I strongly feel that RedHat7.0 should be recalled. It is VERY obvious that this release was a "rush-job" and the QA quality is terrible. There are some very serious bugs that causes this release to be un-usable and even screws up previous working releases in the event of an upgrade. If RedHat is even remotely interested in how users preceive the quality of its software, they should recall this release and wait a few months to work out the bugs before releasing it again. RedHat 7.0 causes nothing but frustration for its users and wastes people's valueable time in trying to debug what should have already been fixed during the QA phase. It's releases like RedHat 7 that makes people want to switch to other distribution's of Linux like Caldera, Turbo, and Mandrake, etc.
If you have real bugs file them. If you bought a copy see the returns policy - basically if you think it sucks you can return it
Alan, is this the way to treat comments ??? The # of bugs reported here, the seriousness of those bugs should goes without comments. I can understand people being frustrated (hell. I AM !). It is true that QA missed this release (think of all those users choosing to compile themselves their apps -- now stuck with a broken c++; it's only an example, there must be numerous others, but that one is the one that gets me jumping right now). I know you're doing hard work - I'm a developper myself at some communications corp here in Montreal. But I tell ya, I'd get fired if I were to answer the way you just did. This thread here will go on numerous web sites, just to show how nice a person you can be, and how tech people at RH treat users. I'm not saying that all RH people are like you, but since you replied with a RH.com email address ... Jeff
Dear Alan and Jeff, First off, I apologize if anyone working at Redhat took my comments personally. I was not aiming at Alan or anyone in particular with my comments. They are my personal opinions and I needed to vent because I was very frustrated. However, I do believe I am entitled to my own opinions and my opinions are not without merit. This release of Redhat has much more problems than 6.2 or previous releases. I have yet to complete an install of 7.0 that meets my requirements and heck, I've tried over 25 times now on 8 different server configurations so I do hope you can understand my frustrations. Thank you Jeff for you comments. I really prefer NOT to switch to another linux distribution as I was very happy with 6.2. However, doesn't logic point to a higher version of linux being more stable? I was under the assumption that 7.0 would be more stable than 6.2 since it's a higher version. I guess my logic was flawed. In any case, if I do return my Redhat 7 Professional Server, it will not be because I was angry at Alan...it will be because Redhat 7 does not meet my requirements and there's no reason for me to upgrade my network of 25 perfectly working servers running 6.2 at my ISP. Sincerely, Ken
Dear Alan, I hope your comment is a result of hard working for more than 30 hours without any pausing on the problems in RedHat 7. I hope also that there will be solutions for the biggest problems in the next few days. On the other hand the first statement of Ken wold bekome true. At the last weekend a had install a linux-server at my company. This server had to work correctly since today (monday) morning. After working hard on RH7 (installation was ok but the building of a new kernel fails) I had to downgrade to RH6.2. To build a kernel is the most important feature to get a working server running linux. RedHat had been my favorite distribution because it was a good solution for the servers I am responsible for. This maybe can change in the next few weeks. Frerich (germany)
Please read the release notes. Use kgcc to build kernels. The new 2.2.18 kernel will automatically choose the right compiler for people who can not specify "CC=kgcc make bzImage" for themselves.
Please file any detailed bug reports against the proper Red Hat Linux component and we will address them. Please realize that "Red Hat Linux 7 sucks" is NOT a bug report. Detailed bug reports and test cases only please.
With as large of a user base as RedHat has, there are bound to be hundreds of horrible stories. I'm not one of them. I've installed RH7.0 on 4 servers now. (1x486, 1xP133, 1xP3850, 1xdual zeon 500). My installs have been flawless; better than any distro previous (including 6.2). If everyone shouted their successes as loudly as the minority shouts their failures, then RedHat would be overwhelmed with positives (and deaf). Again, this is IMHO, but I would like to stand and clap my hands for the RH 7.0 release, no matter what SlashDot says.
