[NTLUG:Discuss] Red Hat 9.0 End of Life 04/30/2004

[Rick Matthews]

> Chris Cox wrote:
>
> I don't use Redhat personally, but I do mess with it quite a bit.
> Fedora is the official path for Redhat's consumer line.... Fedora
> is a community effort with heavy handcuffs to RH.

I know I've got more reading to do, but I thought all open source
software was (or could be) a community effort?
 
> Like it was with RH, you could either pay for the expensive
> boxed RH (which at least had printed docs.. if that's worth something)
> or you went and purchased the Splarf-Linux 9 dist... which was
> really RH, but they weren't allowed to tell you that.  You don't
> get printed docs and a nice looking box.... as for support, I
> think you are better off talking to your cat than going to
> RH for support.

I agree with your description of the current/previous Red Hat
offerings.  But it appears that the new "Red Hat Enterprise Linux" 
idea is more than a fancy box with printed documentation and support
bundled in. 

Look at this clip from the RH site:
------------------------
Red Hat's Enterprise Linux family of operating systems is available 
on a per-system, annual subscription basis. The subscriptions are 
offered in three editions: Basic, Standard, and Premium -- each with 
varying support levels and delivery options -- so you can choose 
the subscription combination that best meets the needs of your 
business.
------------------------

Subscription?  The workstation version is $179.... per year.?!?

> If you're a big RH fan... I'd give Fedora a try.

Red Hat is the only distribution that I've ever "managed" (from 
ver 5.2 to 8.0), which is just a tad bit different from just having
a user account. :)

>  See if a community support dist works out well for you.  

Got to catch up on my reading!

> I think you'd be much happier with Debian though... but hey...
> I could be wrong.

Does O'Reilly have a "Linux Distributions in a Nutshell"?  I'll see 
I can find a comparison of the "mainstream" distributions somewhere.

Thanks for the advice!