DistributionWatch Review: Red Hat Linux 6.1
By: Kevin Reichard
Monday, December 6, 1999 01:33:09 PM EST
URL: http://www.linuxplanet.com/linuxplanet/reviews/1303/1/
Red Hat Linux: A Mainstream Linux
Everyone, it seems, wants it both ways. Computer users who are sick of Microsoft's monopolistic and bullying actions are seeking a viable alternative to Windows, so they naturally turn their attention to Linux. But these same users are accustomed to the Windows graphical interface, the relative ease of Windows installation and the raft of applications available for Windows users. So when they come to Linux, they're expecting the best parts of other operating systems, without any of the drawbacks. They want it both ways.
As does Red Hat Software. On the one hand, Red Hat Software has proven adept at positioning Red Hat Linux as a superior server OS, exploiting the best features of Linux and convincing the corporate world that Red Hat Linux belongs at the center of corporate Internet planning. In addition, Red Hat Software has added a raft of tools that makes installing and configuring Red Hat Linux a much easier task. But Red Hat Software wants it both ways: Red Hat Linux is also positioned as a powerful desktop OS that's a worthy competitor to Windows.
That's why evaluating Red Hat Linux is such a challenge: only Corel and (to a lesser extent) Caldera position their Linux distributions as user-friendly and appropriate for almost any level of user. As a server-based operating system, Red Hat Linux excels on every level. As a desktop operating system, Red Hat Linux must be judged against other Linux distributions as well as Windows and the Macintosh. Is it up to the task? This review should provide you with the information you need to make your own conclusions; ours will be presented at the end.
Obtaining Red Hat Linux
You can download Red Hat Linux 6.1 from the Red Hat Web site, but most users will want to obtain it in one of the three shrink-wrap editions. All three editions include some level of support, a boot disk, two CDs with the operating system and the accompanying source code, a CD with StarOffice 5.1a for Linux and Windows (it's the same format and packaging as if you'd ordered it directly from Sun), free priority access to a dedicated customer-support FTP server and some level of documentation.
The Standard Edition costs $29.95 and includes 30 days of access to the FTP server, 90 days of Web-based installation support, the Installation Guide and the Reference Guide. If you're looking for just the operating system and don't need a lot of hand-holding or applications shipped on CD, consider this edition.
Most users, especially those moving from the Windows or MacOS worlds, will want to consider the Deluxe Edition. For $79.95, the Deluxe Edition bundles 180 days of access to the dedicated FTP server, 30 days of telephone support, 90 days of Web-based installation support, a Powertools CD with over 300 applications, a Linux Application CD with over 40 third-party workstation applications (including Applixware 4.4.2 in a time-limited version, Allaire JRun, Flashpoint, a beta version of IBM Via Voice SDK, KAI C++, HyperWave Information Server in a time-limited version, Magic Enterprise Server, Mathsoft Splus, and a whole lot more), plus the Installation, Reference and Getting Started Guides.
The Professional Edition, which goes for $149.95, includes everything in the Deluxe Edition and adds a secure Web server, e-commerce software, database-management software, 30 days of dedicated Apache configuration support, an IBM DB2 CD, a CPAN archives CD, a Server Linux Application CD with over 30 popular server applications and a Secure Web Server Guide. For a powerful server software suite, this package is a tremendous bargain.
Package Specifics
All three editions of Red Hat Linux 6.1 feature kernel version 2.2.12-20, GNOME 1.0.39, XFree86 3.3.5-3, Netscape Communicator 4.61-12 and KDE 1.1. The documentation is in three volumes: a smallish (80 pages including a padded Preface and the index) Installation Guide, a 354-page Getting Started volume and a 482 page Reference Guide. Don't let the fat page counts fool you: the type on the pages is absurdly large, rivaling that of the Large Type edition of The New York Times for the sight-impaired. While Microsoft and Apple both do a pretty poor job of supplying documentation for their operating systems, there's no reason why Red Hat Linux couldn't have done better, and presented more in-depth documentation.
If you've purchased an official copy of Red Hat Linux, you're entitled to technical support. This is another area where Red Hat Linux is distinct from other Linux distributions. Getting any sort of support for the $29.95 piece of software is a plus, and offering 30 days of phone-based installation support for the Deluxe and Server editions puts Red Hat Software among the leaders in the Linux space--but somewhat short of the more liberal help offerings from Microsoft, Apple and most hardware vendors, whose phone-based support is measured in years, not days. (Again, this is a situation where Red Hat Linux must be judged on two different levels.) Additionally, Red Hat informs registered users about new RPMs and products via e-mail and a monthly newsletter.