People, get a life! My RedHat 7.0 installs have been going well. Sure, there are some weird things in it, but they're mostly the same things I had plenty of time to test on Pinstripe. I hadn't read a word about needing to use kgcc to compile a kernel, but it took me *8 minutes* to find out that's what I needed to do. I've been using Linux since '92 (Yes, I did DL the sources at 1200 bps, and started with the compiler up), and by God I read the README files, look at the INSTALL files, and check the docs. Amazingly, I've had a lot of fun in the last 7 or 8 years, and very FEW cases where I bitched about a 'problem' where it turned out to not BE a problem. Now, if people have REAL bug reports, or a SPECIFIC instance where something in RedHat 7.0 fails, THAT is what I'd like to see. "Recall the product" is such a blanket statement that no one can possibly take it seriously. <rant> I can't feel any sympathy for anyone who attempts to install a brand new release of software ON A DEADLINE without testing the hell out of it. Pinstripe was out for how long? If you take a released piece of anything and blindly throw it on a server expecting it to be up in time for business Monday, you quite frankly deserve what you get. I'd be willing to take bets that quite a few of the problems people encounter in cases like that have little to do with the distro, and a lot to do with a lack of localized testing (testing for the specific implementation) and a distinct refusal to read the docs first. RedHat: 7.0 looks pretty good. Yes, there are things to be fixed, but mine's running well. As I run into BUGS, I'll post them here, hopefully with some decent background info and a description of the environment, along with info on whether it's reproduceable. Oh Goodness, I must have gotten the idea to include that info from READING THE DOCUMENTATION FOR BUGZILLA!!! </rant>
Goodness. First time I ever saw a slashdotted bug report.<heh> So any one looking at this report, the number of bugs for 7.0 that are new/open are 149. The rest of the other 2.500 bugs are spread out over previous releases and beta test releases. Have a nice planetary half-rotation. Henri J. Schlereth RedHat Beta Test Team. P.S. if you can't tell RedHat what's wrong, how do you expect them to fix it?
Beside the slight problem getting a new kernel to compile (forgive me if I didn't see any notes about using kgcc, but where is there docs on this?), I've had absolutely no problem with RH7. Granted, I don't foresee using RH7.x on any of my servers until 7.1 at least, but as my desktop workstation, my experience has been what it should have been-- a nice improvement over 6.x.
I've installed Red Hat 7.0 on an IBM a20m ThinkPad, and upgraded the kernel to 2.4.0-test8. The install was flawless, and after getting the right things in 2.4.0 working, I've got a fully function laptop with power management and the works. If this is "horror", then I guess I'm a fan of the genre.
Ummm...I know that during the install I saw that about kgcc...maybe I just looked at the packages I installed before I installed them, but I did see that somewhere. All in all I've only found two "bugs" and one was solved by common sense.
To all: I'm happy that you guys aren't having problems with Redhat 7. However, I am and I have a right to express my opinions. I have been running linux on my old old 386SX33 since the 0.98 release of the linux kernel so I'd like to think I know a few things about linux. However, this release of Redhat is nothing but trouble. I posted my gripe about Redhat 7 after posting 3 other bugs which I put as very high priority for me. These bugs were closed and flagged as "NOTABUG" or flagged as duplicates. Just to give you guys a taste, one of the bugs pretains to not being able to run DNSCONF or configure my apache web server using the LINUXCONF tool. Yes, I _can_ configure my apache by hand and I _can_ configure my domain name server by hand but I prefer to use the LINUXCONF tool because that's what I bought the Redhat 7 for! If I wanted to do all these by hand, why did I bother spending $200+ for Redhat? The response I got from Redhat about the DNSCONF/APACHE CONF/etc bug was that "these have been disabled due to problems that cannot be fixed" and thus, NOT-A-BUG. These tools were working perfectly in 6.2 and before...and in 7.0, it's not. HELLO?? Anyways, I find it very disturbing that Redhat is making people who pay for their software waste their time doing the QA phase for them. Some of the bugs are outright blatant and should have been caught WAY before the release. Others are even "known" and yet, they still proceed with the release of Redhat 7. That's the most disturbing part of it all...
