“Red Hat Linux is the most commercially popular distribution of Linux out there today, hands down. However, reviewing a new release of Red Hat can make any reviewer a little wary of what they might find this time around. Bill von Hagen has examined Red Hat’s latest release and has found some surprises, both good and, well, not so good.” Read the review at LinuxPlanet.
LinuxPlanet Examines Red Hat Linux 7.3
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli
I would rather read Linux reviews by sites that aren’t Linux-centric and have the thing approached more openly. I think they should not just be compared with other Linux distros but with OSs in general. What would be a good site for that? Arstechnica?
Kevin
And they’re usually like “Well, installation was easy and it comes with great productivity apps like StarOffice yada yada yada ….”, so most of the reviews read about the same.
What I want to see is a review where people actually attempt to really customize the UI, fire up some games with WineX, rip some MP3s, burn some CDs, instant messaging, web authoring, and all the other crap that most power users do, and have it written by somebody who has NOT been running Linux for the past 10 years
It is funny that you did not even read the article before posting that. At the conclusion page not everything is full of roses for the Red Hat 7.3 according to the author.
> What would be a good site for that? Arstechnica?
Or OSNews. But I am still waiting for the RH 7.3 disks to be sent over to me for a review. (Did you hear that David?)
What I was also going to say is that they have gotten Linux installations to a point where unless you’re running some really funky or bleeding edge hardware, installation is a snap. It’s only when you actually start trying to *use* it does the real test come. Go on the web and download the very latest version of Mozilla, Gaim/Everybuddy, XMMS, Xchat, etc … and then write about your experiences.
What I was also going to say is that they have gotten Linux installations to a point where unless you’re running some really funky or bleeding edge hardware, installation is a snap
I think this is in a large part due to the fact that the kernel and XFree are making very steady progress. After using dual-booting Mandrake for about a month I tried Gentoo and I got it installed in a couple hours (wasn’t too difficult, just time consuming) and even got all my hardware recognized without much hassle (had to recompile the kernel for network and sound and download alsa).
I’ve also been running the very latest version of Mozilla, Gaim, XMMS and Xchat and they all seem to work very well. The only problems I’ve experienced so far is that on occasion Window Maker seems to do something funky and requires a quick X restart.
Other than Mandrake I’ve never installed a linux system in my life. Although I’ve been using Solaris at school for a while. Now if I’ve been able to find everything so easy on a distribution such as Gentoo then I’d be suprised if it wasn’t downright dead simple on a system such as Redhat or Mandrake.
BTW I can’t say enough about how great Gentoo is. It takes a while to compile everything but the system boots up in like 20 seconds and is much faster and more stable than Mandrake.
Go on the web and download the very latest version of Mozilla, Gaim/Everybuddy, XMMS, Xchat, etc … and then write about your experiences.
My experience has been fine most of the time…until today. Evolution inbox got corrupted and there is no apparent way to repair it, and Grip won’t rip a CD. Having a bad Gnome day.
Overall, I prefer Linux/Gnome to Win2k when it is working. Too bad it just gets cranky…corrupted mailboxes, print jobs that start spewing garbage in the middle, Sawfish Control Center that won’t completely work, etc. I don’t have these problems in Windows.
Unlike [/i]all[/i] LinuxPlanet articles where you can practically find out what happen in the past few days of the authords live, which most of the time take up half of the article, his went straight to the point. Plus, he has a prespective of a non-Linux user (using the wrong distro), not some Linux geek comparing it with another distribution, or just listing down the features (that could be right at home at redhat.com). I can’t want for Eugenia’s review.
Overall, I prefer Linux/Gnome to Win2k when it is working. Too bad it just gets cranky…corrupted mailboxes, print jobs that start spewing garbage in the middle, Sawfish Control Center that won’t completely work, etc. I don’t have these problems in Windows.
