Entry-Level Server (or short "Entry Server")
Advanced Server

You probably heard about it when Red Hat released their first Red Hat Advanced Server (the old name) several months ago.
Yes. Though, 9 not 9.0
Sort of, together with Red Hat Professional Workstation. http://www.redhat.com/software/workstation/
There won't be any.

OK, there sure are a lot of comments here. My take on it is that Fedora is really a "good thing," and also a corporate decision by the Red Hat folks. Be I don't see it as an abandonment at all. I see it as an oportunity for THEM to take advantages of a willing community, and an advantage to the COMMUNITY to have a really cool, fast-changing and upgrading distro to "play" and work with.

I have downloaded and worked with test 1, test 2, and now test 3. Each test release has fixed many bugs and is more refined than the last. One of my complaints with the "real" Red Hat distibutions is that once you are installed, unless you to to many third parties, you didn't get any really good software upgrades...just little fixes. With Fedora, through the Rawhide channel, and other yum and apt repositories, we will have access to quick upgrades to installed software and other improvements. On top of that, we can see a brand-new distribution every 4 to six months. Although it is a little set-up work, I prefer fresh, clean installs (after backing up my work) so that it's like a new computer evey 6 months! FOR FREE!

Also, Fedora, if I am reading this correctly, will be right on top of the 2.6 kernel. They are working on the timing now to try to fit it in for the next release.

Is Red Hat going to profit from this? You bet! Not directly, but by asking the community's help in "testing" stuff. That's OK with me, because I like the "new" stuff. Maybe some people will resent that. But WE sure can have some fun with this too!

And about the Microsoft thing.....did they EVER let us have this much fun? So I don't see Red Hat as being a Microsoft at all, but they DO have to make money if they are going to continue to serve their corporate customers (and I think we would all want to see that...it's good for Linux, and computing in general).

So I call on all of us to have some fun, play with some of the latest software avialable, and find out what the heck "Fedora" really means!

Are you kidding?

Well, yeah, I was kidding...we all know it's a HAT, but is there supposed to be metaphor here? And how do you know what color it's supposed to be?

So yeah, it was just a stupid comment to be silly...OK?

We can be silly here, can we not?

Uhhh......

Sorry for being such a pain. But I don't get the joke. Must be a serious lack of sense of humour.

http://www.redhat.com/apps/commerce/coolstuff.html

A Pain? No Way! Looking back, it wasn't that good anyway....maybe I don't even get it!
But that's not the point! You aren't a pain at all! Funny how we all can see things in different ways..just like in this thread! That's the beauty of humanity! Well, it can be a problem too sometimes.

Back to Fedora, I am looking forward to installing the final version on my "big" (the one I do all of my "real" stuff on) machine in a couple of weeks. Then that will free up my test machine for some other project....it sure is nice having a test machine laying around. I got it from my brother...an old Dell Dimension 450. Sometimes I can get really aggressive on that and try stuff that I would NEVER do on my "big" machine just to see what happens...and no consequenses. I can just wipe and start over when things go wrong.

I know that they say on the Fedora web site that some of the software might not be as stable as an enterprise system...but I'm sure that the final versions will be fine. I was also reading today somewhere, where the Debian and Red Hat sides will be working more closely together...not a merger, but at least some cross-hatched features. For instance, they are incorporating the Red Hat Anaconda installer on the next version. Cool. And they are working to get apt repositories and apt packaga management more stable and consistant on the Red Hat side. All good things as I have just started with apt myself and am impressed.

This is JUST the kind of thing that I think that Red Hat was looking for, without taking chances on the enterprise side and screwing it up. So I take no offence at what Red Hat has done, nor do I see you as a PAIN!

Now to go and put on my fedora...

http://arstechnica.com/archive/news/1067056799.html

There are different forms of stability. One is whether the software itself runs stable, i.e. whether it works fine and doesn't crash. Another is whether the software included within a distribution isn't touched/upgraded and therefore remains stable over a long(er) period of time. A lot of Fedora's run-time stability depends on whether the upstream projects release stable software and whether bugs are found in packages in Fedora's development stream and test releases. Due to frequent software version upgrades, however, the Fedora distribution can't be called stable, because things may change more often compared with an enterprise distribution.

Yes, I agree...as a matter of fact, I have just started up my Fedora machine NOW...and writing on that NOW...and since last night, rawhide has posted 96 updates (the little thingy on the lower right is flashing). I have used Up2date for the Rawhide Channel, and apt from
fedora.us for fedora.us and livna stuff. I haven't mixed in too many other things, but wanted the livna stuff for the media things that Fedora leaves out.

About stability, yes, I understand. The underlaying OS is very stable. I have already run into some problems with some software packages. My thinking may be incorrect, but once the FINAL version (or "general availability," to use official terminology) that they will do updates at a slightly slower pace and port the aggressive updates to the next beta versions. That is speculation, I'm just interested in seeing how it goes. Did you notice that with test 2 that just about all 1400 packages were updated? And with Test three, it was just a "few" hundred...so I see a trend. I'm thinking that the final official release will be more calm. We'll see.

It IS an exciting project, however, as I think you have gleened from my comments above. I hope that you are having fun with it too.

Well, thanks for all of your comments...

