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The first RHEL5 beta
Red Hat has released
the first beta version of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5. "This is the first Red Hat Enterprise Linux release that includes Xen
based open source virtualization technology. The Red Hat Enterprise
Linux 5 Beta 1 release contains virtualization on the i386 and x86_64
architectures as well as a technology preview for IA64. We are
particularly interested in your feedback on the Xen technology."
(Log in to post comments)
The first RHEL5 beta Posted Sep 11, 2006 18:25 UTC (Mon) by joib (guest, #8541) [Link] Access to the beta appears to be limited to RHEL customers.Seems one can download iso:s at ftp://ftp.redhat.com/pub/redhat/linux/beta/RHEL5-Beta1/
The first RHEL5 beta Posted Sep 11, 2006 18:57 UTC (Mon) by smoogen (subscriber, #97) [Link] Downloads are available at mirrors and at ftp://ftp.redhat.com/pub/redhat/linux/beta/RHEL5-Beta1. THey have been available from before the beta was announced which caused some issues where people downloaded a staging copy and not the final version. THis was fixed by Red Hat.
The major changes I see between RHEL5 and RHEL4/3 are:
1) No AS/ES/WS/DS. Just subsets of Server(Cluster, Storage, Virtualization) and Client (Desktop, Workstation, and Virtualization).
2) No more up2date. It is using only yum baby... hopefully when this gets finalized.. a retro version will be available for RHEL-3/RHEL-4 for sites that have to maintain older versions.
3) All together 2150 packages.
4) Minimal/Everything install are gone, and not coming back. Use kickstart for those cases.
5) Reiserfs/xfs are not included (and probably won't be unless a large paying client is looking for them). My guess is that sites that are wanting reiserfs have paid for seperate contracts with Hans' company.
The first RHEL5 beta Posted Sep 15, 2006 5:20 UTC (Fri) by roelofs (subscriber, #2599) [Link] My guess is that sites that are wanting reiserfs have paid for seperate contracts with Hans' company.They...may have an interesting time of it over the next few months. Apparently he ran Namesys out of his home(?), and according to news reports, he isn't there at the moment. I hope things get cleared up soon, but I'm not feeling terribly optimistic based on what I've read so far. :-( Greg
The first RHEL5 beta Posted Sep 15, 2006 18:31 UTC (Fri) by bronson (subscriber, #4806) [Link] I read that yesterday but figured there were multiple dudes named Hans Reiser in the world...
(little more googling)
http://cbs5.com/localwire/localfsnews/bcn/2006/09/13/n/He...
Holy cow, it IS the same guy! And that sounds like one heck of a story.
The first RHEL5 beta Posted Sep 15, 2006 14:02 UTC (Fri) by csamuel (✭ supporter ✭, #2624) [Link] Reiserfs/xfs are not included (and probably won't be unless a large paying client is looking for them). I've never understood why Redhat don't include XFS, we had to dump RHEL for Fedora because RHEL3+ext3 just couldn't cope with the NFS load from our cluster. Now we use Fedora and it just works. The only change I might entertain from there might be to Ubuntu..
The first RHEL5 beta Posted Sep 11, 2006 21:31 UTC (Mon) by dowdle (subscriber, #659) [Link] Dude,
Distrowatch posted a public link to the Server and Client DVD isos on their front page on Friday.
This makes me wonder a few things:
1) AS, ES, and WS are gone... one is to assume a new pricing stucture? I hope that the cluser, gfs (and yes the directory service) will make their way into the core product... and the the entire thing will see a lower pricing stucture... something along the lines of MacOSX Server unlimited and/or SUSE SLES.
2) What impact does switching from up2date to yum have with regards to Red Hat Network? Are they going to have additional yum modules for subscribers only?
I realize how much development Red Hat puts into the Linux kernel, gcc, and the various other projects they are major contributors to... work all distros benefit from... and hope to see a pricing structure where non-enterprise customers have a productline to pick from.
Don't get me wrong, I like Fedora Core on the desktop... but I want a more stable, longer living product on the server. Yes, I know of CentOS and I use it in a few places... but wouldn't mind a way to reward Red Hat without having to make payments.
