Sorry, Silver...so tired of reading all the posts on different forums today about this subject...all the debian, gentoo, slack zealots lipping too.

RedHat has what companies want, SUPPORT. I was trying for years to get my company to benchmark Linux system (mostly an HP-UX/SUN shop). Once Enterprise Linux came out, their last concerns about support were addressed. Whether people like it or not, this is GOOD for linux. I know lots of people in my field getting the green light to move on linux solutions. I think RedHat will do very well with this model they have chosen and I don;t think the hobbist will suffer because that is what Fedora is for.

Again, sorry, man. I prefer HP-UX to any other UNIX variant but I have a soft spot for RedHat ;)

Cheers

Frankly, Joseph, I think it is a bit too soon for Linux products to be trying to play blow-for-blow games with Microsoft. From what I have learned thus far, Linux is a superior product for those with a little bit more going on upstairs. However, history has shown us time and again, just because something is better, doesn't mean it will come out on top in the end. For example: I have watched businesses...let's say a restaurant in this case...Although they have superior food, superior atmosphere, superior service, and maybe even a superior location...A competing restaurant with blah food, crappy service, location, etc...will be packed day in and day out, while the former barely fills it's tables on a good day! Why? It can be something as stupid as the rumor/fact that someone of importance and/or fame had once dined there, or perhaps took a dump in it's facilities. Or even because someone has a friend who has a friend that dines there all the time. Meanwhile, those few who have taste and can think on their own, have to sit helplessly by and watch the best place in town close it's door and go out of business.

...This is how I view Microsoft VS Linux. MS may not have the best product, but they sure as heck have the ignorant masses swallowing their crap, hook, line and sinker!

With the MS BS going on at the moment....Now is the time for Linux to step out of the shadows and gently educate the masses about a "tastier" alternative to Gate's "$#!+-on-a-shingle"! It is not the time to pop up out of almost nowhere (by there perspective) and say, "Look! We can make our product as overly expensive as their's!!"

yes, yes, RH has been good to me too...


...off to join those crazy slack "zealots" (well put, stingx)

Ummm...Ok, Stingx. I still don't quite understand your "foreign tongue", ;) ... but I'm sure that it will be more than helpful to me. That is....Once I figure out exactly what you just said! :confused: I went cross-eyed after the first sentence! :D

However, I did pick up on the thumb-up for RedHat! This seems to be really popular with many people. But, what exactly is HP-UX? This one is totally new to me! I'll research the terms, debian, gentoo, slack zealots. :study: I thought my "mist" was getting thicker, but it must have been the beans I had for lunch. :rolleyes: :p

Thank you for your help.

A N00bies .02 cents... Well, I've been using RH9 since I bought it a month ago at my local BestBuy. I really could not say that I wouldn't use RH or Fedora because of a lack of support. On a few occations, I've opened ligitimate tickets - I was receiving nautilus erros on logging out from level 5 to level 3. Turns out they were no big deal, but the answer came from various support forums such as this one. RH's response was basically that I should purchase hardware supported by them (I have an nVidia chipset vid card) or to alternatively file a bug report. I don't know, maybe I caught them on a bad day. I understand that I am not using fully supported hardware - but not everyone can modify they're system to make RH happy. So, my point is, I welcome Fedora with 'open arms' - I think that there will be alot of eager participants who are much more than capable (and even more capable then official tech support) of helping someone out of a jam. I actually think it's good for the Linux community, myself. RH is one of the larger well known operating systems and I think it's a cool move - although I am sure there are some alterior motives to. But it's also important for MS to get their asses kicked in the Corporate servers and enterprise departments etc.
Bring on Fedora!

As a home user, RH Enterprise sounds like more than I need (although maybe it should be a consideration, given that my company begins to work with RH more and more)

And Fedora sounds like it is geared toward high-end techies.

I'm just a guy who hates Gates and has found a lot of pleasure in the grassroots/family feel of (Red Hat 7.2, 8, and 9) linux.

I have been able to work through tech problems (with some help from my friends here and other places) using RHx, but I don't consider myself a developer by any means, which is a term used in the RH site's description of Fedora.

So what do I go to? Mandrake? Something else? or should Fedora not scare me as it does?

I could really use some suggestions.

Feeling bummed here.

Kind regards,
TAH

Hmmmm...Ok....I just figured it out! Get a couple of movie stars to learn and endorse Linux OS's . Flaunt their knowledge like it's the coolest thing since thong bikini's and I guarantee you that you won't be able to keep a Linux product on the shelf! Most people are sheep, you just need to find the right Shepard's!

"And Fedora sounds like it is geared toward high-end techies."

In my experience with RedHat 9 - Fedora (severn .95) is VERY similar in look and feel - it seems as though it would have been RedHat10 - if your using 9, you should pick right up on Fedora, no prob.

Does anybody know how this will affect RHCE & RHCT. Was a certification only good for 2 versions that you were tested on. I quess they will have a Fedora cert. also? Just think if you paid out of your own pocket for the cert. and now they are changing. And yes I know that there are certs. that you have to keep updated. Just throwing out some thoughts.

I disagree. I can see where this would be good for you and other buisness users but at the moment it looks to me like a loss for the hobbyist. I can't justify the cost of a high speed modem and the fedora web site's FAQ's states that there are no plans to make it available on CD, except by third parties. I suspect that anyone not already familiar with Linux will be reluctant to pay $179 for a product that doesn't provide support. They'll be even less likely to download and install the iso files. Does the following table really say that the $179 basic version of Red Hat doesn't come with any support or even installation CDs?

pricing

For that kind of money I would expect to be able to go anywhere on the web and view any kind of file, including multimedia, without having to install something like wine, or spend days trying to get a Windows Media Player alternative to work. That's an MS price so I assume it has the same level of usability. If RedHat can guaranty that then maybe this is best path for Linux to take.

