“With this release RedHat are making a concerted effort at integration and that is something that sits awkwardly with the open source model. Firstly, it forces a degree of cooperation between software developers – they need to adhere to standards but if they want to become part of the latest Linux distribution they need to adhere to those standards that it adopts.” Read the review at LinuxLinks.
XP Killer? RedHat 8.0 Personal Review
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
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No.
it is close, but not quite. when RH 9 comes out with Kernel 2.6 it will be damn close…mabye even close enough.
I run both SuSE and Mandrake, and have used previous redhat releases.
This release is aweful, I can never find any of the tools that I want in the menu’s. Finding a terminal is a challenge, getting my favorite browser is a challenge. I think Redhat has done more damage than good — they are ignoring their core user base. I would like to see something like this presented to the user if they check “I’m a novice” or something.
On the good side, the installer looks awesome, and the package manager seems to be top notch.
Fred, I couldn’t disagree with you more. I don’t like buzz phrases like “Windows Killer”, but RH 8 is close to being a product that can turn people’s attention to it. It is true that there are too many menus for configuration, etc. But Fred, you make it sound like it puts you dead in the water. I don’t believe it could do that to you, an obviously heavy Linux user.
In the review, it talks about “Kandyfloss”. It is true, the new graphics take up some performance but, at the same time, the desktop is as clean as a whistle, as simple and uncluttered as it can be.
Red Hat 8 does well what Red Hat the company wanted. It is perfect for the “managed” desktop. That is, that there is someone with lots of computer knowledge, setting up the system for him. My dad for example is using Red Hat 8. He is surfing on the web, e-mailing, recording music from those old commercial tapes and putting them on audio-cd’s.
Really, wether or not a system setting is hard to find, is irrelevant. Actually, I made it harder for him to find. He doesn’t have the rootpassword anyway.
Wether or not a program has some crazy esotoric feature or not is irrelevant. He doesn’t need it. Most users don’t need it.
Red Hat 8 works. It is fast, stable, secure. I don’t have to worry that the system will be contaminated with virusses, adware, popups,.. I don’t have to worry that the screenresolution will be set to 640×480 because my dad was exploring the system. I barely have to solve computer problems anymore, I just show some neat tricks sometimes like virtual desktops, and tabbed browsing.
I have had nothing but problems connecting to the mysql database that I set up with Redhat 8.0. I created the database and user the same way I have since Redhat 7.0 through 7.3 and it complains about not being able to connect to the server.
So I then tried to setup a postgres server, I don’t even know the postgres user’s password! Now, I can login as root and then go to user postgres but how am I suppose to connect to the postgres database if I don’t even know the user’s password.
What is my choice now, download oracle and see if that works.
..did you read the conclusion of the article you posted to?
They mention the solution.
I too had problems connecting to mysql – it works
if you put your external host in /etc/hosts – its in the review ! Might solve your problem …
I dunno… my love for RH has waned.
It makes sense what they are trying to do, although Bluecurve seems perverse to me.
I like the article’s suggestion to load into twm and run native X apps. It may come to that.
These “integration” issues that modern Linux distributions are dealing with are introducing a host of “corporate oriented” compromises that reduce the attractiveness of the OS in general.
I think Apple may be benefiting a greal deal — “corporatizing” Linux isn’t making it better.
Linux feels so all over the map it’s hard to recognize it anymore.
Von, I do not mean to troll here, but everything you describe is also possible to achieve with Windows (via poledit and friends). But I agree it makes sense to let your users use the OS you can administrate best ;-).
Just do not assume other OSs are missing these options only because you do not know them (sadly, that’s a *very* common occurance when Linux users talk about Windows).