Sorry if I offended any of you guys! I'm really not pro-microslop, and I'm not anti-RedHat or Linux either. I understand their charging corporate customers - it is to support the staff that guarantees services to the corporations that use RedHat, and that's a good thing. But, for the average Joe home user who just wants some security updates, charging isn't very nice (MS doesn't even do that). I know you can use their "demo" upgrade service with very limited bandwidth, but for hundreds of megs of downloads, that would really not be nice. I don't believe that it was really their choice to do this anyway. It is probably their accountants saying that their stockholders need to see profits, and that is one way to boost that. RedHat is stuck behind this now, and Fedora is a good way to "get out". Anyway, again, I'm sorry if I offended anyone. Happy computing!

Oh no! You certainly didn't offend me! It's hard to get offended for me!
I think a good, frank discussion is something that's missing in our politically
"correct" culture because people are sooooo afraid of "offending" someone
else! I agree with you...but I think that their might be MORE support than
you think.

For instance....I have a system signed up with RHN too, for my RH9 machine...and
I have been using my "demo" entitlement for the test machine. But did you notice
that with test three, that the up2date program is set for RawHide, and it doesn't even
ask you to sign up for anything! I am interested in HOW RED HAT is going to manage
the Fedora project about this! I'm assuming that the Rawhide will be available to
ANYONE without even "sighning up" for the latest and greatest software updates....and
will a channel or something be created in RHN for security and errata? I'm thinking NOT,
and this is more to the point of your post. But wouldn't the latest stuff from Rawhide have
the latest code and have some of these issues already addressed? It seems to me that the Rawhide channel would be AHEAD of any errata channel from Red Hat. But I'm only guessing. We'll just have to wait and see...but I'm thinking that they will make this Fedora
think completely free, including updates, and NOT have to have an entitlement "paid for" in the RHN. Did you notice that they also removed reference to the RHN in the Fedora site?

Well, we'll see....only one week away from final release....and I'll be interested in looking around and seeing what's set up for up2date, RHN (if anything), fedora.us, and freshrps.

No matter...I'm really having fun with this stuff!

You didn't even get close to offending anyone. You just posted false information and superficial arguments.
If you like to, you can get all errata package for free, on your favourite mirror of updates.redhat.com. Use tools like Yum/APT/autorpm if you like.
Limited bandwidth?! Paying customers get priority access, which means you can not even connect when that happens. However, nobody forces you to connect to Red Hat Network. Just pick a nearby mirror and download all updates from there. Just like you would download a "service pack".

You know, misc, you make a great point. I have JUST THIS WEEK started to play with apt-get (as I have never used this find program before) and it seems to me that there will be several repositories to get just about anything you want. Of course care must be taken on how repositories are mixed, it seems to be a great software management tool.

Also, you are right about "paying" vs. other possibilities. Is this a philosophical issue? I have ALWAYS been willing to pay reasonable fees for good services. If that is what someone wants, then it's great. Even in Linux, I don't see why everything should be totally for FREE monetarily. If good service is important, a nominal fee is really perfectly reasonable. The important thing pertaining to the quote about Microsoft above is that Linux has put that thing and turned it upside down. YOU GET THE WHOLE OPERATING SYSTEM FOR FREE (in the case of Fedora)...and get updates for free, and MAYBE...we don't know this yet, PAY a small fee for service (however, I'm thinking that Red Hat is planning on keeping this out of the commercial side altogether...still have to wait and see about that).

To turn that quote around.....Even Microsoft wouldn't do that! What? Give away an operating system! Cool.

So, Microsoft ALSO HAS to give away the updates because the operating system is defective. Defective products must be corrected. Sure there are security flaws in Linux too, but right now at least, it's a BIG MS problem. It was recommended in the editorial this month in Linux Magazine, that maybe Microsoft should issue a "recall" on Windows since other commercial companies have to do this with defective products if it is a "danger" or costs a lot of money. Considering the money spent and damage done, I would say that this qualifies!

But is Linux perfect? Of course not.....just "better" in many ways and a LOT more fun!

Thanks again for great comments.........

Can someone tell me if RedHat has made a hardware compatibility list for Fedora yet, the way they did with all the previous versions? I ran a google and searched here and came up empty handed. And if any Fedora developer is listening that has any interaction with the Fedora website, you forgot a search engine on the site. Thanks..

I havn't seen a list yet...I hope that they publish it...probably with the "general" release next week. I did cruise the modules that came with the distro and found what looks like (finally) a module for my Broadcom 4400 series NIC card...that has been lacking...I'm sure that there will be more additions with this release.

I have an unrelated question and it's starting to make me wonder how this is going to be handled. On my test machine, I'm running Test three (I'm in Red Hat 9 now on my "big" machine) and the up2date is set to the rawhide channel. OK..that's fun, but they keep porting new code almost daily to that channel, for testing. I also am using apt-get and the fedora.us and livna repositories for getting the media stuff.

My question is, will the "general" availability releast (meaning FINAL) have an update channel that just takes care of fixing problems and not so busy as the rawhide channel which is really for testing? Some of the rawhide releases are pretty skittery and I won't want those in my "big" set-up where I do my work.

I know that I can change all of this anyway and just not USE these updates, but I was wondering if anyone had any information pertaining to the plan on this. It seems like a moving target.

Can't wait for next week!

Now they say the final release has been delayed. :-( I hate being patient...