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[Paul Tansom]

On Thu, 2005-04-28 at 16:59 +0100, Jon Fautley wrote: 
> Paul Tansom wrote:
> > On Wed, 2005-04-27 at 10:51 +0100, Jon Fautley wrote:
> > <snip>
> > 
> >>I also note the lack of Red Hat on the distro's page :O
> > 
> > Anything to do with the fact that the quality of the distribution has
> > gone down since version 6? I tried 7 briefly and moved on to Debian some
> > time ago so haven't used 8 or 9, but I've had to work with RHEL 3
> > Workstation recently and found myself saddened at what had happened to
> > it. I guess it is the focus towards large business usage, but the range
> > of packages available through the package management seems sadly lacking
> > and support is only available to you if you have purchased hardware off
> > their supported hardware list.
> 
> Yup, because of the masses of different hardware configurations out 
> there, we require it to be certified to provide full support, and 
> certainly if it's a hardware releated issue.

I'm not actually implying they should support and debug any problem that
is presented to them, but when I spoke to the support people I was asked
whether my machine was on the supported hardware list within the first
30 seconds or so of the conversation (immediately after describing the
problem). At that point the conversation turned to getting me off the
phone as quickly as possible, suggesting I do a search on Google or
reinstalling with Fedora. There was on attempt to make a few useful
suggestions at all, and if I dare make a comparison of this nature, when
I phoned Microsoft for support a couple of years ago they were extremely
helpful (I can almost hear the keyboards and mice kicking into gear here
with replies detailing poor Microsoft support already!). Admittedly in
this case the person admitted to being a Linux user (which may have been
dangerous if the calls were recorded!), so arguably may have been more
technically competent than many ;) That said he detailed exactly how to
remove Internet Explorer from Windows 98 for me (which of course you
cant do!), including registry edits, etc. etc..

Basically when it comes down to it, unless you install Red Hat on a
system on the list of 646 certified as supported all you get for your
£100 per year is access to the security updates and bug fixes (with a
few package upgrades). That's something you get for free from something
like Debian or Gentoo, and with those you get a solid community around
them (I guess Fedora too).

> > OK, so this is largely a light hearted leg pulling comment (especially
> > since I've just noted your email address!), but having been a Red Hat
> > user in the past I am now working on migrating all the machines I
> > support that use it away from it because, ignoring some peoples
> > ideological objections, I don't consider the distribution to be a
> > particularly good one anymore - not for my usage anyway.
> 
> Yes, my email address... *ahem*
> 
> Obviously any comments I make about the distro will be biased, however, 
> I've found Fedora a very nice system to work with, but for myself (and 
> I'm sure others) it requires a change in the way you work if you're used 
> to other systems, i.e. Slackware / xBSD as I am.

I keep meaning to try it, but a lack of time, space and spare hardware
(well, not spare but spare in a form that is actually plugged together
to the point where it is a usable system as opposed to lots of bits in
boxes!) means I haven't done it yet. The same can be said of other
distributions as I'd like to have a recommended desktop to support - be
that one of the other distributions or a customised Debian.

> > OK, I knew I should have stopped reading my mail, but I really didn't
> > expect to find a Red Hat one to set me off again :o
> 
> hehe... ;)

I could probably put my increasing grumpiness down to many things, but
a 5 month old with a cold doesn't help :) Actually I think it's been
about 5 months or so since I managed a nights sleep without being woken
up at least twice - just recently its been close to hourly! I guess
he's making up for his older brother sleeping through from a very early
age!! My previous employer went under (I won't mention them!) when the
first was around 6 months and I've been business building ever since -
not easy from home with kids running around. I can't decide whether I'm
best to lock myself in the office or not!!

> > btw, if there's any info that may make my life supporting RHEL 3
> > Workstation easier I'd be more than happy to hear it (on or off list)
> > since I don't think the workstation clients I'm supporting are going to
> > be switching distro any time soon, even though the RH support won't help
> > with problems because the hardware is unsupported. (They told me an IDE
> > cdwriter wasn't supported by RH because it wasn't detected on install
> > and suggested I switch to Fedora - the problem when I investigated
> > further turned out to simply be the need to enable idescsi!).
> 
> Sadly, I don't work in support, so there's not much help I can offer :(

I'm largely in control now in most respects thanks, and it was as much
a general comment as aimed specifically at you :) Its a great shame
they don't support the hardware in the machines (NVidia for network and
sound are the key issues and mean hassle with every kernel upgrade). I
think the plan is now to abandon the Red Hat support and I've been
asked to suggest an alternative that will provide an easy migration.
That may be an offshoot distribution or Fedora, I've not decided the
best move yet.

-- 
Paul Tansom | Aptanet Ltd. | http://www.aptanet.com/