Hello Linux Experts;

I will very much appreciate your help on RHEL 5 beta 2. I am new to Linux. I was wondering, if you used RHEL 5 beta 2, and what did you like or did not like in RHEL 5 beta 2. Also, I was wondering, what may be the key reasons for customers to use RHEL 5, and what may be the issues faced to migrate from RHEL 4 to RHEL 5. What do you think may be the key reasons for people to upgrade to RHEL 5. I will greatly appreciate, if you could tell me who is RHEL 5 main competition, and who do you think will win and why. Are you using any virtualization software, if so which one and why. Also, wondering, if you are using any J2EE Server, if so which one and why?

I will really appreciate your expert advise.

Thank you

Regards
Thomas

That's a lot of questions...

I use RedHat EL4 at work for only one reason--it is the only Linux they officially support. It gets the job done, but I do not like the conservative approach and the relative paucity of SW available thru the package manager / local IT establishment.

I want to be able to use the current version of things like OpenOffice, Gimp, Bluefish, etc. and RHEL does not make this easy.

Who's going to win?---I don't know what race you refer to. RedHat is an established leader in enterprise systems, but Novell/SUSE should also be strong. Also, I would not discount Ubuntu.

Where I have the choice, I no longer use RedHat stuff, nor do I use Gnome. To me, the best systems are Debian family (includes the *ubuntus, Mepis, etc. and things like PCLinuxOS that use the same packaging system). I also believe the KDE is the better desktop.

pixelany is correct - the red hat release are ultra conservative in the versions of software that they release for their enterprise servers. They do this for reasons of stability among others. There are many proprietary software vendors (we use several of them) that certify their software on the enterprise versions. They will lose that certfication if they get to close to the leading edge of software and the proprietary software won't run on it.

You will find that in the "supported" enterprise arena for proprietary software you will find SuSE Linux Enterprise Server is the main competitor. Once again you will find this to be fairly conservative as most of this software is only certified to run on SLES 9 even though 10 has been released.

Once you get away from running proprietary apps then there are many in use - from CentOS which is a Red Hat server clone to Debian Stable to the "bleeding" edge stuff like Fedora, OpenSuse, and Ubuntu Edgy distros. Of the bleeding edge stuff I've found the Fedora and Ubuntu Edgy ones the most stable and usable in a production environment for file\print\ftp\web services and so on.

Who will win? I'm a capitalist - the users will win!

LR Removed

Moved: This thread is more suitable in the Redhat Forum and has been moved accordingly to help your thread/question get the exposure it deserves.

You've got to be kidding... (BTW: Welcome to LQ )

RHEL is a commercial distribution. The main reason for using it is cost-effectiveness. Same as any business.

The number one competitor would be Microsoft.
In the open-source marketplace, everyone wins.

You should start by reading some reviews. Then you'll have something to discuss, and you will be able to form more complete and specific questions.

Please edit your profile to reflect your distro and location (at least).
Please read the LQ FAQ.
Please read the long advise in my sig.

I have just merged these 2 threads - despite the fact that it appears that 2 different people have written in, they are so close as to be almost identical. And I am giving you both the benefit of the doubt.