I think it should be better to tell my experience _after_ have installed the RedHat Linux 7.0, and be shure that I will post good or bad comments about it when finally I will upgrade the 6.2 to the 7.0. The reason for that post is that I have not read about serious bugs that keeps me away from the upgrade! It is true that the gcc (as Gnu Compiler Collection in its whole meaning, not only the C compiler) is not the best choice for developers (as I am) because the version here included is too unstable, you can find that even in the gcc-bugs lists, but it is simple for a developer to downgrade to the "stable" version (note that even the 2.95.2 have serious bugs, but not so serious to avoid it!). You as a System Adm. should never change a very stable and tested release to a new and maybe unstable release, it is the basics to learn and you can find it in manuals! Even so, you can learn the best think to do to secure a server is to buil a distro from scratch, based on an already installed distro, like RedHat Linux, but changing everything and without the gcc installed (a server should not have a compiler and other things that a cracker can use to force it!). See http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/ for example. Another bug could be the wrong permissions for MySQL, it is simply a matter of change them, or upgrading the rpm to a new and fully operational one. I hope this will be the last post that do not talk about real bugs, because bugs are inside RedHat Linux, as It is obvious, Debian have a lot of bugs, Mandrake have a lot of bugs, even Slackware (the most stable and secure distro as is in my _own_ opinions) have some bugs, and you cannot pretend to free the world from them ;) I'm waiting for the RedHat Linux 7.0, hoping the bugs we submit will give a great 7.1 to the world. ------- neugens ------- Linux Tester
I think that anybody who has serious gripes needs to remember that RH has been the best distro for quite some time, as either a server or a workstaion. the versatility of the OS as well as the impact RPM had in the developer world is very large plus. Alan whos comments seem quite ,ignornant, is only lashing out as a result of frustration, I would do the same, he os ony defending his product that he knows so well and works with day to day, its emotional, I understand. I think what he is saying here is, maybe it just isnt for you. I thought part of the Linux experience was making it do what you wanted it to do,,, well I am compileing my software with out any dificulities, spend less time bitching and fix it your self. I forgive RedHat for releasing an OS before its been properly testes, its economics and RH wouldnt be here if it was not for economics, this whole industry is economicaly driven, and when you got it for free, dont bitch.
Something I've been thinking about for a long time, and which it might be appropriate to mention now... I have to worry about the patch level on close to a thousand Sun/Solaris machines. It isn't too hard, since Sun bundles their most important patches for each version into "recommended patch clusters." You download one big file, and start it installing. Patches that have already been installed fail without making problems, and in a little while you have effortlessly brought your system current with every significant patch that was released as of the day before. Why don't you folks do this? Or do you somewhere, and I just haven't heard about it yet?
I had a good experience installing RedHat 7.0. Except for one bug which I thought would be no problem at all: the 1024 cylinder limit for lilo. After the installation I had to boot up with a floppy, but after fixing an entry in lilo.conf and running lilo, the problem was solved. I can say you: I have been working with RedHat quite a long time and a few months ago I tried Mandrake, which was really a bad experience: It was really buggy: nothing but troubles and often my system locked up, I think they were using lots of stuff that were not tested enough. I came back to RedHat with this 7.0 and I have absolutely no regret. I hope I don't have to meet any very serious and anoing bug.
hmmmm I just when to bugzilla to check out the bugs (link from /.) After selecting 'Query existing bug reports' under the 'Bug Options' I was brought to http://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla/query.cgi. When clicking to select a Product under 'Product Information' I get some errors (below). Wouldn't it be an idea to get your bug report pages working? Dave <cosmo.nospam> JavaScript Error: http://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla/query.cgi, line 76: selectProduct is not defined. JavaScript Error: http://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla/query.cgi, line 76: selectProduct is not defined. JavaScript Error: http://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla/query.cgi, line 76: selectProduct is not defined. JavaScript Error: http://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla/query.cgi, line 76: selectProduct is not defined.
while i personally haven't had any problems with the 7.0 (although i haven't tried to recompile the kernel yet), i can understand some of this. i purchased redhat 5.0 when it was brand new and the one and only time i attempted to use redhat's 'technical support', i got a message back stating that i should 'choose another distribution'. it's disheartening to see that they have not changed their ways.