[Sussex] Red Hat 8.0

[Geoff Teale]

Tony wrote:
-----------
> <snip> - Couple of points
> No mention of interoperability - absolutely crucial for a business 
> machine rather than standalone home use. I've loaded RH8 but 
> find there 
> are dhcp problems. The machine doesn't appear to start the SAMBA NMB 
> service - did you find this to be the case?

Certainly didn't have any DHCP problems - my home network runs DHCP and
everything ran as expected.  As far as Samba is concerned I really don't
know.  I'm not in a position to test Samba at home right now. I would be
very upset to hear that Red Hat had a problem in this respect though.

> I couldn't install it normally on a 64 MB machine, soo I used 
> the text 
> install - much slower but worked. I suspect problems with the 
> RAMdisk. 
> AFAICT the apps run OK - had one crash loading a help file in the 
> Network Configure utility.

Hmm, sounds like you had a bad time with low spec hardware.

> I like the idea of having just one app available for most 
> tasks - for a 
> standard work PC this is much easier to look after.

I agree, it gives it a much more coordinated feel as well.

> There are a few places in the install and other places where 
> the advice 
> given (such as in setting up the network) differs from the actual 
> prompts that appear on the screen. Usually this is not 
> serious (eg the 
> Network Configuration help tells you to choose an option and 
> then press 
> the button labelled Next - the buttons are labelled Back and 
> Forward!) 
> but someone setting up for the first time might find this a little 
> disconcerting.

I agree with that as well.  That said I think we still live in a world where
people who install and setup LINUX are people who know about computers to
some degree.  It needs to improve still, but I think these things are a lot
better than they were at the end of 2001. 

> Tried gcc briefly - Clara OCR gave a number of preprocessor 
> warnings but 
> completed the make install with an executable image. There 
> had been no 
> such messages with RH7.3.

Yup.. this is because GCC 3.2 is much stricter about standards compliance -
I came a cropper on this as well.  Just to clarify though - from my point of
view those extra warning messages are a good thing, not a bad one.

> As someone who buys PCs and services for a living I am not convinced 
> this version can replace Windows. 2 major issues - the lack 
> of access to 
> network resources, and the need for a fast machine with a lot 
> of memory. 

I dispute the second point to some degree - it's a shame Red Hat's systems
requirements are quite high, but thinking about it from Red Hat's point of
view (i.e. who is going to buy this OS) you have to think a little
differently.  People who are happy with Windows's 9x or NT on older kit
(like you describe) are not likely to move. Everyone else has only a few
choices:

1. Buy high spec new kit to support a newer windows OS that will last for a
few years before the upgrade cycle forces you to buy a new version of Office
(to stay compatible) which needs a new version of windows which need new
kit...and around we go again.
  
2. Buy medium to high spec new kit to support a decent LINUX desktop.
Hopefully this reduces your reliance of commercial software so when the
eventual cycle comes around again you can hopefully just upgrade your office
software for free without too much performance hit and without getting tied
into anything.  Downside of this is a certain amount of retraining and
complexities in setup.

3. Buy Mac's.  You can't buy low-spec macs (they don't make them if they
can't sell them for  >= £1000 ) unless you get re-engineered ones -even then
the Mac OS X sys reqs are just as horrendous as any other modern desktop OS.
You can still be tied into proprietary products (Office, OS X itself, and of
course the hardware) and you face the wavering support of Microsoft for some
of them as well.  

> Bit puzzled why this should be so - Windows runs OK for basic office 
> work  in 64 MB - why the bloat on RH8? 7.3 seemed faster too. 
> Maybe RH9?

Hmm, well 64MB isn't much these days at all.  See above for my opinions on
why this isn't an issue.  

The reason here is to do with the sheer amount and size of software running
- what you call bloat.  

In truth I'm sure Red Hat 8.0 can be made to run comfortably in 64MB with
some of the things that are running by default switched off -  the biggest
beast here is always X-Windows.  

The problem is that you're not comparing like for like.  If you compare OS X
or Windows XP you'll see that, in order to provide all the nice little
things they do for you, they east memory like nobodies business. Red Hat are
emulating that kind of environment - not a basic version of windows from 5-8
years ago.  

For general office use you don't need that level of functionality - and here
lies an interesting point.  You simply do not need to do all that extra
stuff to make an decent office distro.  I could build a desktop machine that
ran office software properly on much lower hardware requirements (although
OpenOffice itself would need a fair chunk of memory) and was very usable
indeed.  The problem here is that the major distros have to grab peoples
attention, and to do that you need to have all the extra nick-knacks that XP
and OS X have else the marketing-addled minds of the average business man
think the product is somehow inferior.
 
> Certainly agree with you Geoff that OS X is a lot nicer - 
> soon as I've 
> transferred all my data over I can abandon Windows at home for good 
> (apart from the WinNT  CD duplicator!)

Now, now, I never said it was nicer :)  I actually think OS X is a great
environment for the average user - and it's better than windows because it
gives a reasonable UNIX environment for those who want to use it.  However,
I don't think it's necessarily a more productive platform for the office and
it sure as hell isn't better value for money than anything.

The debate goes on...

-- 
GJT
geoff.teale at claybrook.co.uk




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