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Red Hat Software Businesses Linux Business

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3 Released 330

Posted by simoniker from the how-enterprising dept.
OrenWolf writes "CNET is running an article on the release of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3, which is Red Hat's shiny new 'enterprise' version of Linux. Major changes include more IBM Mainframe support, support for AMD64 (x86_64) processors (aka Opteron, Athlon64 and AthlonFX), changes to support options, integration of Stronghold Apache, and much more."
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Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3 Released More

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3 Released

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  • Benchmarks? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    How about some Sparc/Solaris vs Opteron/Solaris vs Opteron/RH3.0 benchmarks for server, database etc.

    • Re:Benchmarks? (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Groo Wanderer ( 180806 )
      As an homage to an old physics teacher:

      Sure, they are 12.73, 19.81, and 22.03 respectively. The hard part is figuring out the system specs I am quoting, and that will take a lot of testing, something I just don't have time for :(. If you do manage to figure it out, please post a reply though.

      -Charlie

  • GPL compliance... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by chill ( 34294 ) on Thursday October 23, 2003 @12:22AM (#7287737) Journal
    Since a discussion about RH's licenses with these seem to pop up every time they are mentioned on /., I thought I'd point out that source RPMs for RHEL 3 are located on Red Hat's FTP server. .iso images are not available.

    No one said they had to make it EASY...

    • They do not even give you .iso s to install with? So it is shiny new annoyingrpm linux. Give me a dual boot OS X and yellow dog linux system any day of the week. Actually if you give me a system at all, that works too...

    • CheapBytes (Score:3, Informative)

      by DaveAtFraud ( 460127 )
      I just zapped an e-mail to the folks at CheapBytes [cheapbytes.com] to see if they plan to come out with a knock off version. They have been publishing ISOs under "Pink Tie Linux" which just remove the official Red Hat logo, etc. They don't have to make it easy but someone else may be able to make it cheap.

      I can guarantee you that you won't get support but it will be interesting to see how Red Hat goes about publishing updates since I somehow don't see some of their larger customers downloading and compiling source code

    • People's complaints with RHAT's GPL compliance doesn't have anything to do with providing the source. It has to do with the bundling of RHEL with support contracts. The support contract restricts how many servers you can install RHEL on at once. By bundling RHEL with a support contract that restricts redistribution, RHEL itself violates the GPL.

      • Re:GPL compliance... (Score:2, Insightful)

        by b17bmbr ( 608864 )
        By bundling RHEL with a support contract that restricts redistribution, RHEL itself violates the GPL.

        if RHEL is 100% GPL, then it would be, but, if RH is selling non-GPL stuff in there as well, then no it isn't. this would be configf tool that write the /etc/... files, or it could be monitoring software, or even there freakin graphics. i might be wrong here, but part of the deal is their red carpet service, for each server. thus, you are limited to how many servers can be updated. it's not just mak
      • For one, RHEL is not GPL. Many of the individual packages are ofcourse.
        Redhat can do mostly whatever they want(as long as they provides the source of the GPL'd programs) on their work. Their work is that they've put together a distro, made it a "product" etc. Just because there is GPL software in it , doesn't mean GPL can "override" that license redhat stamps on the distro. (Please read the GPL)
      • No they aren't, they say

        You have a support contract for *n* servers. If you install this software on more than *n* servers then your support contract is invalidated and all of your servers will be unsupported.

        This doesn't not restrict your ability to redistributed the software, it does restrict your ability to redistribute the software and remain supported.

      • No. They in no way whatsoever restrict your right to use the GPL. However, a different product (the support) under a different kind of license is affected by it.

        To take another example: A warranty for your router will only be valid if you do not modify it yourself, and that is true even when the software in the router is GPL. They do not restrict your right to change the code, but the warranty will still be affected (nullified) by it.

  • Threading (Score:3, Funny)

    by herrvinny ( 698679 ) on Thursday October 23, 2003 @12:24AM (#7287750)
    "The scalability of the threading has gone from being able to support 1,200 to 32,000 threads. The impact on Java is just amazing," said Brian Stevens, vice president of operating system development at Red Hat. "That was probably the most significant engineering effort and the most profound impact on customers."

    Excellent. Multiple concurrent downloads of lots and lots of pictures, if you know what I mean....
    • Excellent. Multiple concurrent downloads of lots and lots of pictures, if you know what I mean....