Red Hat Linux comes in Alpha and SPARC editions, as well as French, German, Italian, and Japanese versions.
We're not going to cover all the packages included with Red Hat Linux 6.1 (if you're interested, you can read a list here), but some unique highlights include AfterStep 1.7.142-1, action (a movie player for KDE), AnotherLevel (a customized fvwm2 configuration), Apache Web server, APM BIOS utilities for laptops, a host of shells (including ash, bash, pdksh, sash, tsh, and zsh), auth_ldap (an LDAP authentication module for Apache), cdparanoia-alpha9.6-1, cleanfeed (a spam filter for Usenet news servers), various tools for Red Hat 5.2 backwards compatibility, the egcs compiler, ImageMagick, ircii for IRC, a set of really weird and probably unnecessary ispell files (including Catalan and Esperanto ispell files; only a Klingon ispell file is missing), ORBit (a CORBA Object Request Broker), pam-ldap (a LDAP pluggable authentication module), PostgreSQL and more.
Installing Red Hat Linux
We installed Red Hat Linux 6.1 on a Pentium II-based Gateway PC with 128MB of RAM, an ATI graphics card, a 4-gigabyte hard disk and a PCI-based 3Com networking card. As hardware configurations go, this one is rather generic, purchased from Gateway's server division for use as a Web server in both Internet and intranet situations. In this case, however, we're using it as a networked workstation.
At the outset, you'll need to decide if you want to install Red Hat Linux as a workstation, a server, or as a customized installation. For many users, this decision is at best confusing and at worst a complete waste of time. In theory, a workstation installation is streamlined, involves fewer decisions as to what's installed, and is designed for new Linux users.
In both cases, Red Hat Linux makes it difficult to have multiple Linux distributions installed on the same system. If you perform a workstation installation, Red Hat Linux removes all existing Linux partitions on all hard drives on your system. (Say goodbye to Slackware Linux or OpenLinux.) Similarly, a server installation automatically removes all existing partitions on all installed hard drives, unless you choose to manually partition your hard drives and override Red Hat Linux's seek-and-destroy mission. The assumption in Red Hat Linux is that it should be the only operating system on a computer, forcing users to override this assumption if they want a dual-boot system.
In this workstation/server dichotomy, a strong argument could be made that Red Hat has it backwards. Desktop users want the power to pick and choose from among applications and bundles; instead of giving these users a wide range of installation options, Red Hat Linux gives them relatively few. On the flip side, most server installations are identical, apart from about 10 percent of the software that might differ from server to server. Server administrators don't really need a wide range of choices of operating system features, but they're offered the most options under the Red Hat way.
We ended up installing Red Hat Linux in two different ways: as a workstation and through a customized installation. What Red Hat Linux calls a custom installation is really the way almost every other Linux is installed and configured: create and format partitions, choose a boot method (either a boot disk, a network installation, or a bootable CD-ROM), select and install packages, and then configure a boot method. For the most part, these steps are poorly documented: when covering the creation and formatting of partitions (which is surely one of the most anxiety-filled parts of installation for new Linux users) the installation guide refers you to an appendix in the Reference Guide that, quite bluntly, is rather worthless when advising new users on how to partition their hard disk. A step-by-step explanation of fdisk or Disk Druid in the Installation Guide (as opposed to buried elsewhere in the documentation) would have been much more useful.
Configuring Red Hat Linux
Once you've booted a Red Hat Linux box, you run either a graphical GTK+-based or text-based installation process. First, the Red Hat Linux installation program attempts to analyze your system if you've decided to install from CD-ROM (as will the vast majority of new users), looking first for an ATAPI CD-ROM and then for a SCSI drive. In our case, it had no problem detecting a rather generic Mitsumi drive.
The graphical installation program is one of the bright spots, clearly laying out all the configuration options available. Red Hat also does a nice job of upgrading an existing installation, an area where other Linux distributions are sometimes lacking.
