Red Hat released the beta for their upcoming Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) line. The release is tagged release 2.95, Taroon. The next official release will probably be called RHEL release 3 (as usual, Red Hat does not confirm their upcoming release version and date).
0. Introduction
The beta comes in two flavours.
– RHEL release 2.95 AS for server and clustering solution
– RHEL release 2.95 WS for workstation
The current production release, which is RHEL release 2.1 has 3 different flavours, namely the RHEL AS for clustering, RHEL ES for enterprise server and RHEL WS for workstation. Red Hat release notes highlighted that the ES is similar to the AS and thus the beta comes in 2 flavours.
In order to test the RHEL AS, 3 ISOs are required.
– taroon-i386-as-disc1.iso
– taroon-i386-disc2.iso
– taroon-i386-disc3.iso
The second and third iso are common to both AS and WS while the first iso image for the RHEL WS is taroon-i386-ws-disc1.iso
Download all 3 iso images, burn it, put in the first CD and the installation starts. This review is on RHEL release 2.95 AS, ia32 platform.
The hardware used for this review is as below:
– Intel Celeron 1GHz, Asus CUSI/FX, 256MB SDRAM
– Western Digital 40GB IDE harddisk, SONY IDE CD/RW drive
To run the clustering solution of RHEL AS, the hardware requirements are very strict. Basically you will need
– Two servers, processors, memory etc.. 🙂
– Four NICs on two servers (two for external ethernet connections, two for internal ethernet heartbeat).
– A null Serial cable for serial heartbeat.
– A power switch which enables Shoot The Other Node In The Head (STONITH).
– Local storage to host the AS installation.
– Fibre Channel Host Base Adaptor (HBA) on both server.
– A shared storage, preferably Fibre Channel share storage to store all shared files.
Check the RHEL AS Installation Guide, the hardware requirements are detailed down to the model number. 🙂
As you can see, the testing platform is no where near the recommended hardware requirement, thus I did not test the clustering solution.
1. Installation
The installation routine is very similar to Red Hat Linux 9 (RHL 9), with the nice GUI and similar setup screens. Just configure as you would for a normal Red Hat Linux installation. However, there are some new features as opposed to the AS 2.1 installation
– You will be asked for root password during the installation, but not the option to create new users. User creation will be done during the firstboot screen when the server boots for the first time
– The ability to create LVM volume during installation
Installation is pretty straight forward, with the package selection screen similar to what is in RHL 9. There is an extra package group call the Red Hat Enterprise Linux which contains 5 packages.
– clumanager, which is the High Availability (HA) clustering solution.
– piranha, clustering solution based on Linux Virtual Server (LVS).
– redhat-config-cluster, the new GUI to configure HA clustering.
– redhat-config-netboot, GUI to configure diskless environment and network installations.
– tux, the khttpd server.
Note that if you are interested in testing the Taroon using VMWare Workstation V4, the BusLogic SCSI driver had been taken out from the default installation kernel. You would need to configure an IDE virtual disk to perform the test.
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.
I thought you had to pay for RHEL. Why give away a preview like this?
Is RedHat expecting people like me to QA and recommend their commercial products? Or are they considering changing their EULA and licensing for RHEL?
I would support the product if I could use it like GPL/GNU software. If the EULA says otherwise then I won’t support or recommend the product. Its up to RedHat. I’m sure their marketting department can pull in many more profitable sales than my opinion.
I read this article on integerknowledge.com last week. I know the person posting it was the same person but why copy the article… why not just link to it?
Because *he* SENT it to us for publication in the form of an attachment full with screenshots and all! He did not say anything about being published elsewhere!
We have strict rules regarding original longer articles on osnews, only original content is allowed to be published by third party authors. I will be emailing him ASAP. From our article style guide: http://www.osnews.com/story.php?news_id=168
“Articles submitted and published on OSNews are not to be re-published elsewhere, except maybe in translation cases to another languages (to be decided on case by case basis).”
It’s been published here: http://www.integerknowledge.com/taroon.htm
Yes, I now know. I went to their web site and saw it. I already emailed the author asking for an explanation. He did not tell us anything about this when he sent us the email with the attachment for publication.
It is not too bad though, as the author has the copyright, and he is free to send it for re-publication. If we knew it was published elsewhere we would not post it, but now it is live, plus the guy has the copyright and he can decide where to submit it, so it is not all that bad.