      Actually, the fastest way to distribute static content does not use threads that much, if at all. It's a simple select loop. See Twisted [twistedmatrix.com].

      Or were you talking about RHEL WS and *downloading* the pr0n, instead of serving it? :-)

  • Redhat is good for business (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Dancin_Santa ( 265275 ) <DancinSanta@gmail.com> on Thursday October 23, 2003 @12:24AM (#7287752) Journal
    I don't mean to sound like some astroturfer, but RedHat has definitely brought Linux to the fore of server operating systems.

    With the rapid decline of AIX and Solaris, Win2K and RedHat Linux are making steady gains in the server market.

    What's more, with Linux you don't need to have a server farm like NT requires, so in the long run you save your company money by choosing to go with RedHat.

    • Re:Redhat is good for business (Score:4, Insightful)

      by zerocool^ ( 112121 ) on Thursday October 23, 2003 @09:05AM (#7289519) Homepage Journal
      I don't mean to sound like some astroturfer, but RedHat has definitely brought Linux to the fore of server operating systems.

      I'm with you as far as this goes.

      With the rapid decline of AIX and Solaris, Win2K and RedHat Linux are making steady gains in the server market.

      Ok, I can still agree with that. When most people think linux, they think redhat linux.

      What's more, with Linux you don't need to have a server farm like NT requires, so in the long run you save your company money by choosing to go with RedHat.

      This is where your post breaks down. Redhat is DAMNED EXPENSIVE. The server stuff is like $699 for even the cheapest variety, and that's with limited support (which is what I thought you were paying for).
      Of course, this was no big deal when you were content to do your own tech support. HOWEVER, now, they're not even supporting their own stuff!

      I remember, does anyone else remember, when Microsoft stopped supporting windows 95 in 2000? That caused a big stir in the slashdot community about all those millions of computers out there still running windows 95 who are going to have no support! Well, I advise you to take a look at the end-of-the-line dates [redhat.com] for RedHat. Redhat 8 was release, what, about a year ago? Mabey 14 months? And it's end of the line is December 31st of this year?

      See, another problem that's going to hit redhat is that, until now, they had planned on releasing a free product called redhat and a pay-for-support-in-order-to-get-the-CD's product, also called redhat (enterprise). But, the way I understand it now, it's looking like the enterprise product is going to be called redhat and the free one is going to be called something else (fedora?). Well, that's just great for redhat, but what about me? I'm in the webhosting business. What do I say when customers call and ask about the $119/month dedicated server? Does it come with redhat? And I have to tell them No, becuase it quite simply costs too much. In fact, sir, it's more expensive that windows server 2003, if all you want to do is webhosting.

      Redhat is the sleaze of the Linux community. They are the windows of linux. They have come into the business and made a name for themselves by making a great product, regardless of it's cost. But, then, they got greedy. It's been a while since they put out a good version of RedHat (7.3 being the last useable one for a server platform), and now, in order to get the stuff that actually works, they expect you to pay not $100, but $1499 [redhat.com]??

      But, we can't jump ship from redhat because that's what everyone wants. When you think linux, you think redhat. So, they'll manage to squeek by for another few years selling a product that they used to give away, because they've got people hooked on the name.

      Just because it brought linux into the public eye doesn't mean it's out to pet your dog and buy you christmas presents.

      ~Will

      • I remember, does anyone else remember, when Microsoft stopped supporting windows 95 in 2000? That caused a big stir in the slashdot community about all those millions of computers out there still running windows 95 who are going to have no support! Well, I advise you to take a look at the end-of-the-line dates [redhat.com] for RedHat. Redhat 8 was release, what, about a year ago? Mabey 14 months? And it's end of the line is December 31st of this year?

        You are confused. RH Advanced Server does not have a s

      • Last I checked, every last line of code in RHEL 3.0 was GPLed, and the SRPMs are downloadable from redhat.com.

        Don't want to pay RedHat's support prices? Download the SRPMs, compile them, roll your own distro. (CheapBytes or someone like them will inevitably do this for you, for a nominal cost.) Or hell, just borrow the ISO from someone with a RHEL license and make a copy: it's quite legal.

        If you really are running a webhosting business, stop bitching and start calling your redhat salesrep. There's the
      • Look, mate.