Regards
monty
I love RH8. It is without a doubt the best Linux distro I’ve ever used. Clean, fast, stable, and very usable. Is it a ‘Windows Killer’? No. But they are getting closer. For someone like me, I actually prefer using RH8 to WinXP. Sure, I had problems setting up my printer. I can’t really comment on server issues… I have another box at home that I use as a server, running Slackware… But these problems are nothing that I’ve never gotten from Windows. Remeber, this was RH’s shot at desktop…
I totally agree with Fred here. I bought the RH 8.0 CD’s and sold them a couple of days again because it’s totally confusing. I am used to phrases like Konqueror, Evolution and so on but getting phrases like ‘Webbrowser’ or ‘eMail Client’ aren’t really helpful.
Which Webbrowser ?
Which eMail client ?
What App ?
I want to know what I’m running.
You know, they do review other OS’s on this site. The fact that Microsoft hasn’t put out an OS in a while, while the Linux companies seem to be putting one out every other day, might be why it seems like Linux overkill.
So, are you saying that you don’t know how to rename the menu items? If you use Linux, you should be used to a certain level of customization. The menus are never like how I want them, on any operating system. But I did sped the 30 min. to fix the menus like I want them…
I know that you can do those things in windows. I don’t know how, and I don’t really intend to learn (don’t have the time, don’t really like windows). So, yes, my experience with Linux is one motivation.
Another was to see if Linux is ready for the desktop of the average user, by doing an actual test instead of listening to windows, linux, beos and macosx freaks
In my opinion it is definetly ready for the managed desktop of the average user. My first comment was about that conclusion.
It was not about those other operating systems. It was a comment to all those people who say it *isn’t* ready. My dad is the living proof that it is
And I can also see it in my local linux user group. In the beginning it was almost exclusively professional unix system administrators, or very knowledgable computer geeks who love to get to the bottom of their computers. But these days we get more general end-users with a high interest in computers in general.
to all the GUI admin controls that were in 7.3 let alone some basic features like, how do I change my window manager?
I haven’t tried the latest linux distributions, and it has been a year or so since I have tried linux last, but I doubt that linux will even hurt windows in the home user market for a while. Here’s 2 reasons off the top of my head:
1. Linux needs a huge marketing budget to compete with Windows and Apple. What’s going to make john doe somewhere in the midwest go through the hassle of installing linux (or any operating system for that matter) when his old pentium running windows 95 will let him check email and browse the web.
2. Which brings me to my second point: If you want people to use linux, you have to give it to them in a complete pre-installed system. Windows xp’s install would confuse simple users, however it comes preinstalled so all they have to do is power on the new machine they just got from best buy.
There are other things, such as driver support, program installation, etc that needs to be dumbed down for the average user. (does linux have anything like the windows installer that comes with alot of windows software?)
Well, I’ve just purchased RedHat 8.0 – it was a choice between RH8 and SuSE8.0. SuSE costs £5 (US$6.50) more than RH.
I’ve have to say that it’s good. I tried 7.3 and was dismayed by the bog standard KDE install and I hated Gnome. I found Gnome in 7.3 to be unusable – due to problems I experienced with Nautilus and the basic KDE install which lacked the level of integration RH has given Gnome was not to my liking at all.
In 8.0, Gnome has improved out of all recognition – I don’t know if this is because it’s Gnome2 or because of the minimalist approach RH have taken to BlueCurve. I was expecting to hate KDE partly because it was so woeful in 7.3 and partly because of the hype surrounding bluecurve. Again, I’ve been plesantly surprised. Once kicker is resized to something ‘normal’ like medium sized and a few other tweaks are applied to bring out more of KDE, the whole thing feels very clean and usable. In fact, given that bluecurve attempts to make KDE and Gnome ‘look’ the same, the only thing left to judge the difference between environments on is the ‘feel’ and it has to be said, KDE (subjectively) feels more usable.
There are still issues with 8.0, however. The biggest is package management. OK, so it’s far better than 7.3 (anything is better than gnorpm), but it’s still not clever enough to handle packages not supplied on the installation CDs properly.
Anyway, RH8 is a vast improvement, and it takes enough of Gnome out of Gnome and KDE out of KDE to offer something fairly vanilla and usable.
