RedHat
This page talks about the latest RedHat release, 7.2, which is codenamed Enigma. For many of you that have read my previous article I had here about RedHat, I want you to know, much has changed from RH 7.0 to 7.2. I will now explain how I finely tuned Enigma to my liking.
What’s New:
Well, first thing is first. Ext3 is the default file system. I like it. Many flame wars have gone on about ReiserFS and ext3, and which is better, but everybody has to admit that because RH chose ext3, it adds a little fuel to that camp. I haven’t participated in any of this, and stuck with my ext2 filesystem, that is until I started to get the tractor beam pull into the newest release. Also new in this release is 4.1.0 X-windows. This is a drastic improvement over their weak 4.0.3 one in 7.1. The kernel is somewhat old, however, it is heavily patched, so don’t just look at the numbers (2.4.7-10) Also new is GRUB, which replaces LILO. I don’t really know much about it, however, it is a much cooler graphic when booting, which I’ve only had to do once so far, but honestly, how important is this, but they say it’s easier for kernel installs…however, IMHO, I didn’t think it was that hard to do a /sbin/lilo. OH well.
First Steps:
After downloading the ISO images, (which are on my FTP site btw) I burned them to CD using xcdroast and then restarted my computer for the first time in a month, and began the install process. It went really smoothly, but then again, I’ve been with RH since 5.2. At least, that was the first one I actually purchased. I have the 5.0 discs from a book I read about linux.
First Impression:
Enigma is pretty sweet. There are a lot of GUI’s for you GUI lovers out there, however, I found myself already used to the Gnome 1.4 interface since I use Ximian. (more about that later) I think overall 7.2 will be a good choice for mainstream use. However, I had to begin my kernel hacking and appearance changing. *smile*
Final Words:
Overall I give Enigma two thumbs up, however, at first I didn’t think it detected my soundcard which has been autodetected since 7.0. (SBLive card) However, it was just that my speakers were turned way down and that some of the digital settings in the mixer were turned down as well. To make up for this it detected my HP OfficeJet fax/scan/printer/copier. Did I mention that bad boy is USB. You gotta love it when it detects USB stuff. GAIM, the AIM clone, didn’t work too well, and I had to seriously upgrade that ASAP because it kept kicking me offline…and LICQ’s gnome thingy doesn’t work too well, I went back to the QT config. I downloaded the latest 2.4.13 kernel, however, I didn’t know that ext3 isn’t patched in the kernel already…that sucks…so I think I will just have to keep the RH compiled kernel for a bit longer till I understand what’s going on. I decided to go back to my ximian gnome for a few reasons. It offers faster and easier upgrades with Red Carpet, and it has Evolution, which I think is it’s trademark program. It’s awesome. Ok, I guess for now this is enough info for now, I will keep you posted!