But, in my opinion there's one less choice for people who just want to get started. Maybe in some larger view Linux will be better in the long run, but I don't see that as being the case now.

Hoo-boy. What a mess this is becoming! All over a company who is going to stop providing what most people don't use anyway?

I have been using RHL8.0 for about a year. It's been a good distro for me to learn on. I'm still learning. Do I plan to ditch it because RedHat isn't going to provide support? To be blunt, they've not provided me with any support yet. This is nothing new. If you NEED "official" tech support, you should be able to pay for it. I you don't feel it's worth paying for, don't use the support. Personally, I find all the support/opinions/advice/info I need in just a handful of forums like this. And from what I'm reading, RH isn't killing their "free" distro, they're just dropping the "Red Hat" name, calling it something else and taking it down a different business path.

As for what to fall back on (esp. for beginners like me) I'd strongly recommend Red Hat. I just got this box up and running tonight. Installed RH8.0 in about the same amount of time it takes me to set up a Windows box - and I had to restart the install 3 times! I hate it when my CDs get scratched. As for Mandrake, I installed 9.1 on this system over a week ago and NEVER got the network interface to talk beyond itself. Got RH up and running and the networking was there from the beginning. Another distro I find useful and fun is Knoppix. Single CD in your backpack, you've got a full-blown Linux system wherever you sit down - just reboot. Installing it is a little more involved, but it's still a great distro, imo.

This is already far too long, so I'll wrap up here. Don't shy away from Red Hat simply because the company won't provide support. There's plenty of support right here. And NO company will provide the opinions and advice you can get here.

I can only speak for myself, but when I speak of support, I mean the updates on packages, which I am sure you have been supported in that manner since installing it.

Try keeping up with ever app on a system sometime. I wouldn't even know where to begin quite honestly. There are hundreds of them. And, if an exploit is found, then it needs to be patched, which can be done by the open source community and then only passed on to redhat, who will take the patch, redesign it a bit and, make it more compatible with their file system. I see this service as a consolidating support to keep an eye on the hundreds of little programs that might need to be kept working properly to avoid cracks. Pretty important support from my perspective.

I have a few windows boxes and still have support for win98. I have two months notice on RH 8 that has only been out for a year or so. Doesn't seem like a professional group who cares about their clients as much as they might say they do.

Moving over to this other Fedora, RH is going to use the open-source community even more than they already did, and it explicitly states that bits will be taken from that project and integrated into the Enterprise Edition, which will cost.

For the small business that has RH integrated, this is an added expense that is comparable to MS, imo. In terms of incentives, I think they are prematurely moving out into this type of market. For the avid user, then no biggie. So, depending on one's angle, they will feel and think very differently about this issue, imo.

Overall, I appreciate RH greatly, but for reasons that have partially changed now. Yes, I like RH, without a doubt, but I am not going to block out the business aspects of what I see. Great for the Linux movement, but if the pace continues in this direction, then we will all be paying MS $$ for the type of support that is needed to run a secure system, for home or business use, imo. To me this means providing needed updates on all apps, which make the practical, daily machine usable.

On the backs of the open-source movement...


-joseph

Maybe I'm over reacting...ok I know I am, but when I read that e-mail....I got choked up. I've loved the time I've spent with this little fedora, and I had to read that email several times over because I refused to believe it. Now that I think of it... Red Hat 10 sounds kind of dumb. Single digits are better. But enterprise is business orientated, it doesn't seem like a comfortable transition from rhl. SIGH....I guess I'll have to find another distro come april 2004.

so so very true, when i used RH, i used to always check for those email saying i needed to upgrade a specific package. this for me was all the support i needed and i agree that this is valuable support

this too pisses me off to no end. why the abrupt HALT in service all of a sudden. Usually things like this are gradually phased out. 2 months notice is just bullshit. i guess with redhat you get what u pay for :(


i can understand redhat's move, they need to make money i guess. but to say this is good for Linux doesn't fly with me. It's good for RedHat, yea...but good for Linux?? If it takes the word "Enterprise" and a high price tag for companices to realize that Linux is a product that will best suit there needs for security and stability then i say screw those close minded companies. They'll come around when they get tired of paying M$ prices just to have their server farms shut down by a worm that exploits a flaw in the OS (blaster). It shouldnt take a high price tag for Linux to make big moves in the coorporate world. If this is the route u want Linux to take, high prices and fancy buzz words, then you jump on that band wagon yourself. I dont wanna be tied to a yearly subscription fee and words like "Enterprise" to keep a smooth running Linux server and desktop. "emerge sync && emerge -u world" keep me updated at no cost.

And this word "Enterprise"..i hate that word. Marketing makes me sick sometimes but I guess you have to please the people that only know buzz-words.


Maybe this whole thing would piss me off a lot less if the grace period was a little more than 2 months for pre-9 installs and 5 for rh9. I dont even have rh installed and that just pisses me off. screw you too redhat

Silverpenquin. Unlike Micro$oft you can try out Different Linux OS for free. Go to www.linuxiso.org and download whatever you want to try. Like you, I have just come to Linux because I can not take any more of M$ bull. After researching some, for people like us, new to linux, Redhat, and Mandrake seem to be the best choice. I've tried both and they are very similar. I also have Fedora and that is also the same. There is another version of Linux called Knoppix, that you run from a CD. Except for a few files it doesn't even stay on your Hardrive.

After trying the ones I mentioned, I decided to go with Redhat. Too bad about the support thing, but M$ does the same thing. I think I'll stick around awhile and see what happens with Fedora.