I would support the product if I could use it like GPL/GNU software.
You can use it as GPL/GNU software. All improvements are gpl’ed and available as source as specified by the gpl. They aren’t obliged to give binaries. In fact they aren’t even obliged to give you the source if you haven’t purchased the product, but they do so anyway (isn’t that nice 🙂 )
They aren’t obliged to give binaries.
That’s why I go out of my way to promote and recommend companies that do. I also offer my developement skills and understanding of *nix systems to help QA their products and recommend changes to make them play nice with corporate networks. I work to get the job done not to make someone rich.
… and I thought SuSE only is so stupid to make a (user-level) distribution with a beta compiler (gcc3.3pre)
RH comes with a f* patched kernel too (ntpl threating)
Looks more like a patched horrorshow than an enterprise … distribution????
PS: Slack is my fav 🙂 … SuSE 8.2 comes next for users desktop!
Yes, I find it also shocking that they use beta software in a release that is clearly labeled as “beta”
if i remember right it has been linked to (from osnews) back then
Do you think its just a _BETA_ thingie? that all those guys who work hard at Red Hat dont do anything with their time?
You pay for features… got it?
RH comes with a f* patched kernel too (ntpl threating)..
Definetly, im running taroon and im having a lot of problems with most applications..
If I boot with other kernel, I cannot get X to work..
Seems they configured X with ntpl support or sth..lots of pain in the a$$..
> Yes, I find it also shocking that they use beta
> software in a release that is clearly labeled as “beta”
Yes, you’re right *now*. But I find it shocking that RH will be using this beta software (as in RH9.0) in production too although RH know of this problems (nptl in kernel).
Soon, when RH Enterprise is final you see what’s wrong:
ntpl for a 2.4 when it’s officially in kernel-2.6 first and gcc-ssa when it’s officially in gcc-3.4 first!
Needed software (for me) doesn’t work and the software developer states, that I don’t should use a f* patched distro.
I think he’s (the software developer) right on it’s statement!
hi all,
First off, my apologies for all this double submission problem, allow me to explain how it happen and hopefully retain some karma. 🙂
I seeked permission when I submitted the article to OSNews.com and my superior knew what I was doing. When the article did not appear (around 28th Aug), my boss asked if it can be published on the company website. I thought I gotten a small rejection, and agreed, thus it appeared on the company website before OSNews.com published it.
In reality, I submitted it first to OSNews.com when I completed it and cleared it with my company legal.
OSNews.com is my favourite website for information, and I have every intention to see it grow and grow!
regards,
boon kiat
Well, this is not entirely true. The article was submitted as a normal submission for the integerknowledge.com site on Aug 27th, so that means that it was up and running there on or before August 27th. I was on vacations so I didn’t have any knowledge about its already post on osnews about it: http://www.osnews.com/story.php?news_id=4349 as a simple linked story.
We received your email and attachment with the full article on Sunday, 31st of August, not before. And we do not generally post big articles on holidays (this Monday was a holiday in USA) or weekends, only on normal weekdays. This is why your article went live here on Tuesday and not on Sunday for example. But in any rate I received your email after Aug 28th.
A possibility is that your email got stack in the osnews-crew mailing list for authorization just because it was a big email (we do not allow huge attachments) and that it got authorized too late, dunno.
gcc 3.2.3 is the default compiler. We just include gcc-ssa for new Java work that makes Eclipse build as a native application, and new memory debugging funtionality called Mudflap.
We clearly ARE NOT using a beta build of the compiler.
With regard to NPTL, we’ve done extensive work and the majority of development on this technology. Scalable, sustainable POSIX threads are a demand of the Enterprise market. NPTL has already appeared in Red Hat Linux 9. Yes, there were some bugs at that time which have since been fixed. We’re confidant that this is a rock solid implementation for applications which make correct use of POSIX threads. For those applications which depend on specific (broken) behavior of the legacy LinuxThreads POSIX threads implementation, we include this as well with an easy environment variable to switch between the two.
Hi guys can you help me out? I am trying to install Linux tarron beta (AS version) but when I am prompted for the 2nd cd it says that it is not a valid AS cd. I downloaded the images from Red Hat’s site. Thanx