The first RHEL5 beta Posted Sep 12, 2006 5:41 UTC (Tue) by joib (guest, #8541) [Link] AS, ES, and WS are gone... one is to assume a new pricing stucture?I seems like that, yes. Personally, I always thought ES with its crippled kernel was somewhat revolting on a philosophical level. My guess is that the basic "server edition" will be priced similarly to ES today, and depending on the level of support you want you can pay through your nose just like with AS today. I think it makes sense, as you won't have to do a ES->AS reinstall just to get a better service contract should you want such a thing? hope that the cluser, gfs (and yes the directory service) will make their way into the core product I hope that too, but the announcement mentioned: Beyond the core distribution, these media kits contain a number of optional directories that provide additional functionality. Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server * Cluster - Fail-Over clustering and Web load balancing * ClusterStorage - Parallel storage access via clustered volume manager and GFS cluster file system * Virtualization - Xen virtualization environment Red Hat Enterprise Linux Client * Desktop - Desktop applications including Evolution and OpenOffice (not available on the Server) * Workstation - Full Engineering Workstation and Developer package set * Virtualization - Xen virtualization environmentMy guess this means that these addons will cost extra? Probably the directory server will also remain a separate product, although there's no mention of it in the announcement. Personally I think this is a bit unfortunate, IMHO one of the biggest advantages of Linux distros has always been that you get a huge array of functionality "out of the box". Specifically, in an "enterprise" setting like what RHEL is targeting, just install package foo instead of battling the bureocracy for two months to get some purchase order signed. :) and the the entire thing will see a lower pricing stucture Yes. Well, this may not warm your heart very much, but if you're an educational institution you can get very competetive pricing.
The first RHEL5 beta Posted Sep 12, 2006 15:17 UTC (Tue) by mdomsch (subscriber, #5920) [Link] The ES kernel isn't crippled, it's exactly the same RPM package as AS/WS/DT have. ES *support* is limited to 2 CPU sockets, AS *support* is for >2 sockets. The kernel doesn't care, but your support contract does.
The first RHEL5 beta Posted Sep 11, 2006 23:30 UTC (Mon) by drag (subscriber, #31333) [Link] From their bullet point of listed features to concintrate on..."* New Driver Model for better integration of out-of-kernel-tree drivers"
WTF is that about? Did they *gasp* (just a wide guess) develop a stable interface for the Linux kernel or something like that?
If so then that means that there is a significant demand for such things in businesses as to make Redhat support something like that. I can't imagine that they'd develope something like that and not want to get it back into the Linux kernel proper.
And I don't just mean support propriatory software either. There are a number of commonly used open source drivers that just aren't in the kernel yet. (for instance some cool stuff like Lustre support or OpenAFS support, as well as numerious hardware devices)
The first RHEL5 beta Posted Sep 12, 2006 5:11 UTC (Tue) by joib (guest, #8541) [Link] My guess is that it's something similar to Novells "partner linux driver process" http://lwn.net/Articles/184118/ .
As for the "stable kernel abi" thing, I guess that rhel5, like previous rhel releases, will pick a single kernel version and backport security fixes and some limited new features throughout the (7 year?) life of rhel5. If on top of that, they are now ensuring that the abi is not broken, doesn't sound like too much additional work for them, as long as they aren't committing to rhel6 etc. supporting the same abi. I definitely don't see it as RH pushing for a stable ABI upstream.
The first RHEL5 beta - New Driver Model Posted Sep 12, 2006 7:34 UTC (Tue) by zdzichu (guest, #17118) [Link] "Essentially, this and other scripts are part of a system for allowing compatible kernel modules to continue to work after a kernel update occurs - weak-modules is the part that figures out which kernels are compatible with a driver." (source)See also http://www.kerneldrivers.org.
Is this an announcement or a proprietary licence agreement? Posted Sep 12, 2006 3:24 UTC (Tue) by xoddam (subscriber, #2322) [Link] > Do not publish any benchmark or performance results based> on this beta release. So is it free software or not? Couldn't they at least say 'please'?
Is this an announcement or a proprietary licence agreement? Posted Sep 12, 2006 4:18 UTC (Tue) by bojan (subscriber, #14302) [Link] > So is it free software or not?
I would think so. However, strangely enough, there are no links to source ISOs from my RHN account. Just an oversight, I guess, as they are otherwise available:
ftp://ftp.redhat.com/pub/redhat/linux/beta/RHEL5-Beta1/se...
> Couldn't they at least say 'please'?
I haven't been through RHEL subscription contracts in detail recently, so I'm not sure if the "do not publish benchmarks" has any kind of legal standing with subscribers. Most likely just another language oversight. I would think it probably cannot have any effect on non-subscribers anyway.
Anyone from RH cares to comment?
The first RHEL5 beta Posted Sep 17, 2006 13:14 UTC (Sun) by addw (guest, #1771) [Link] Can someone point me at the projected/hoped_for timetable ? Ie when will RHEL5 hit the streets ?
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