        There are a couple of different sorts of people that might use Linux. The first are the developers, the techies. They're the ones that built GNU/Linux. A Linux company that offends these as a group does so at their own peril. A couple of companies tried cashing in on these. No good. Not enough money here, too much resistance, and it's like biting the hand that feeds you. Red Hat hasn't irritated these at all. As a matter of fact, it tends to coddle them. RH expanded the range of package

  • Red Hat's movin' on up (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Qweezle ( 681365 ) on Thursday October 23, 2003 @12:30AM (#7287780) Journal
    Let me tell you; I own stock in Red Hat, I've researched their business strategies fervently...and these people know what they are doing with open source software. Red Hat posted a profit of 240,000 for the last quarter, the first profit EVER for a company mainly based on open-source software. Red Hat is moving forward, and fast, and there is no denying that soon, very soon, they could destroy Microsoft's server market share, and possibly kill poor ol' Sun Micrososystems(who I also own stock in). Red Hat, by the way, is a steal at its current 12.81 price, but I got in at 10.70. ;-)
    • Yahoo runs on open source (FeeBSD, perl, php, apache) and their 'product' is of course open source - you can view the source of any html file and you may set your robot to crawling their site.

      They may not produce open source but they use it throughout to produce their revenues and support it (they employ some FreeBSD team members).

      • You're a crack smoking moron or charitably a troll (Score:4, Insightful)

        by abulafia ( 7826 ) on Thursday October 23, 2003 @01:44AM (#7288107)
        Who cares what a company runs? Redhat could compile under MSVC++*, and they'd be different than Yahoo. Either you're a troll or you simply don't get the difference between companies who build software and companies that offer services. Given your last sentence, I think you're a troll, but I'm trying to be nice.

        *That would be a problem in a different sort of way (and of course would not work), but doesn't detract to the point I'm making, which is that there is a difference between offering software which is licensed under terms considered free, and offering services using free software, which can be licesnsed any which way, modulo some restrictions with some licenses.

        More crack, anyone? I've got a great patent-vs-trademark discussion over here...

    • I've researched their business strategies fervently...and these people know what they are doing with open source software.

      Except for their limiting x86-64 support to their enterprise version and not including it in the-version-that-follows-9 (codenamed Severn), which has me (a paid-up RHN subscriber) looking at SuSE 9. Yeah, because Linux geeks just aren't going to be interested in playing with shiny new toys like the Athlon 64 or multiprocessor Opteron machines...

      (No, I don't have one. Yet. Been busy
      • x86-64 on workstations is a lot more work because you have to have 32-bit compatibility because you're more likely to want to run an app that can't be recompiled for the 64-bit target. On the server side they just say "we don't support 32-bit binaries" and don't worry about it.
    • Well, about 3 threads up threads up there is a nice conversation about how you can download the enterprise rpms for free (compliance with GPL). Whats interesting is that the thread typically devolves into a discussion on how they are "legally" (sorry guys it aint legal) pirate the RHE cds. So, with friends like these, who needs enemies.

      If Redhat stays afloat it will be because geeks talk their managers into using linux for the price and then over the course of years, Redhat slowly starts attaching more and
    • bah you wannabe redhat supporters.

      I bought the bulk of my redhat when they were in the crapper in early 2001. the other part I bought at the IPO. now I'm back to breraking even.

      But, I'm leery about their future plans. the EULA for their products is getting scummy. and I'm betting that within 2 years they will release something that will require per-seat licensing.

      as each day goes by I keep thinking of dumping my redhat stock because they keep heading in the direction that I dont want to be a part of.

      I u

  • Gee... (Score:2, Insightful)

    by buddha42 ( 539539 )
    I didn't realize how cheap WS is. I was all set to give up on my RH after my trusty 7.3 w/up2date was end-of-lifed. But for $179 to get a distro with that much spit and polish.. I might just get it for my home gateway/webserver/etc box.

  • 3 different versions (Score:5, Informative)

    by Dreadlord ( 671979 ) on Thursday October 23, 2003 @12:34AM (#7287800) Journal
    which is Red Hat's shiny new 'enterprise' version of Linux
    Actually, there are three versions of Red Hat Enterprise, WS [redhat.com], ES [redhat.com], and AS [redhat.com], WS is supposed to be a desktop OS, while AS is the most advanced version, WS price starts at 179$, and AS price at 1499$ for the Intel x86 platform.
    • I run 4 AS 2.1 systems right now. Worth the cash, and no problems with them outside of user-error. They run strong, and update very easily. Up2date works about as well as one could want minus the software availability. Yes, you can get a whole lot more via Apt-Get than up2date, but at least I know the up2date stuff isn't gonna bork up my box.

