[Glastonbury] Red Hat... coverdisk

[Kelvin McNulty]

On Saturday 30 August 2003 00:27, Sean Miller wrote:
> I notice that a copy of the latest (?) RedHat distro is included on the=
 DVD
> version of one of the computer magazines this month.
>
> Does anybody use RedHat? If so, is it worth me getting it? Have to admi=
t
> that I am not that overawed with SuSE, and Debian is definitely not my =
"cup
> of tea".

I don't use Red Hat at home, but I am partly responsible for administerin=
g a=20
server that uses it. RH is popular for servers. The updating is using RPM=
s=20
(which SuSE does as well). I remember a conversation with Martin in which=
 he=20
was very enthusiastic about Debian's updating procedure, but in earlier d=
ays=20
when I had to update our server it was not difficult, just slightly tedio=
us,=20
and not quite as automatic or smooth as the impression I got from Martin =
of=20
Debian, Recently, though, it uses something called BlueLinQ to update, wh=
ich=20
does seem to be quite easy.

Our server runs behind a firewall, and so far, touch wood, has not been h=
acked=20
AFAIK (I know of another similar server that got destroyed by a hack). I=20
believe that Red Hat sorts out the hardware and configures itself fairly=20
automatically, and from my perspective, a distro that does that efficient=
ly=20
is a good one (SuSE: reasonable, regular Debian: not good, Knoppix: very =
good=20
despite being a Debian derivative).

So I suggest: try Red Hat and see how it goes (backup everything essentia=
l=20
first, of course).

Written 6am ish after fixing my firewall to exclude all traffic not origi=
nated=20
by me using an example iptables script from the packet-filtering HOWTO.=20
Tested STEALTH on all well known ports on www.grc.com 's Shields Up Port=20
Authority Version - a solid GREEN board of stealth ports from 0 to 1055..=
=2E it=20
was EASY!!!

Details can be found in SuSE (8.1) at

/usr/share/doc/packages/iptables/packet-filtering-HOWTO-1.html

Wow! at moments like this I LOVE Linux.

>
> Any experiences gratefully received...
>
> Sean

Hope the above helps.

Kelvin
Feeling very safe and cosy behind my firewall... and touching wood of=20
course...