[NTLUG:Discuss] Redhat9 - hostid doesn't work

[Iostream@comcast.net]

Posted this earlier, but form wrong email account.  Anyway, the problems with
VMWare and Compaq DL380 is not Red Hat's fault.  It is a poor hardware
implementation that Red Hat has been working around, at the expense of others
functionality.  This has been changed in Red Hat 9, and I believe it will also
be changed in the newest Suse.  The work around it simple, when you boot from
the CD, at the lilo prompt for the installer, type: linux noapic
This will disable the incorrect hardware/bios apic implementation found in
Compaq DL380 and VMWare's products.  I think the very latest VMWare versions of
GSX and workstation fix this, but I am not sure, ESX still has the limitation.
As for Red Hat and compatibility, there are some issues with Red Hat 9, but it
seems to be for good reasons to me.  Starting with Red Hat 8, they began putting
things into the system/kernel that were just beginning to appear in the 2.5
series.  This helps get users out there using it, and helps to stabalize those
features.  They have always done this, with the 0(1) scheduler,some VM patches,
etc, but they kept it non intrusive until they seperated their enterprise
product.  In the RH 8 beta, they released it with HZ=1000, almost 2 days before
Linus released his first 2.5 kernel to have that feature.  The NPTL
implementation is somewhat obtrusive, but it gets users out there, and gives
vendors a good chance to test their code before 2.6 comes out.  All in all, I
think the changes are good from a stabalize 2.6 point of view, but can be
obtrusive to the person who wants to rebuild certain parts of the system without
messing with everything.
IF you want to use RH 9 with a Linus kernel, I would recommend 2.6 pre 1.  It is
out now, and I would say perfectly stable enough for most environments (some
drivers especially may need work, but no one will know unless they are tested).
 For RH 9 you will need new modutils, but everything else should work, and you
will have a kernel that supports most of the features that RH expects in the OS.
 For better compatibility with RH, the AC trees usually help on 2.4 series.
For the few multimedia pieces they left out, I find it easy just to use the rpm
to add the mp3 functionality, then build xine libs and gxine on the box to get a
pretty comprehensive video player with mozilla plugin.  Just remove the video
lines from pluggerrc to make sure that mozilla uses the direct plugin.
Of course there are several other distros out there which are very good as well,
and may give you better results with your particular needs.  Suse, Gentoo, and
Mandrake all have good standard distributions, and Debian works well as long as
you update.

Just my $.02
Justin