With this package, the assumption is that a new user will feel comfortable using and configuring LILO. Even though Red Hat does a nice job of putting a pretty graphical interface in front of LILO configuration, we're not altogether convinced that LILO is the best tool for new users; we'd rather see the creation of a boot disk or the usage of LOADLIN stressed--or at least covered in some depth. (Indeed, Red Hat is downright disparaging about LOADLIN, not even including it in the Red Hat Linux distribution and discouraging its use in the documentation.) This could be written off as a personal quirk on my part, but giving users--especially new users--a number of easy-to-understand boot choices would be the most useful approach, and it would also recognize the reality that many Linux users will also have Windows or DOS installed on their PCs.
Selecting packages is a matter of running down the list of possible package groups. Anyone familiar with Linux will also be familiar with this process; those unfamiliar with packages will want to use the default packages and install everything. There are several nice twists to the installation process. First, it lists the dependencies associated with specific packages. That is, if you're installing an X application, you're informed that the X application is dependent on X being installed. You can choose to install packages any time during the installation procedure to satisfy such dependencies. Then, it displays how much you've chosen to install, how much is currently installed and how long it will take to finish the installation.
We also experienced no problems when configuring X. The AutoProbe information returned by the system was accurate, even though the Gateway PC used for this test uses an underdocumented ATI graphics card (a card that isn't even supported by Windows NT; Gateway provides custom drivers for high-resolution graphics).
The thing is, Red Hat Linux handles installation and configuration as well as most other distributions (although Corel Linux outperforms Red Hat in this regard). Red Hat Software, however, makes a point of marketing to new Linux users, and the installation documentation simply isn't up to the needs of the target audience. This is one of the package's biggest shortcomings.
The GNOME Desktop
Unlike almost every other major Linux distribution--including some that are actually based on Red Hat Linux itself--Red Hat Linux pushes GNOME as its default desktop environment. We're not going to get into a huge GNOME vs. KDE debate here (though we probably will in the future), but the Linux market is moving toward KDE as a default desktop environment. You do have the option of installing both GNOME and KDE, but most users won't go to the extra steps of actually changing GNOME as the default. (Red Hat Linux does include a handy utility called Switchdesk that allows you to switch between GNOME and KDE, but the assumption is made that you'll never want to uninstall GNOME or change its default setting.)
There are some ramifications behind the decision to include GNOME as the default, however. Having installed GNOME, you're also committed to installing all the GNOME libraries, and these eat up some serious hard-disk real estate. How serious? In our installation, a complete Red Hat Linux installation, which doesn't include one byte of the contributed applications, eats up 1.2 gigabytes of hard-disk space. (The marketing materials from Red Hat Software suggest that 600 megabytes is a more realistic installation expectation, but this was not true in our experience.) New users won't know exactly what packages they'll need, so they'll probably be performing a complete installation. This doesn't even include any source code from the second installation CD. If Microsoft came out with a user-oriented Windows operating system that ate up 1.3 gigabytes of hard-disk space, you can bet that Linux devotees would be screaming to high heaven about how inefficient Microsoft was and how Windows is a great example of bloatware.
In addition, the default window manager for Red Hat Linux 6.1 is Enlightenment. With GNOME, you'll need to use a GNOME-compliant window manager. Compliance in this sense means that a window manager must explicitly support GNOME. There are several window managers that will work with GNOME to some degree (including fvwm, Icewm, and WindowMaker).
While we're not thrilled with the default status of GNOME and Enlightenment, the fact is there's a lot to like about Enlightenment. Most noteworthy is the Enlightenment Configuration Tool, which provides a graphical interface to all things Enlightenment, including keyboard focus, resize methods, themes and a lot more. As you'll be able to tell later in this article, we're big on centralized configuration tools.
Online Connections
New in Red Hat Linux is RP3, a PPP program that automates the process of connecting to the Internet with a dial-up connection. It's similar to the widely used pppsetup program in that it takes all the relevant information about a dial-up connection--modem location, modem speed, phone number, username, password--and passes that configuration information to another program, in this case wvdial.Where RP3 adds value is the extra monitoring capabilities after you've made a connection. You can use RP3 to track online usage, either by the minute or as the cost of the call. (For international users who pay by the minute for Internet connectivity, this capability is important.) In addition, you can configure RP3 to confirm with you when you want to make a connection.
One minus: RP3 is an X-based application, not accessible from the command line. This means that if you're using Linux in command-line mode, you'll need to manually configure a dial-up connection on your own, a task not covered in the Red Hat Linux documentation.
