here, and one obvious gain: choice. Bottom line, the user wins.
Score: Fedora 1, Debian 0. (Not that I have anything against Debian. In fact, I love it. It usually has a good home on my HD).
no debian in our company either. redhat will always have that place, with suse and mandrake as next options. reason is simple. enterprise look and feel, enterprise features. kickstart, lvm, ht-aware scheduler, enterprise software(Oracle and the like) certifications. it just goes to show redhat knows and goes for its market.
debian wont ever get into the enterprise. it’s too much of a wildcard for any IT manager. it doesnt have the “business ready” image that calms down IT decision-makers.
anyway, i really look forward to these updates and it’s a great opportunity for us to test what advantages 64-bit x86 can offer.
Ehh debian sarge comes out 15000 packages to apt-get install, you can install debian ONE time and then apt-get update & apt-get dist-upgrade and Wolia you are on the next release, it`s like fedora 1- fedora 2 in 2 commands.
And I`d say that test in debian is more stable than rc`s of fedora…
Ok start flaming, but I can`t wait for debian Sarge to go into freeze, and there is a reason for it to be slow, it`s called bug testing, and Fedora is puching it to much, that is RedHat want the selinux to be tested, and go into REHL 4. So wow a community I must say. Cause Fedora as of now ain`t pretty in terms of bugs
I think both yum/apt-get are inadequate for software provision in general. I think autopackage is the way of the future. Apt/yum are best for keeping the system up to date with bug fixes and all, but autopackage is sorely needed to get a proper packaging for end user software. if linux becomes bigger than it is now, many more people prefer different combinations of software. One reason debian moves so slowly is because there is a huge amount of stuff to move and a huge number of packages to choose from. If you download a debian cd right now, you will get GNOME 1.4 and KDE 2.2 (I think). If yo uare not on the internet or on a slow connection, then you are sranded with somethign horribly out of date.
There is a good and bad side to the story.
“FC1 was the best sytem I ever used, so I’ll definately be trying out FC2.”
I do not know about him, but I’ve used Slackware and Gentoo for several years. I’ve tries Mandrake, SuSE and Debian. Still I think that FC1 is the best for me. (I did not like RedHat before RH9).
Well here are my reasons:
– It’s easy to install (slackware was easy too)
– You can find most of the packages via apt (except for Java, nVidia, etc — non-free packages)
– It’s easy to configure (though YaST was better)
– It’s stable “enough”. (no crashes after a proper upgrade)
– It has a nice, usable interface (I prefer GNOME or XFCE4 with BlueCurve, before that I was using WMaker)
– It’s fast “enough” (it boots slower than gentoo or slackware but faster than the others, GUI is responsive however GTK2 makes it a little bit slower)
– It comes with sane defaults (kernel, grub, etc)
– Packages (even if from different source) play nice with each other
– Most importantly, it has the widest external support (it some application has only one binary package, it’s probably a RedHat RPM).
Well, RedHat is not the best in each aspect, however when you combine them all it sits in an efficient position.
Since installing FC1:
I have had zero down time with one exception, a strong thunderstorm that went through the area. Total time 45 minutes.
Since finding a stable business computer platform, I have finally converted all my other platform documents for personal and private business-related materials to Open Office. FC1 is geared for business not bleeding edge experimentation.
I since have given all my other platform CDs and books to relatives that enjoy pain. Good lord it feels great to honestly be “other platform” free. Free at last, free at last, thank goodness, free at last.
Thank you FC1.
If you’ve installed FC2T3 and then “yum update”‘ed via the Fedora development tree, you’re pretty close to how FC2 final will ship next week and I must say I’m impressed with it – it’s one of the few distros (yes, I include FC1 in the ones that failed!) that will install and run correctly on Dell’s current PowerEdge range (e.g. PE750, PE1750, PE2600, PE4600) and that’s even with the “bleeding edge” 2.6.5 kernel release.
I find that yum is useful (probably needs a GUI for newbies, which I believe is being worked on, albeit slowly) and you can point it to additional repositories to pick up third party stuff (so anyone claiming that you need to install RPMs by hand all the time is mostly incorrect).
For server admin, it’s just great to be able to “yum install package-I-forget-to-install-off-CD” without having to rummage around for the CDs and have it do the dependency resolution, download and install without any fuss. Yes, I know other distros have had this for a while, but it’s no longer a “missing feature” that’s been quoted about past Red Hat releases.
As for “corrupted RPM databases”, the FC1 and FC2 rpm commands have long since fixed that problem, so anyone who brings it up now is simply out-of-date w.r.t. that.
