I d/l'ed RH9 and installed within 30 mins of burning the disks. How all that great software can be ready to run in half an hour is beyond me.
I just reinstalled WinXP Pro a few weeks ago and it took me 5 hours (!) for install of OS/drivers plus essential software (Office, studio MX etc).
30 mins compared to 5hrs, you decide!

Only problem was my Speedtouch 330 ADSL modem. But without the problems with the install script that would have been done in 2mins. (Anyone else with speedtouch probs email me for files and script)

Best thing I've ever done!

Its terrible for laptops, it has no acpi without recompiling the kernel. It often gets laptop video cards wrong, or sets up the displays incorrectly leaving the user stuck in text mode. It would also be nice to be able to see more of what redhat is actually installing. It offers you very little choices, grouping things into large sets such as "Office" "Server" "Sources."
This distro causes a lot of headaches cured by switcing to mandrake or suse.

I like Redhat's business model of providing a solid distro for which one must buy corporate support. This fosters the development and growth of a support community like the one found here at LQ. The number of people offering free support for Redhat continues to grow. Moreover, I appreciate Redhat's dedication to "Open Source" software. One does not find software of questionable predigree in Redhat. Want to play MP3's? No problem, go get the software, but be aware that MP3's are not "Open Source." This fosters the growth of the Open Source movement by fostering Open Source alternatives, like OGG instead of MP3. Overall, a good distro.

Great if you want to switch to Linux. Easy to setup with alot of GUI configuration programs.

I have the device of PCTEL MODEM .and REDHAT 9.0
I have intalled the PCTEL MODEM step by step.But when was in step 2.(./cofigure --with-hal=pct789)
configure: error: modversions.h is missing - you should configure your kernel first!
I checked file "modversions.h" ,it's right in the path.
why .
how can i do for these

VMWARE LINUX HOST

hi, i have dual operating system redhat + MSW2K i have installed VMWARE desktop v4.
my question is how do i configure VMWARE (under windows) to detect the existing linux red hat OS and use it.

Cheers

Roger

I have been using Linux off & on for years now and have been waiting for a Distro that doesn't require quite so much tweaking on my end. I have been surprised with Red Hat 9.0 as it has been very easy to configure.

In the past I have tried Slackware and Mandrake but these needed a lot of tweaking. It took a lot of effort to get them setup and they were still lacking all the support I was looking for.

So far, in the 3 days I have had Red Hat 9 I have been able to use everything that I'm accustomed to. This week I've been trying to find a reason to drop RH9 but I haven't been able to find one. I can still use my Digital Camera, I have great IM support (gAIM), Web Browsing that rivals IE with FireBird and a great E-Mail client - ThunderBird!

It is true that RH9 doesn't come with native mp3 support but installing the plugin for XMMS is very easy! This is NOT something to worry about.

I am still testing other aspects of this Distro but as of now I'm ready to clean my Windows partitions and go straight Linux--something I haven't been able to do in the past.

I would recommend this Distro!

I think redhat 9 is an excellent choice for a newbie, or for someone who doesn't want to spend much time tweaking their system and but just get a job done. The software which isn't included in the distro is usually easily available as rpm specially made for RH9. There is lots of good advice to be found on the web, e.g. this forum and especially the red hat 9 pages at "the easy linux guide"
http://members.rogers.com/ctmlinux/

first of all i'm a total linux newbie, i dlded RH9, because i bought an old pc PII that primarily had to serve as an external harddrive for my laptop. after that i tried installing it as a desktop on the laptop... both experiences have been quite different...

PII
the install went very smoothly no problems whatsoever, i was able to run a graphical interface though as expected that was slow : that was no problem since i didn't want to use a monitor on that pc... samba setup was quite easy : i did the basic setup in graphical mode, maintenance and modifs are now exclusively done with ssh. i also have apache, php, mysql running for tests and toying around no problems at all.

PIII-750-128MB laptop
since i was so happy with RH9 on the old pc and the "external hard drive" helped free up some space on the laptop i thought : why not...
the install was very smooth just as it was on the other machine with one serious BUT, i wasn't able to boot into XP anymore after the install. i didn't mind to much since my documents were moved to the other pc. so we boot RH9, graphical login : pretty, interface : pretty. everything worked except the acpi stuff and linmodem of course. but the overall impression was it was way too slow. i'm used to running xp on that laptop which runs very fast and to be honest i was hoping Linux would be even faster : NOT:), programs startup slow, close slow... i know that in linux you're able to tweak your system as much as you like, but since i didn't even know why it was slow i tried to fix the dual boot. but that went horribly wrong : format c: reinstall XP

conclusion : mixed emotions, maybe should've tried harder but that's for when i don't call myself a newbie anymore,

d

I have bobbled with linux a little before, but I had always been too busy to make the leap from windows... I finally decided that I would do this and I decided before moving to something like BSD, Linux was an obvious choice... Redhat seemed like it offered enough support and was basic enough for someone who knew nothing.

