When is the next version of redhat coming out? (RH 10?)

That will be determined most likely by Redhat. I'm sure they are not too far away from releasing 10 or if its going to even be 10.

The original estimated date is October 13; my guess is late October, maybe even early November.

Preannouncing estimated release dates and at the same time accepting user requests on what new software to put into the next beta (such as GNOME 2.4) won't work well.

I have been working with the beta (9.0.93 Severn) for a while now. When they originally released that, they did give a planned schedule as mentioned above. In my opinion, it will be later than October. First, it needs work. Second, they are still adding newer versions of software, as mentioned. Also, there are problems with the boot-up (slow and graphical...why they did this, is beyond me) and the up2Date function which was rendered inoperative for me on the last update (an update itself).

But anyway, they were also talking about trying for the 2.6 Kernel, which is a ways off yet...probably the END of the year. If they try to go to THAT, it will delay the release even further out. Then, the pulled the website supporting the beta release and say they are figuring out what to do. Sounds like confusion.

But I'll wait and play...I like Red Hat a LOT and will stay with it for the time being. My advice would be for them to maybe update the Kernal in Red Hat 9 and keep it up to date until they can really make a special good release with the 2.6 kernal for RH10...probably pushing it out to January. But that's all just speculation.

Concerning http://rhl.redhat.com , have a look at it again. They have changed it today.

Geeez, thanks...I was wondering when they were going to at least say SOMETHING.

Is the next version of Red Hat Linux (for home users) going to be available in retail stores?

Can red-hat be updated to the next version wihtout a complete re-install? Reliably (Windows always messes up when I do an update)

Define "reliably".

Although upgrading from a previous release to the next one is a supported and tested upgrade path and works flawlessly in most cases, it can happen that after the upgrade some things look wrong or don't work as expected. Such minor issues usually are easy to fix, though, and don't require a re-install.

The primary problem is not with the upgrading of the software [packages] that ship with Red Hat Linux (unless you have installed plenty of software from external sources). It's within your customizations. With new software, often configuration settings become incompatible. E.g. your desktop settings get messed up a bit or you may need to reconfigure KDE/GNOME applications which keep their configuration in your $HOME directory. In seldom cases it is necessary to get rid of old config files to get an application to work at all.

So, conclusively. Be warned. An upgrade should work without problems. But you may need to fix minor issues.

The way I understand it, the next version of Red Hat will NOT be offered as a retail package. It will be ISO's.

As far as upgrade path vs. fresh install, it seems to be always safer to do a fresh install (saving your data ahead of time, of course). I know that it's kind of a pain to "start over" all of the time, but I like to think of it as a nice brand-new operating system again! Besides, I kind of like setting all of the stuff up (if you have the time).