On Tue, 2004-01-13 at 08:52, Jay Daniels wrote: > I have a dual xeon server and the only OS that worked out of the box was > RedHat 9.0 (aka shrike)! XP even bombed out detecting hardware, it seems > to be the raid controller. The Microsoft site says install a patch, but I > can't install anything and don't know much about XP anyway - and for good > reason. > > Slackware was slower than previous versions > SaX bug prevented SaX from running in SUSE pro(even from commandline) > Free Solaris 9 only has license and binary for one processor:( > Debian (woody) failed to dectect my raid controller and built in eth. > > RedHat 9.0 works, but I have other issue with RedHat the company... > > On my system OS choices are slim. I thought about purchasing a licensed > version of Solaris 9 with dual cpu support, but I'm not sure if it will > work, cost $295! > > I prefer Debian, but in this case, RedHat 9.0 worked out of the box on > this server. > > Sometimes you just have to use what works unless you want to spend days > patching and searching for fixes, including the MS Windows OS. > > I have not tested Debian (Sarge) yet. > > In early versions of redhat with kernel 2.2 and ipchains, it was simple to > create a firewall - just edit the firewall script (single file), uncomment > what you want to access from which network device. I find iptables very > confusing and understand why so-called secure Linux distributions still > use kernel 2.2 and ipchains. If it works why change. > > The problem: bugs and security problems force users to update as well as > hardware issues that require a newer kernel and patches. When it comes to > Linux distributions or any OS for that matter, I would like to see more > stable releases and less updates/errata. > > RedHat 4.2 was a killer distro given the state of GNU software at the > time, but from Hurricain to Shrike, Redhat seems to have released very > buggy software. I expect more from a commercial distribution like RedHat. > I was surprised that Shrike did not use the rieserfs, everyone seems to > agree that rieserfs is better on large partitions. Even slackware had > this option during setup. > > As far as upgrades or concerned, I never expected to be able to update > from, say Redhat 6.2/7.x to 9.0. Many users have tried this and failed. > With the Glib updates and software built on newer libraries, anyone should > understand this. > > With Fedora, it seems RedHat is dumping all these problems on the Linux > community. Question: if you are making money and you already have the > market on Linux Distros, why change everything? > > I just think the current changes at RedHat are bad for RedHat and the > Linux community. We don't need a more bugger distro. > > In my opinion, instead of purchasing RedHat's current retail products or > switching to Fedora, many users will probably switch distros or purchase > Solaris. > > Checking bad blocks is not the only thing Shrike is missing but it is one > of RedHat's best distros. --- your conclusion seems to be anecdotal surrounding a particular hardware choice. You are entitled to your opinions and seemingly have some comparative experience with other distributions. To enter the debate with you about the security of 2.2 kernels and ipchains vs. 2.4 kernels and iptables would only rehash that which has been covered endlessly. The fact that you admit to not understanding iptables pretty much gives the reason for your dismissal. To the large extent that you recommend not purchasing Red Hat's current retail products, there really isn't much to purchase 'retail' as Fedora is not sold retail, shrike is near EOL (no point in buying it at this stage), leaving their professional workstation and other EL offerings but not exactly common 'retail items.' But to offer longer maintenance periods, stable release and errata and upgrade paths, Red Hat offers the EL products - it is exactly what they are about. Granted they are not free but they would seem to be exactly what you are asking for. It seems that Red Hat has concluded that is what most network administrators are asking for and they have focused all of their efforts into that market. Craig -- Shrike-list mailing list Shrike-list@xxxxxxxxxx https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/shrike-list