      Granted, if you HAVE had up2date bork the system, what'd you install that did it? I'd be curious to see where folks have had problems with that.
  • ... and no free support either.
    • True, it's not free (as in beer), but it is Free (as in speech), and that is what is important. As for support, that depends on which product you're buying - the AS version always comes with support, the ES and WS versions have support as "optional", depending on whether you want to pay more or not. Sounds like a good deal to me...

  • No software death here (Score:5, Interesting)

    by 693746 ( 693746 ) on Thursday October 23, 2003 @12:46AM (#7287857) Homepage
    It's interesting that while Microsoft is praising their new products at the expense of their old ones [washingtonpost.com], Red Hat is still pimping their old Enterprise Linux, version 2.1, even after they've rolled out a shiny new offering. From the RHEL 2.1 page [redhat.com], which is linked directly off of the RHEL 3 [redhat.com] page:
    While version 3 provides many compelling new features, some customers will wish to continue to use version 2.1.
    And then they go on to detail three reasons [redhat.com] why you would want to stick with the old version!

    A company offering an honest assessment of their new product offerings? What's going on? Is it April already?
    • It doesn't suprise me. Here's a snippet from the x86 installation page linked from the "notes" page, about how installation can be run from a VNC client (which is pretty cool in of itself, but I digress):

      The following examples show the how the boot-time option is specified for standard and non-standard ports:

      linux vnc vncconnect=pigdog.example.com

      linux vnc vncconnect=pigdog.example.com:27910

      A server named "pigdog". Pigdog! "Sorry boss, be back in the meeting in 5 minutes - I have to go check my cron
    • Why not sell 2.1 instead of 3? If you buy 2.1, there's a chance you'll upgrade to 3 later. Furthermore, 2.1 has been tested and used more (since it's been around longer). If the primary source of purchases is new systems or conversions from other OSes, there's no reason to try to get people to leave the older version, unless it's hard to support.
    • Excellent point. On the other hand, many people have problems with Red Hat dropping their support for older versions of their desktop OS quickly (such as, soon the 7.x series will no longer be supported, and I believe 6.x was dropped recently).

      Obviously, it's a balancing act, however, and I think Red Hat is playing it right. They support what is reasonable and feasable for them. No one wants to be forced to upgrade every year, and that is a major counterpoint to M$'s model. Still, Red Hat can't afford
      • Can you take your 1958 Chevy to a Chevy dealer?

        Yes dammit! yes!

        Don't try to compare things that were not meant to be. Of course you can bring your 1958 Chevy to a Chevy dealer. Granted, depending on your dealer, you'll get laugh at, but my guess is that most of them will at least redirect you to a more proper place, if they don't take it themselves.

        I cannot say the same with my old Amstrad PC1512.
        • Touche. My comment was brief and the obvious reaction is to see apples-to-oranges comparison, and this is a valid argument. However, this is the point I intended to make: I understand that cars and computers are not valid to compare directly, but rather I tried to show how the computer world is different and unique. If cars improved at the same rate of computers, they would be free, run on no gas, and go so fast they'd experience brownian motion. The acceleration curve of computational improvements is s
      • Yup. The dealer will ogle it for an hour, tell you what might be wrong, and then send you to the gear-head shop down the road. Had more than one dealer do the work for free on my '77 Camaro tho.. They thought it looked nice up on the lift, and it was just a part swap, so.

        Mercedes will mostly service their own even that far back, as will Jaguar. Had Mercedes tell me that they couldn't service the car locally, but would be more than happy to split the cost of sending it to Chicago where the dealer that still
    • And then they go on to detail three reasons why you would want to stick with the old version!

      A company offering an honest assessment of their new product offerings? What's going on? Is it April already?