Never had a print problem since I moved to KDE 3.0. Never had a problem with mail clients since I use Yahoo!…
as a experienced Linux user i can say Redhat is for the most part a great distro, but anymore with any distro i do only custom installs and not letting KDE or Gnome install because they both seem a little buggy & a bit of a resource hog, especially KDE-3.0 that is included with Redhat7.3, so if anyone is dissatified with KDE-3.0 that is included with Redhat7.3 try this, select “custom install” uncheck Gnome/ and leave KDE uncheced too, and do not forget to put a checkmark in “Select Individual packages” then select WindowMaker, but once installed for some stupid reason twm is the default WM, simple- in the first terminal that opens type in “switchdesk WindowMaker” and logoff and logon the reason i do this is because WindowMaker uses much less resources and is much more lighter and more stable and in the preferences you can totally customise the menu and the whole desktop so any dead links in the menu can be removed and new items can be added for applications that are used & prefered, works for me much better than both KDE & Gnome…
“Plus, he has a prespective of a non-Linux user (using the wrong distro)”
I have a question .. as far as Linux is concerned, when are you ever using the RIGHT disto? I can’t find one single distro that the entire Linux community agrees is good, so someone will ALWAYS be telling you that you’re using the ‘wrong’ distro. In fact, this is the single biggest excuse that is given when somebody tries Linux and doesn’t like it .. “Yeah, well … you weren’t using the right distro. *pffffffffft*’
“WindowMaker uses much less resources and is much more lighter and more stable and in the preferences you can totally customise the menu and the whole desktop so any dead links in the menu can be removed and new items can be added for applications that are used & prefered, works for me much better than both KDE & Gnome…”
Yeah, but does it have a task bar complete with a place (a la quick launch toolbar) where you can put shortcuts, and does it allow you to drag and drop icons on the desktop? And if not, what else are you supposed to use besides KDE/Gnome if these things really matter to you ?
This guy is unbelievable! He (knowingly, I’m sure) picks a server distro and then proceeds to evaluate it as if it were a desktop distro, comparing it to Windows and MacOS. Why couldn’t he pick something more desktop oriented, like Mandrake or ELX?
(quote) Yeah, but does it have a task bar complete with a place (a la quick launch toolbar) where you can put shortcuts, and does it allow you to drag and drop icons on the desktop? And if not, what else are you supposed to use besides KDE/Gnome if these things really matter to you ?
(/quote)
these things do not matter to me, i can access every application i want with the rightclick menu, and if it is not in the menu i can use a terminal with midnoght commander if the need arises…
“these things do not matter to me”
Yeah, and this gets down to the heart of the problem – you recommended people use WindowMaker instead of Gnome/KDE, because (my guess is) that you assume that just because these things don’t matter to you, then they don’t matter to anyone else either.
“i can access every application i want with the rightclick menu”
Does this also work in all application windows, or does it require a right click on the desktop? Also, how do you customize the menus? In Windows (and probably Gnome/KDE too), if I want to create a shortcut, I just drag to the quick launch bar – it’s done in like 2 seconds. How can you possibly do it any faster than that?
“and if it is not in the menu i can use a terminal with midnoght commander if the need arises…”
Do you always keep a terminal window open, or do you have to open one every time you need one for such purposes?
Let’s see which is faster – to launch a terminal window and type in a shortcut command, or move the mouse over a few inches and click an icon? Of course, I guess you could map program launches to shortcut keys, but when you use 40+ apps like I do, would you really want to try and remember all of those?
Sometimes it’s worth sacrificing resources for added functinality. Otherwise, we’d all still be using console-only boxes because the console is faster than GUIs.
different smokes for differnt folks, i was expressing my “personal preferences” if you don’t like WindowMaker then don’t use it, like me- i don’t like KDE or Gnome so i use them, WindowMaker & Blackbox are what i prefer…
i can launch any app just as fast and convienently thru WindowMaker & Blackbox and they most likely load up faster because there is no resource hogging WM running like KDE or Gnome…
humans are creatures of habit, you get used to using a computer one way, then someone comes along and speaks of something differnt, and then the idea of leaving that comfort zone throws *some people off edge…
darius does the idea of not having KDE or Gnome bother you???
“darius does the idea of not having KDE or Gnome bother you???”
Does it bother me personally if others don’t use it? No, not at all. I was just probing to see how launching apps (that weren’t available via right click) through a terminal window was as fast as doing it via a shortcut icon.