PS What’s going on with OpenOffice.org? Version 1.0 still looks, feels and behaves live staroffice 5.2. What have they been doing for the last 2 years?
only loser reading OSnews today. Where are the comments?
well redhat isn’t an xp killer in the desktop period
and i have gone back to mdk9 for now since i keep finding things missing and ease of finding specific rpms (yes i am lazy) and ultimately choice. tho i will admit redhat is to me more a solid distro in its layout, mdk seems more hodge podge with all its own tools
but what redhat have managed to do is set the ball rolling for a easy corporate desktop while seeming to keep the server intact tho i can’t vouch since i don’t run any server on it
and maybe i am a sucker but redhat seems to be doing some strange things these days, ie the flags in kde. why?
Araspin wrote:
What’s going to make john doe somewhere in the midwest go through the hassle of installing linux (or any operating system for that matter) when his old pentium running windows 95 will let him check email and browse the web.
So you’re implying that users from the midwest are idiots compared to coasties?
What 3d accelerated games can I play on Redhat 8.0 with my ATI 9000 card? (none)
How can Linux even be competition (let alone cause the end of Windows XP, “kill” it I mean) without even 25% of hardware companies making official, supported drivers? To kill Windows, wouldn’t you want better hardware support? Easier to use (or, as easy to use?) . I know this isn’t EVERYTHING, or even the most important things about linux, but without these I don’t think its fair to sat that linux will be killing, or even be a viable competition (free or not) to Windows.
That’s why I don’t like buzz terms like that – “Window’s Killer”. That is not the goal – the goal is for an OS to be as good as it can be. What happens as a result of that, well, that’s a different story and we don’t know the end of the story yet.
Araspin, your two major points about marketing and pre-installation are true, very true. But, if you haven’t seen Linux in a whole year, you should take a look – you’ll be amazed.
The most bothering thing about linux nowadays is a lack of standards, although redhat is by far not my favorite when it comes to linux. It seems they are the most respected and this is a good move in my opinion.
as the fondation to future releases. TT font support is awesome (all you have to do is drop thos tt fonts in ~/.fonts or /usr/share/fonts – how much easier can it get). Speed is great and applications are maturing.
Now – all redhat has to do is start implementing so sort of RPM packaging system to control what you have installed (I hate to make a comparison to windows, but something like the Add/Remove software app). Then implement some more GUI customizing features and you have a serious competitor to windows.
Just my 2¢
Linux isn’t going to take on Windows anytime soon in the desktop market… Linux is bascially a mess. All these different distros are the problem.
There has to be one standard Linux… Well not just one, but you know what I mean. one of the current distros is going to have to become the “standard”.
When you buy Windows, you know what you’re getting. Why can’t we know that with Linux? Why do I have to check and see if Linux will work with my hardware? Why can’t it just work?
Also… Why do most Linux distros come on four or more CDs???
God… even XP only comes on one CD.
So what’s the problem here? Why can’t someone come up with a super simple to install Linux distro that comes on one CD??
I know I’d love to try Red Hat 8, but I don’t have the money to buy it, nor do I have the time to sit around and download all those CDs at 256k.
For the geek, Linux is great!! It’s amazing!
And I do run Linux here by the way…
I’m just pointing out some things about Linux that have always gotten on my nerves…
And yeah.. don’t give me the speech about how it’s free and you get what you pay for… That arguement doesn’t hold water when we’re discussing grandpa installing Linux on his 400 Mhz Celeron with 64mb of ram.
Linux is wonderful! but it has a long way to go before it can beat Windows on the desktop.
If Red Hat 9 is going to be an XP killer, it had better come on just one CD! lol
Seriously… Why can’t we get a one CD install with all of the features we’d find in Windows?
Just my two cents…
I have wondered the same thing for years …
What amuses me the most is how the source rpms take 2 full cds. Now that seems like a lot too me for simply binaries!!!
“Why do most Linux distros come on four or more CDs??? ”
Well, with some distros, you only need the first one or two install cds. Besides, there are distros that offer one DVD-R for the entire installation as an alternative to few cds.