      Well, RHEL is sold as a subscription service, at a set price per year. So, if a customer is happy with 2.1, there's no financial motivation for Red Hat to try to push them up to 3.0

      TheFrood

  • Do you HAVE to pay the $149...legally that is? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by leereyno ( 32197 ) on Thursday October 23, 2003 @01:13AM (#7287993) Homepage Journal
    Ok so Redhat is charging $149 for their spiffy new version of Linux. Fine. Unlike some I'm not under the influence of mind-altering ideologies. But that doesn't mean that I want to pay $149 for EVERY system I install it on. I'm THE Linux support for ASU's Fulton school of engineering, and we've got almost two hundred systems (that I know of) running one version of Linux or another. I'm the person who has to keep these systems running, and that means it's my job to keep them up to date and make sure they're running a version of Linux that we can expect to see vendor supplied patches and security fixes for. Lets just say I'm not happy about the fact that after the end of the year I'll have to create my own update RPM's whenever a remote vulnerability is found in some package or another. And now I find that even updates to RH 9 are going to end in April of 2004. What does this mean for the school? Either we move over to the new enterprise version, or we start looking real hard at Mandrake, SuSe, etc.

    Which brings me back to my original question. Does anyone know if there are non-GPL'd components included in the new Enterprise version and if so what they are? I'm not going to go around installing proprietary for $$$$ software on people's system illegally, and I'm not going to be able to ask them to pony up $149 per copy when the copy of Redhat the system is already running didn't cost them a dime. So if anyone knows anything, even rumors, I'd really like to know. If I can surgically remove the proprietary components from the system I will as long as they are not critical to its operation. Of course if Redhat is simply charging $149 for the service of being able to download their distro and aren't looking to prevent you from installing it on as many systems as you'd like (sans support obviously), then I'll be more than happy to pay the money to get those ISO images. I've never contacted them for support yet, so why should I need to start?

    Lee
    • The problem is not with non-GPL components, it's the fact that they will not sell you RHEL without a support contract. The support contract says, among other things, that you will not install the software on more than one machine. Total violation of the GPL. This has been brought up before and people have said that it is just the terms of the support contract that will be cancelled if the software is installed on more than one machine. However, this is not in the language of the agreement.
      • So in other words if I never buy a copy of RH but procure it in some other way then I am not bound by the terms of the support contract since I never agreed to it?

        I'm no lawywer but it sure sounds that way to me.

        I'm also sure that there are provisions in their contract preventing you from redistributing the distro, but once again if I don't buy a copy then I'm not bound by that contract in that regard either. Of course that still leaves the non-opensource OS components, but I'm sure I can extract them fr
        • So in other words if I never buy a copy of RH but procure it in some other way then I am not bound by the terms of the support contract since I never agreed to it?

          Yup, that's about the size of it.

          The issue is that if you *do* buy a copy, unless you let all your subscriptions lapse (ie. never buy another one for a 1-year period), you're obligated to buy a support contract for any additional copies, no matter how they're procured. We made that mistake (of buying the first copy, because we needed it *right
          • So install RH9 on the other machines and replace key RPMs with RHEL's. The support is only binding on RHEL installations, right?

            With yum now being part of Fedora, creating your own set of update RPMs and having the desktops automatically pulling them is a piece of cake.

            That being said, I do understand Red Hat's motivation, and were I to be in the position of a high-availability sysadmin I'd probably recommend forking up for RHEL. It's not for everyone, true.

    • Re:Do you HAVE to pay the $149...legally that is? (Score:5, Informative)

      by Vellmont ( 569020 ) on Thursday October 23, 2003 @01:36AM (#7288080) Homepage

      Of course if Redhat is simply charging $149 for the service of being able to download their distro and aren't looking to prevent you from installing it on as many systems as you'd like (sans support obviously), then I'll be more than happy to pay the money to get those ISO images
      This is the question I had. The sales guy on the phone said this is exactly what they're doing. It's still open source software, so you can install it on as many machines as you want, but you can't buy one support contract and install the updates on 100 machines. They still have to provide the source for the updates of course. So you could DL each source update RPM and compile it yourself.

      I'd encourage you to call them though. For 100 machines they may have a better option for you (they also have some kind of satelite service where you can sort of create your own distribution and updates).
      • It'd be nice if someone would download the SRPMS, build the RPMs and the ISO images, and provide update servers, for people who might pay a small amount for that but don't want to pay $$$ for support.

        Danny.

        • For those not wanting to subscribe to RHN for the standard RH distributions, there has always been apt4rpm [sourceforge.net]. Does this exist for RHEL as well?

          Something like a subscription is better though because it proactively warns you of updates - with apt4rpm you have to seek it out yourself. There is also the problem that unlike RHN (or the similar for enterprises) patches aren't checked so much for compatability with other patches.

          • If people REALLY need some sort of automated update feature I'll throw out the home-grown update scripts that we use at ASU, even if they are an ugly hack because I'd never written a shell script of any kind when I started.