Me personally, I like having a desktop which I can drag stuff onto – I use this feature extensively. And I also like having the task bar, the system tray, the toolbars and everything that goes with it.
Does it use more system resources? Of course it does! But if I was so concerned about that, I’d just go back to using DOS, WordPerfect 5.1, etc. I’ve got an Athlon 1.2ghz w/384MB of RAM and most of the time, I’m using less than 5% of the CPU resources, so it really isn’t a problem for me
>This guy is unbelievable! He (knowingly, I’m sure) picks a server distro and then proceeds to evaluate it as if it were a
desktop distro, comparing it to Windows and MacOS. Why couldn’t he pick something more desktop oriented, like
>Mandrake or ELX?
Wrong..he says at the top that he’s reviewing the Desktop verison of Redhat.
Kevin
I have a question .. as far as Linux is concerned, when are you ever using the RIGHT disto? I can’t find one single distro that the entire Linux community agrees is good, so someone will ALWAYS be telling you that you’re using the ‘wrong’ distro. In fact, this is the single biggest excuse that is given when somebody tries Linux and doesn’t like it .. “Yeah, well … you weren’t using the right distro. *pffffffffft*’
We all know Red Hat doesn’t have a focus on the desktop. We all know its CEO, founder, executives etc. in interviews call the desktop unprofitable. So we know that Red Hat does not put as much effort into its workstation OS than other desktop distributions. If say David picks up a distribution which claims to be a desktop distribution, and have a bad experience with it, then I wouldn’t say “using the wrong distro”. But one thing for use, the workstation version of RedHat Linux, as much as you hate to admit it, wasn’t really designed for the desktop (i.e. Joe Users). So, if David picked up Gentoo and starts comparing it with Windows, would you think it is fair? Note: I’m not a Linux zealot, and I would move to OBOS or BSD or wwhatever OS out there if they can suit my needs.
Wrong..he says at the top that he’s reviewing the Desktop verison of Redhat
Wrong. There is no “desktop version” of Red Hat. Red Hat is a server distro that just happens to include some desktop apps. Red Hat have publically stated on numerous occasions that they are not pursuing the desktop market, because they don’t think it’s viable.
I’m not a big fan of RH, but, I have it installed on my work machine, as, I needed to familiarize myself a little more with their distro for work. I had 7.2 installed, and was not thrilled by it. The upgrade to 7.3 went completely smooth, and I am much more satisified now. The new kernel with the new VM code is great. Even with 512MB of memory, the old kernel would hiccup really bad when it needed to swap, now, I barely notice it. Plus, it has KDE3 installed, which is very nice. All in all, my linux box had become much more usable with 7.3.
Someday, though, I’ll find the time to instlal Gentoo at home
Wrong. There is no “desktop version” of Red Hat. Red Hat is a server distro that just happens to include some desktop apps. Red Hat have publically stated on numerous occasions that they are not pursuing the desktop market, because they don’t think it’s viable.
Actually, it was the workstation version. Red Hat divides it’s versions in a few categories, Workstation, Server, Advance Server and Embedded. However, they made it clear that the workstation version was made for geek’s workstations, not Joe user desktops. http://www.redhat.com/software/linux/7-3_personal.html tells me that this distro isn’t just a server distro with some desktop apps…
“Yeah, but does it have a task bar complete with a place (a la quick launch toolbar) where you can put shortcuts, and does it allow you to drag and drop icons on the desktop? And if not, what else are you supposed to use besides KDE/Gnome if these things really matter to you ?
”
Well, not like you are used to, but the Dock sounds like it meets your needs as a quick launch toolbar with drag and drop (though not for desktop icons). To be honest, I use Sawfish, but I can’t help but think that the Next interface is one of the most inovative available. WindowMaker inherits this interface, and I have to say, its the most intuitive departure from the classic Windows/Mac interface that I’ve ever seen. Beginners pick it up in seconds.
How is Joe Desktop supposed to know which distributions are workstation/server/desktop? the reviewer did what any newbie would have / should have done, he went with the most popular distribution. Anyway, he was also just trying to configure the resolution of X on his screen. Even a server should require easy access to tweaks like this.
sorry. I replied to the wrong article.