Installation is a snap, all of my hardware was recognized (i didn't try my hauppauge wintv card). I had to install RH 3 times because, due to my lack of experience, I wasn't sure what XFree86 was installed so I somehow messed up everything trying to upgrade to something I already had. My third time around I learned alot and found out things are really not too hard with the proper help from forums. Everyone on this site was helpful and there was plenty of information if someone is willing enough to look for it.

Redhat's gui looks great, the bundled software is awesome! I'm used to countless installs on a windows box just to get a decent word processor and all the updates and drivers in place.... red hat did a great job of doing almost all of this for me! I thought it was fantastic to get gaim bundled in as well as open office right with the original install... I was dissappointed with the lack of some automated upgrade program, but I, shortly after install, found out about apt and was totally satisfied. Great operating system speed wise as well!

My only qualms with redhat are the difficulties installing wineX. I probably have not put enough effort into this seeings that I spent about 4 days almost straight trying to figure out how to install ati drivers (didn't know about kernel headers). I haven't learned this much in a long time though so I'm definently not complaining. Once I realized the newest XFree86 is bundled I was extremely happy as well. Installing wineX with my radeon 9700pro has grown to be just too much for me... that is why i'm taking redhat off and trying mandrake... knowing my luck i will have the same problems, BUT its worth a try....


Either way you look at it, redhat is a great distro and compared to my previous attempts at rh 7 I would have to say I'm extremely pleased. For newbies, this isn't a bad choice, but if you are very new, be prepared to do some major work (probably less than a lot of other distros, but still a lot compared to having directx bundled as well as double click on everything).

Kernel sources not included in workstation install for which will confuse a newbie into recompiling the kernel and installing alsa like sources.

RedHat 9 is really wonderful.
It identified my graphics card, sound card and modem without any hitch.
(For which I was facing problems in 7.3 and 8)

It is really great.

I started using Redhat at 5.? when I bought a book about it. It was my web server, firewall, and router all wrapped up in one package. At that time, I only used it occationaly(-10%). As I changed version, I started using it more than just "protection" for my windows machine. Now using 9.0, I use it majority of the time (90+%).

Reguardless of what people say about RPM(s), I think it is right up there with sliced bread. I love it! I know everyone millege will very, but RPM(s) makes this my distro of choice.

I don't use Linux because I hate microsoft, I use it because it is cheap, fast, and stable. I have tried other distro's but I like RH because for my HW and my purpose.

I'm reviewing this product from the point of view of someone who has been using Linux daily (but not exclusively) for over a year. I have used Mandrake 9.0 and RedHat 9.0

When you start the RedHat installation process, RedHat asks you to check your media. This is an extra ugly step for most users, but it probably saves a lot of trouble for some users who have burnt CDs with errors.

The install for RedHat is easy. It found all the hardware on my box and partitioned the hard drive without me having to specify any specifics. Mandrake did almost as well, but gave me troubles with the sound card.

RedHat's system for picking which software you want installed is oversimplified. So it's probably good if it's the first time you've installed linux. But for anyone else, it's trash. Also once RedHat is installed there is no GUI for selecting specific packages and having the dependencies resolved for you. Mandrake has those features.

RedHat does not have proper support for floppy disk and CDROMs. The default GUI for RedHat 9 is GNOME and this doesn't allow you anyway of accessing the Floppy or CDROM from the Desktop. When you insert a floppy disk or CDROM the icon for it is supposed to magically appear, which doesnt work consistently and it not intuitive for any users. Beginner or Expert.
If you use the KDE desktop you will get a permanent Floppy link, which improves the situation slightly.
Mandrake has Excellent support for Floppy and CDROM via it's Removable Media icon on the desktop which is always there.
RedHat also locks the CDROM drive which doesnt let you just press the eject button and get your CD back. Mandrake and Windows XP give you your CD back when you press eject, as it should be.

For Word Processing, RedHat is not good. The default fonts are ugly. I also had major troubles with fonts and upgrading OpenOffice. Do not use GNOME if you want to write documents, it has spotty support for OpenOffice and will you lead down a road of headaches, stick to KDE it's a more professional and stable desktop.

RedHat has put a nice "Network Neighborhood" style link in the GNOME desktop menu but forgot to put that same style link on KDE.

One thing that RedHat did do well was make GNOME and KDE's seem more similar.

A huge plus for RedHat is that the availability of free RPMs on the Internet is much superior to any other distro. This makes life simplier for average level users. Newbies still can't install software on RedHat.

Another plus for redhat was there easy and obvious update feature which sits in the bottom right corner next to the clock. Mandrake has an easy update program, but you have to dig for it.

RedHat does not come with MP3 support, and it is not easy to install. It's actually quite difficult.

RedHat does not update the desktop software that comes with the distro. They should not distribute GAIM, OpenOffice, Mozilla if they are not willing to provide timely upgrades. Mandrake has this same problem.
The CD burning software that comes with RedHat is garbage.

Overall the bottom line was that I was impressed with Mandrake 9 and I was disappointed by RedHat 9.

RedHat 9 was definitely worth the $0 I paid for it, but hey I can get a better deal at Mandrake for $0.