            The truth is that anyone who knows how to mount an NFS share and run rpm -F can update their system provided that they have updates to work from, which are themselves easy to obtain from lots of mirrors using wget. Throw this together into a shell script and you've got the basis for wha
      • The satellite server is unbelievably expensive. They were reworking the pricing somewhat when I purchased a bunch of enterprise RHN licenses awhile back so it may be better now, but the price tag was a little breath taking considering the fact even with the satellite service you still have to pay the per server per year enterprise cost, with no discount.
    • My recommendation to keep RedHat 9 going past it's end of life is to simply get the GPL'd rpms for RHEL for the vital packages and install them. Either that or patch rh9 using rh10 (or whatever) sources.

    • a few applicable points from the GPL (Score:5, Informative)

      by xenotrout ( 680453 ) on Thursday October 23, 2003 @02:06AM (#7288176) Homepage Journal
      GPL'd software in a proprietary system: Free and non-free parts of a system must be clearly distinguished. [fsf.org]
      If people were to distribute GPL-covered software calling it "part of" a system that users know is partly proprietary, users might be uncertain of their rights regarding the GPL-covered software. But if they know that what they have received is a free program plus another program, side by side, their rights will be clear.
      Can GPL'd software require a per-user/per-machine price? No. [fsf.org]
      The GPL is a free software license, and therefore it permits people to use and even redistribute the software without being required to pay anyone a fee for doing so.
      It seems to me that if installing RedHat on multiple systems (making a "good faith" effort to not include proprietary software) is copyright infringement, that's RedHat's fault, and they should be legally responsible if anyone tries to collect.
      • No, RedHat does NOT prevent you from installing the GPL'ed programs
        on as many boxes as you like. They don't do that, and they cannot, as you explained. However they CAN prevent you from installing the Distribution as a whole. There is a big diffrence between RHEL the product/distros, and the indivdual packages within it.
      • And as another point, when the GPL talks about "incorporate GPL-covered software in a proprietary system" they mean binaries that are linked(as in /usr/bin/ld) with properitary code. A GPL'ed program shipping as part of a distribuion does not fall under this.(If it did, it would mean _every_ other piece of the distro would be GPL'ed, there are already many opensource packages in every distro that's not GPL compliant. It would be a mess if it worked that way ;)
        Read the GPL.
    • Does anyone know if there are non-GPL'd components included in the new Enterprise version and if so what they are?

      I don't know. But it should be easy to find out by anyone with access to the .rpm files for that distribution. May I suggest a few commands to use:
      rpm -q --qf '%{LICENSE}\n' -p *.rpm | sort | uniq -c
      rpm -q --qf '%{LICENSE}\t%{name}-%{version}-%{release}.%{arch} .rpm\n' -p *.rpm | sort
      • rpm -q --qf '%{LICENSE}\t%{name}-%{version}-%{release}.%{arch } .rpm\n' -p *.rpm | sort

        That is not what I wrote /. messed it up. Probably it is impossible to write it correctly on slashdot as it will always insert spaces in places where it shouldn't be. Since I am already writing another comment I might as well add, another command you could use. You can of course also query installed packages rather than querying the .rpm files. To query about license on all installed packages you could use:

        rpm -qa -

    • And now I find that even updates to RH 9 are going to end in April of 2004.

      What the hell? I thought they were going to support two revs of each release. 10 isn't even out yet. Or has Fedora scrwed the pooch on that old plan already? Will you be able to buy RHN updates for Fedora?

  • $792 for AMD64 support... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by dameron ( 307970 ) on Thursday October 23, 2003 @01:35AM (#7288076)
    Ouch!

    And that's for their workstation configuration...

    $179 for the x86 version.

    -dameron

  • Heavy premiums for AMD64 support (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Alea ( 122080 ) on Thursday October 23, 2003 @01:38AM (#7288086)
    The prices on the AMD64 versions are nutty. I understand they have to recoup development costs for the new architecture and that they only expect rich businesses to use it on expensive servers, but I'm testing Opteron for research purposes at a university. There's no way we can afford that in the long haul.

    Anyone know if AMD64 support is expected for Fedora? Or what cheaper AMD64 distributions are around? Do they work? The actual details on AMD64 support on distributions' sites are very sketchy.
    • Several influential members in the Fedora team are interested in working on development of Fedora AMD64. Please join fedora-devel-list and join is if you are interested too.
    • To see what I mean about the premium pricing, consult the following link. x86 and AMD versions are NOT the same price.

