probably the same thing that happened with the Hat, when userbase get's high enough, they'll stick it to you and call it .... "Fedora Pro" or "Fedora Small Business Edition" or something and make u pay 80 bucks a year to maintain it. If you don't want to pay, avoid commercial distros plain and simple.

So I am a newbie to Linux and I installed RH9 last night (successfully I may add .

What am I to do ?

I tried Mandrake once before but wasnt that impressed - perhaps Ill wait for the 9.2 ISO's to come out.

Is it worth me sticking with RH9 ? or should I change soonish due to the fact that right jnow my machines is a clean build and has next to no data on the linux partitions

Hang on till they cut you off in 2004 (April i think right?). Make sure you keep your system up2date. Maybe then you'll be able to keep it the way it is and only have to upgrade or patch software when there is a terrible security vulnerability out.

Maybe you should start looking into other Distros now to prepare for a switch to something that wont leave you out in the cold so that when red hat stop supporting 9 you will be prepared for a switch.

If you really want a fast system, look into Gentoo and Slack and if you are bold LFS.

apt and portage beat the rpm sytem hands down anyway.

It's not like your distro is going to magically stop working come April. You can keep track of security issues from many sources and you can always get your rpms from other sources as well, freshrpms, for instance. Seriously, you guys are fretting for naught. Fedora is the way to go if you are a hobbist and wish to continue using your redhat-ish distro. You can update as needed to stay current with Fedora and get all your updates. I personally never used RedHat Network as a personal user. I would check for security updates, decide if applicable to me, then grab the fixes and apply. No big deal.

To tell you the truth, $299 USD for a STABLE release with support for 18 months is a great deal. If you read you will see that you get 4 hours response time and access to the high bandwidth network (no hanging during critical updates when everyone is slamming the freebie line for new isos, etc). This is even better for a newbie as you can talk DIRECTLY to someone at redhat who can answer any and every one of your problems. Like I said, though, Fedora looks very good and that is the route to take if you donut want to shell out any $$$.

Peace.

I'll be migrating to Fedora.... its a shame I won't be using an offical RH distro anymore. Will miss the days of seeing the RedHat on my desktop! I refuse to migrate to Mandrake (hate that distro) and Suse... nice, but I like my free ISO's.

Does Fedora have MP3 support and everything then? As its totally "open-source" surely there won't be any license restrictions or whatever...

I receive my RehHat end of Life E-mail today!!!!!
Well, Well, Well..looks like the RedHat marketing boys have thrown the nerds outta the front office. If I didn't know any better it would seem Microsoft has taken control of the company...
There's absolutely no excuse for RedHat to end support for these versions just because they are developing newer Versions/Platforms. The root of this e-mail is based on pure corporate greed...and the faithful RedHat users are the loosers.
Maybe they should rename the company while there at it???
I think we should have a little contest on a new name for RedHat.
How about.... MicroRedHatSoft Corp or HasAnyOneSeenMyRedhat Corp or
RedSoftMicroHat Corp ...
..wait I got it!!! BendOverAndPickUpMyRedHat Corp........

Anyway can anyone recommend an good alt distrib....

I guess i'll be migrating to Fedora, i'll be interested to see how stable the first release is, my only other options are Mandrake (which is a piece of french crap) and SUSE (which is not free), the other distro's are too difficult to use for amateurs. Fedora should gain a lot of popularity within the next 6 months.

http://www.linuxjournal.com/article.php?sid=7169

Red Hat Certified Engineer (RHCE) and Red Hat Certified Technician (RHCT) training and certification will be affected by the Red Hat/Fedora merger, but the details of those effects are not settled yet. Fedora should be a useful learning tool for RHCE and RHCT candidates, although RHCE training may include RHEL-specific knowledge. RHCEs and RHCE candidates should monitor Red Hat's training page for details.

http://www.redhat.com/training/

ive always looked at red hat as a way for people to get to learn linux. Its easy, so easy its stupid and inhibits power users. If you people have gotten used to red hat, you will love any number of distros made for the desktop, and have no corporate model to follow. My personal suggestion would be gentoo, trust me and give it a try, and build your whole distro from source, and their package management would make any red hat user cry. I run slackware, and ive love it, no rpms to mess up your system, no memory hogginh guis, just blazing fast linux, slackware rocks. There are many fish in the sea, just cause red hat dosent like you anymore dosent mean you have to hack and work around to get their distro. Give it up and try a real linux distro with some power... and no initrds!!!!

my $0.02

Alrighty then...I think I've heard from just about every level now. Being a true Leo, I love the sound of "POWER"!!!! Thus, Gentoo is giving me an itch I'm rather eager to scratch. However, my total lack of knowing what the heck i'm doing when it comes to Linux, makes RedHat 9 or Fedora sound desirable. I guess I just have one more question before I leave tomorrow for a conference. Will any of these recognize and operate a MSN DSL modem? I hate the thought of going back to cable.

Also...What about networking? I need whatever I get to be able to run on five or six computers and network them without me pulling out hair I don't have!

Just read your messsage, Karnevil9. Great Idea! Thank you!

Suse is free also.

I just installed Fedora, it is basically RH 9.

There will be updates as usual. There may be some differences in the way updates are going to be handled in the near future, but there will be updates. The project of free linux for the desktop is not over, it has just begun. People should support the project.

The 2.6 kernel will be in the Fedora core soon.

$299 for Linux, even a stable version, is a terrible deal. I've been using Linux for 3 years, and I use a "corporate" version of Red Hat in the office. Unless Red Hat was willing to offer a guaranty that it was a complete replacement for Windows I'd never pay that much for it. Even with a guaranty I'd go with Windows until RedHat gained a significant share of the PC user market. $179 for the basic version and you don't get CD's? That's absurd!

As for Fedora; that's only an option if you have a high speed connection. That's $50 a month where I live. For that I can pay my phone bill, ISP, and cable TV bill. Other than downloading Fedora I'd have no reason to spend $600 a year for a higher download speed.

I'm not looking for a handout here, and actually I don't like RedHat so this is not a loss for me. As a hobbyist I prefer something more along the lines of LFS. But, if not for the $40 RedHat boxed set I found in a software store a few years ago I never would have tried Linux. I definitely wouldn' risk $299 to try it. So I see this as a loss for Linux newbies and Linux in general.

wget works great over a dialup connection.

curl may be good too, don't know. Maybe you know someone with a connection that can burn you a copy?