Remember, WindowsXP doesn’t come with hundreds if not thousands of applications. It uses 1 CD for just the OS.
On an aside, someone mentioned functionality like Add/Remove found in windows. I always wondered why Linux programs don’t install with an installer like InstallShield on the Windows platform. There are no options when you install an rpm like where you want your files to go.
>Also… Why do most Linux distros come on four or more CDs???
Have you ever heard of Lycoris.com? It comes in one CD, and is very easy to use. It’s available in pre-installed pcs too.
Lycoris, Xandros, Lindows, ELX, Vector Linux all only use one CD.
The default install of SuSE 8.1 Personal Edition only uses one CD.
The Personal Desktop install of Red Hat 8 Personal Edition uses two CD’s, but hardly anything on the 2nd CD is used.
Lycoris standard edition is only $29.95.
Complaining about the number of CDs is just plain STUPID. Why? cause they’re doing you a favor. To install my debian system i only need 2 disks, or if im not doing it from network, i can use a single CD. I’m sure the same (single CD) can be done with RedHat. The rest is software that RedHat took the liberty of collecting for you. OpenSource projects, so that you dont need to go and compile all those things yourself,cause god knows people cant type “./configure && make && make install” all by themselves.
Windows only comes on 1 CD cause they dont give you much except their OS. Does it come with a GOOD word processor? How bout an IRC client? maybe a good mail client? Decent image editor? As far as i know, it doesnt.
Unifying linux? Why? MS has 2kpro, 2kserver, 2kadvanced server, XP, XP pro, and probably more. Choice is GOOD, especially if it doesnt come from the same company, it creates competition, which benifits you.
Are we talking about the GUI or the OS itself. And WHY do people need to compare Lemons with Oranges.
It is not particularly easy to find Konqueror with RedHat’s customisation which no doubt annoyed the KDE developers (so much so that one walked out of RedHat).
Galeon is just as hard to find as Konqueror, yet we don’t find GNOME walking out on Red Hat. Red Hat is pushing Mozilla, which to my opinion is the best free browser on Linux now.
It feels a lot slower than Internet Explorer, but most pages are likely to render correctly under it.
Amazingly, not really. The only thing I find more slower than IE is the sidebar, which comes out 2-3 seconds slower than IE (yes, that slow!). But Beta 1.2 is pretty fast, but since the GTK+ 2 part of Mozilla is almost done, Galeon might reach alpha and perhaps beta before 8.1. Hopefully that would be the default browser cause Mozilla have no plans on adopting many of its features.
LimeWire is the one of the most sophisticated file sharing program for the Gnutella Network available.
Maybe for music. But for documents, I found BearShare faster in its searches. Sure, sure… spyware.
The best IDE for Java in our opinion is JBuilder and a personal edition is available from Borland as a free download.
That, I would have to disagree. I never got JBuilder to work on Mandrake 9.0, never tried it on Red Hat 8.0 though. Personally, I think eclipse is better (okay, :-), easier to use), but heck, I’m not a Java programmer.
All this makes it inevitable that RedHat will drop KDE.
This I have to doubt. What they might drop is a choice for the KDE desktop, but they can’t go on not supporting KDE/QT apps. A lot of commercial apps, like Hancom Office, and apps from theKompany, uses Qt. And more and more small commercial companies are thinking of using Qt. Because it is easier to maintain a version for three platforms.
Personally, I hope they don’t drop KDE. Half the time on Beta 3 I spent on KDE 3.0. And it was the best KDE 3.0 experience I had.
At the moment RedHat have configured GNOME and KDE to have a similar look and feel, but under the bonnet they are radically different APIs and they probably will remain so.
I doubt that. If Red Hat threws more of its weigh behind KDE and push FreeDesktop.org into KDE, GTK+ and Qt might become closer and closer. Heck, one day they might even be nearly source compatible 🙂
I think Red Hat should push both GTK+ and Qt. GTK+ would be for applications that want to be right at home in Red Hat’s default desktop. Qt is for applications that need to be on Windows and perhaps Mac OS X too.