      RHEL 3 Pricing [redhat.com]
    • Not to get all tin-foil-hat here, but might Intel's equity investment in Red Hat a while back have something to do with RH's AMD64 pricing? RH has to have a x86-64 offering, it'd be suicidal not to, but setting the price equal to the Itanic version might keep Intel happy, even though there's no way the x86-64 version could require anywhere near the resources to develop or support as the Itanic version, not to mention the fact that the x86-64 platform has already well outsold the Itanic (bigger customer bas
  • Anyone considering just taking their kick-ass kernel and installing it on a free Linux variant? It's GPL so it would be 100% legal, anyway... or would you need to take some other stuff like their glibc also?

    Mr. Debian, are you listening? This might be a good way to accelerate the ISV verification process... they will verify their projects with RHEL, so if you have the same kernel, same glibc etc., you could quite easily persuade them to verify their product on *your* distro also.
  • Hah! Debian has been on version 3 for ages! ;-)
  • There's another article [com.com] discussing this release and they bring up an interesting issue:

    "At the same time Red Hat created the Enterprise Linux line, which changes slowly so hardware and software companies have time to adjust to changes and certify their products, it has given more free reign to its other version, now called Fedora, which is available for free. Because Red Hat doesn't have to worry about Fedora certification, support or retail sales, the company can rapidly move new technology into it so ne

  • Time Warp (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Per Wigren ( 5315 ) on Thursday October 23, 2003 @03:03AM (#7288342) Homepage
    We're using RH ES 2.1 for a few servers at work (a big hospital in Sweden).. Most servers are still HPUX and NT4 but we're slowly (too slowly IMHO) migrating to Linux. I had been praising Linux for a LONG time when we finally got our first copy of RH ES to install on a production-server. It was a big surprise for me.. I have been using Linux since 1996. Started with RH 4.2, then Debian and have been running Gentoo for little more than 2 years now.

    RH ES 2.1 was like a time warp back to the 90s. Only ext2/3 filesystems. Where the hell is LVM?? It was hard to convince my fellow coworkers (HPUX and Solaris fanatics) how a Unix without LVM can be considered "enterprise"... But eventually I convinced then. :) We now have 3 production servers running RH ES2.1 (two running webservices with apache+tomcat, one running Sybase).

    We've had a lot of problems with them though.. They start to become SLOOOOW after a few days of uptime under load.. Load avg is 0.0 to 0.1, cpu is 99% idle, but they are so slow it takes a good minute or two just to start "top". I think I tracked the problem down to the cciss-driver and upgrading to the latest kernel (e.27) seemed to fix the problem somewhat (still slow but not nearly as slow as when running e.16).
    I really hope ES3.0 will fix our problems! Otherwise my dream of someday running Linux on all of our servers just went down the drain because I don't think that neither management or my fellow coworkers will let me install another distribution (oh no! not ANOTHER set of commands/configfile-system to learn!)
    • Did you contact Red Hat support withyour issues? I would think they would have helped you through your issues. Where did you buyyour support contract?

      Do you apply the patches you get from Red Hat Network regularly?
    • We where having problems as well with memory management. The kernel would never free cached memory so the box would slow to a crawl and start swapping madly. I am sure it was a bug in kswapd and this is fixed nicely in the later kernels above .18 . One call to RH gave me that answer.

  • ISO download (Score:2, Informative)

    by werewolf ( 32466 )
    You can download the ISOs from Red Hat Network if you have purchased an earlier version of Red Hat Enterprise Linux.
  • It really sucks for educational institutions that are strapped for cash. I can get Windows 2003 server under our educational select program for under $100 per server.

    Sigh...

    • $100 per server huh? wouldn't you rather pay $179 and install it on 500 servers? I'm sure smart edu guys can figure out how to make thier own updates server and download updates from thier $179 account.
      • The service contract you have to buy to get the first copy prohibits you from doing that. Besides, there are a lot of things I'd love to do but my techs and I don't have the time to do them. The academic environment can be quite chaotic at time. For example, try to standardize on something to reduce support costs and faculty scream we are infringing on academic freedoms.
  • So this means we will get even more lamers in IRC asking for "Linux version 3". I wonder how they plan to explain moving from Linux 9 to Linux 3, shrug.

    (troll? yes ma'am)

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