Using Linuxconf
The assumption here is that you'll be doing most of your work under X, a not unfair assumption these days, one that should be followed by the rest of the Linux development community. It's one thing for us old UNIX hacks to feel comfortable at a command line for most of our work; it's another thing for us to expect that less-experienced casual users remember which UNIX commands to use and where text-based configuration files are stored.That's why linuxconf may be the most important piece of programming within Red Hat Linux. Basically, linuxconf is a graphical outline-based tool that works like a Windows configuration tool in presenting a single face to the many different operating-system configuration chores.
There are some in the Linux community that grumble about linuxconf, with the chief gripe being that it's too complex for regular use. We hold the opposite view: it's so incredibly convenient to have all the important configuration centralized in one location. In fact, there's precious little that can't be configured with linuxconf. While linuxconf isn't new in Red Hat Linux 6.1, it has been expanded to include more areas, focusing on network connections and Internet services. (Alas, it lacks the power to configure sound cards. Too bad, as by and large Red Hat Linux does the best job in the Linux world of working with sound cards.) Specifically, linuxconf covers server configurations (DNS, Apache, mail, FTP, news), user accounts, Internet connections (modems, PPP, routing, NIS), LILO, system logs and various services. Having a different configuration screen for every aspect of Linux is not a good thing for users (who really don't want to be moving between X, GNOME, KDE, linuxconf, and text-based interfaces) and centralizing and standardizing configuration is always a good idea.
Red Hat Linux and RPM
More than any other Linux distribution, Red Hat Linux relies on quasi-proprietary technologies that are in theory open source but in reality fairly unique to this specific Linux distribution. You've already seen that with GNOME and Enlightenment, but perhaps the best example of this is RPM, the Red Hat Package Manager. It's the main tool for installing new packages and updating existing packages.Red Hat extends RPM with GNOME-RPM, a GNOME application that acts as the front end to the command line. Sure, this is technology that's available to the rest of the Linux world. But in deciding to focus on GNOME as the desktop environment and in using it as the basis of a graphical front end to RPM--instead of creating a more generic X-based RPM front end that could have been used by virtually every other Linux user, no matter what distribution is installed--Red Hat essentially foisted a proprietary solution onto an open-source world. (There is a KDE-based RPM tool buried among the KDE packages.) This is perhaps the biggest complaint we have about Red Hat Linux; within the product there are literally dozens of attempts to push "open" solutions while controlling said solutions.
RPM is a good example of this. In and of itself, RPM is good technology, but it's failed to catch on beyond the Red Hat universe. In the past, Red Hat Software failed to promote RPM within the open ethos of the Linux community, and as a result RPM hasn't been adopted by most other distributions. As a result, we have a Babelesque situation regarding installation standards in the Linux world; quite honestly, it's a pain in the butt for software vendors to support multiple installation methods, and the support of the software-development community is key to the future of Linux.
In Conclusion: Mind the Gap
Red Hat Linux has the highest visibility of any Linux distribution, as Red Hat Software has done the most to position Linux as a mainstream product. While we're not so sure that Red Hat Linux is as popular as Red Hat Software propaganda would have us believe, the fact is that a good proportion of new Linux users will first encounter Linux through Red Hat Linux.But that promotion as a mainstream operating system is a double-edged sword; by raising expectations, Red Hat Software invited comparisons to other older, more consumer-oriented operating systems, like Windows and the MacOS. On that basis, Red Hat Linux 6.1 is clearly a more evolutionary than revolutionary product. When it comes to features that are essentially under the hood--like reliability, memory management, network productivity, Web serving--it is far superior to Windows 95/98/NT and MacOS, all of which are unfortunately prone to system crashes and conflicts between programs. For this reason, anyone choosing a PC-based server platform should look first to Linux and then to Red Hat Linux. There's simply no comparison.
Both Windows 95/98/NT and MacOS, however, feature more advanced and intuitive graphical interfaces; even though the Linux community (particularly the dedicated KDE and GNOME developers) has managed to close a lot of ground between these older operating systems and Linux, there's still a gap. In addition, there's still an applications gap between the Windows world and Linux, although that gap is lessening daily as more and more developers embrace the open-source model.
If you're in a situation where a Linux application performs as well as a Windows-based application--which is certainly the case with GIMP and StarOffice--then we have no hesitation in recommending Red Hat Linux over Windows as a workstation platform. Red Hat Software has done a tremendous job in improving the end-user tools in Red Hat Linux, and so when combined with the underlying reliability of the Linux operating system there's no reason why an end user should assume any longer that Windows or the Macintosh is the superior operating system.