Unless a clear winner comes out in this field (which I doubt), Red Hat can’t pick sides.
Tailor the development environment, make Linux the standard JVM platform and much of the .net hype disappears.
Sun made Java to sell its software and hardware. Not promote Linux and rid the earth of Microsoft. Personally, I hope Red Hat integrate both Mono and Java ala Mac OS X. The developers should choose which they want to support.
.NET is better too because a lot of new apps made for Windows XP and above would use .NET. Porting these apps to Linux would be a piece of cake with Mono.
PostGres is now the default database while MySQL is an option. No doubt this will please the relational purists, but sadly not us, since our systems depend on it.
I personally prefer PostgreSQL to MySQL. But as you said, since you systems uses MySQL, there is an option for it. I think PostgreSQL should be push to someone that is migrating to Linux, and want a altenative to mSQL.
If you want a slicker integrated graphical interface then go for Mandrake.
You have got to be kidding. Both SuSE and Red Hat have better integration of the GUI.
We’ve used Mandrake for years and it always was what RedHat should have been on the desktop.
Back then, yes. Now, no. Mandrake is way behind time.
If you’re a Microsoft share holder sell your shares and buy RedHat !
For the next five years at least, shareholders would recieve huge amounts of profit, why sell shares? Use the profit and buy Red Hat shares, a much better choice. Plus, being a shareholder doesn’t mean you have to use the company’s product. And just because this product might be successful doesn’t mean Red Hat would be successful financially. If I was you, buy IBM shares instead. 🙂
Aspin, the best way to conquer the average Joe market is to first conquer the corporate market. Most of the time, people want to use the same OS (and sometimes even brand and model of computers) at home as in the office.
So when we have a lot of office users converted, then Linux would slowly enter the entire home user market (most of them are not office users, BRW). (Besides, Linux entered the web server market with no marketing budget….)
Hahaha earlier I have read this line ‘RedHat 9.0 will become the XP killer” and I was falling in laugh.
For sure it will kill….. It kills Bill Gates because he can’t stop laughing his ass off… RedHat with the mostly disliked GNOME desktop will go nowhere really soon. This shouldn’t be meant as insult or as Troll (my disclaimer) but even hardcore Lunixer went off of GNOME.
While GNOME’s popularity palls in comparison with KDE, GNOME has far more press than KDE. Besides, the GNOME vs. KDE fight is mostly useless to the end user. They are practically the same if configured properly for the user. I personally think KDE is more better, technically, but for the novice – BIG DEAL. Heck, most novices would probably not know the difference between GNOME and KDE.
Fair points Rajan, but eventually RedHat must drop one
of their windowing systems. And it will be KDE.
Why ? Because if Linux becomes mainstream then noone wants
to develop an app for two different look and feels. If anyone remembers the JBuilder on Linux debacle they’ll agree with me. It’s wasted effort which means wasted money. As the distros evolve one system will gain the upper hand, when it does, every app will gradually port to that system. There can never be an equilibrium with Gnome and KDE – Microsoft have proved that on the desktop. As for Gnome and KDE coming together 🙂 I want to make clear that this is not any reflection on the technical merits of either system – it is just how software has evolved over the last 40 years.
Basing my experiences from MDK9, Gnome2 lacks much polish and Gtk+ ported apps. KDE3 is much more mature and stable. For those people who insist that one environment or the other should go away — I’d choose KDE to stay.
HOWEVER, I’m not one of those people who believes it has to be one or the other. Both efforts have produced unique environments, and the competition between them has only made each project better.
Several posts have mentioned how RH was so wise to push Mozilla as the browser over Galeon — guess what … Galeon is a front end to some mozilla browser code, EXCEPT, it integrates much more nicely with Gnome than Mozilla ever will.
My $0.02
when Galeon2 is released?