As it stands now, I’d say FC2 is shaping up to be one of the best distros to install on a server, bar none. Whining desktop users who won’t go and look for packages/yum repositories won’t like it for desktop use because of the lack of proprietary multimedia stuff and the Nvidia 3D driver issue, but for a completely free distro, I’m willing to do some legwork to get my desktop set up. If I wanted a distro with all the MM stuff in it out-of-the-box, I’d pay for one (so that it could properly licence what it needed to).
Does any here hate redhat because:
1) RedHat is making a profit from Linux?
2) RedHat is “#1” (the biggest distributor)?
Does anybody believe those are the real reasons that RedHat is hated?
“You don’t have permission to access /pub/fedora/linux/core/2/ on this server.”
So close!
Yum and Up2date Both Rot!
Does any here hate redhat because:
1) RedHat is making a profit from Linux?
2) RedHat is “#1” (the biggest distributor)?
Who is going to admit to that? it almost immediatly destroys your credibility but for those who have been in this game a while its stunningly obvious.
Case in point;
Red Hat changes KDE theme “off with thier heads”
CEO says Microsoft is a better home desktop “he said everyone should buy windows!”
CEO says sure I wish we were in Microsofts posisiton. “see! I told you they were just like Microsoft!”
The CEO of a huge company has to respond to this complete garbage PR zealots throw out.
The point i’m making is this things are beyond, way beyond petty yet you’ll see 250 threads on slashdot claiming its the end of the world. You have 50% of the users who are pissed developers don’t take thier beloved distro as seriously as red hat “but we are better dammit!”
You think slackware is more stable, i’ll give you an account, crash my fedora core box.
You think apt-get is all you need, I’ll give you a yum.conf you’ll be hard pressed to not find packages for fedora.
Gentoo is faster? yep sure is, by 0.08 seconds faster load time, course I never see that .08 seconds cause FC2 (kernel 2.6?) now loads applications at boot up premptively like mozilla.
Why do we make such a big fuss about Red Hat’s artwork being non distributable but SuSe a walking clank of propriatry software is our evil red hat empire saviour?
To sum it all up, go through these threads and look at the 50 plugs of other distro’s then honestly tell me these people are not trying to get others to switch from red hat, why? why do they care, its free frickin software. They care for various reasons, some have socialist mind sets, some want packages built for them instead of RH, some hate american success, some have one feature on thier distro they think makes everything, etc.
Why I like red hat? Slackware was my first distro, was a good system unless i wanted to install something not on the CD. So i switched to red hat years ago and never had a good enough reason to move. Simple as that. I was using a p233 with 64 megs of ram on RH 9 but it was slow, so you know what I did? upgraded my 7 year old micron, now i’m on a 3ghz box and every distro is fast enough. SuSe/Debian are close enough to Red Hat that I could be happy, but I am now anyway
I was using a p233 with 64 megs of ram on RH 9 but it was slow, so you know what I did? upgraded my 7 year old micron, now i’m on a 3ghz box and every distro is fast enough.
I run a p2 233 with 24 mb ram web server using FC1. runs great!
I agree. For me at least, fedora is a wonderful OS
From a person who still loves Debain : FC is excellent. Much beter hardware support and since it is so close to RH9 most things are easily compatable. Unless you are using Debian unstable packages it is behind the curve for softawre versions. To get Current you have to go unstable. I thinki it is likley that FC1 is more stable than debian unstable. I certainly still love Debian for it’ seas of use and maintenance but FC is going to be leading with features – I think this will especially show when some of the new hardware/software is released and you will have a long wait getting Debian to support it properlly (or at least in there ‘stable’ release. The comercial backing of Fedora as REDHATS playground for new feature looks to be exciting. I prefer to be Stable but also on the cutting edge – I feel FC will provide that. FCT2 was just that a test and same with FCT3. The fact that it is looking to be fully integrated with SE linux is extra sweet. I cannot wait to see where this distro is going.
Joe
are there some “mp3” compatible packages if fc2 comes out tuesday, so I can replace rythmbox, xmms, k3b, kdemultimedia, grip, soundjuicer etc… with mp3 compatible ones?
that would be nice, because I think fc2 would be a very nice distro (running fc2 since test2)
As long as there is a gstreamer-mp3 package somewhere, there would be no need to update your rhythmbox install, since it’s just a gstreamer front-end of sorts.
If you were so inclined, I’m sure you could compile gstreamer from source to enable MP3, but packages will likely pop up right away on atrpms or freshrpms anyway.
I’m looking forward to FC 2. FC 1 was really quite excellent for me, and FC 2 is looking even better (played with test 3 – spatial Nautilus kicks ass!).
I’m curious as to what the goals for FC 3 are going to be. Probably the latest maintenance releases of KDE and GNOME, and maybe more SELinux improvements?
-Erwos