> Will Redhat switch back to Galeon
> By Anonymous (IP: 129.62.16.—) – Posted on 2002-11-03 20:42:03
> when Galeon2 is released?
how’s this related to this topic ? and why should redhat switch back to galeon if they can have the pure mozilla ? not to mention that they may prefer going for phonix soon instead of galeon. not every normal user has 256 or 512 mb on his machine, some have only 64 or less 32 mb
Linux will never be a “<insert windows version> killer” the developers of most interesting projects loose interest and move on with life abandoning their projects to collect dust.
> Will Redhat switch back to Galeon
> By Anonymous (IP: 129.62.16.—) – Posted on 2002-11-03 20:42:03
> when Galeon2 is released?
how’s this related to this topic ? and why should redhat switch back to galeon if they can have the pure mozilla ? not to mention that they may prefer going for phonix soon instead of galeon. not every normal user has 256 or 512 mb on his machine, some have only 64 or less 32 mb
—————————————————–
For RedHat to be the “Windows Killer”, it will have to have a great web browser. Think about what you use your computer primarily for. Now think about what you are using your computer to read this post. Shall I point out the obvious – a web browser. THIS IS WAY IT IS IMPORTANT!
Maybe not a Windows killer yet, but they are definitlely on the right track with version 8.
There are so many cool things going on with free software right now, from gstreamer (full mutimedia libraries, applications system) to the fast pace at which the desktops are becoming more and more professional to the way that X is finally becoming useable to the whole DirectFB project getting more and more stable.
To make Windows users switch to Linux, there needs to be something that Windows can’t do which linux can. So far, I don’t know any, quite the contrary there are many more things Windows can do that Linux can not.
The fact that Linux is free is irrelevant for most users because they have already purchased a lot fo Windows software and WINE is still only good for programs that work on 9x not XP 2000+ only programs. Wine is also slow and Win4Lin or Vmaware cost a lot of extra money and unfortunately won’t even run some apps, like games.
Linux needs to have something great innovative that no other platform has. Price, Philosophy, and Community do not count. These are not qualities of the OS, just effects.
The day I completly ditch windows is the day there is an exact port of the install shield for Linux and my games work well. Redhat’s installer is a step forward, but is only good if you want to add or remove packages that come with the distribution. I can not install an RPM from the internet and expect it to be listed there and easy to remove as the other packages. Linux really needs something like the latest Windows InstallShield or it is doomed to fail. I’m sorry, but this si the truth, and users should NEVER even need to hear the word dependency, after all tehy don’t ehar it on Windows and I don’t care what the cause is, it shouldn’t exist as a problem on Linux either
Redhat also needs to forget everything and include MP3 functionality, believe it or not it is the standard, even if it may not be the best it it what everyone uses. Realplayer and Codeweavers CrossOVer plugins should alos be included. Users need good Windows fonts, and ShockWave, Quicktime, etc. to get the most out of the internet. Even businesses use these.
Linux also won’t connect to Windows networks out of the box and share files and it isn’t able to write NTSF. Xandros fixes most of these, but every distribution needs to do this.
Linux also needs better 3d Acceleration and overall better hardware support.
Linux still needs to mature and get it’s act together. It is to lose and needs somebody making the standards etc. , it needs to be united.
Right now it is just a bunch of very talented people with no direction in some areas. I really want to completely be able to uninstall WIndows, but it will only happen when these issues are resolved.
Right now I’m using SuSE 8.1 more as a hobby OS.
Dave Edwards: Fair points Rajan, but eventually RedHat must drop one
of their windowing systems. And it will be KDE.
I think we aren’t on the same waveleght here. KDE is mostly not about the windowing system. Most of KDE code are the libraries, the stuff that makes applications tick.
As or the windowing system, yes, I believe KDE would/should be drop. in fact, it amazes me why it isn’t drop yet.
I used RH 6.0 to 7.3 as servers and it was great. Although I haven’t looked at the GUI, I understand it is an improvement. With RH 8 I’ve had a few irritating problem, even with straight installations. I think it is becoming more like Windows. (bo blink, onder stink – direct translation: top shines, bottom stinks)