I have used Red Hat 6.0, 7.2 and very recently migrated to 9.0. I use very few features offered by RH. Normally I don’t even notice the different kernel or some libraries running on my system. Open
source things get better with each version. So be happy with yourself for having a next
version of every software. But there are few things which I just could not ignore.
* Installation is a breeze! The graphical installation not only makes the procedure easier but also much more pleasant. You always have option of using some expert mode for finer configuration, but you rarely need it.
* It identified my hardware without a waving a red flag. I had the built-in sound card, which Windows (for the curious souls, 2K Pro) refused to identify. Ditto with Samsung combo drive, Ethernet card and Scroll mouse. The installation started in graphical mode. So need I mention about my display settings?
* I use KDE as my WM. The new version of KDE is really good. It is neither ugly as WinXP nor rigid as Win2K. It is definitely a considerable improvement compared to its predecessor.
* Most of the bundled softwares (Open Office, Mozilla, Gaim, printing utilities, development tools, etc.) are close to latest. So you are spared of downloading the bleeding edge software from your crawling net connection. The 3 CDs of software contain almost everything you can
imagine.I was unable to gauge the performance of this operating system.
A 2 Gz, 512 MB machine, which is used as desktop box, can hardly be a test bed to check real performance of the machine. But I am sure it will work equally well on a P-III, 256MB box.
Some Cons:
* For those who don’t know, RH is as bulky as Windows 2K or higher. The installation can take anywhere from 500 MB to 5 GB depending on your package selection. If you configure it as ’’Desktop’’ it takes slightly less than 2 GB. You can save space if you opt for custom installation. Then you can keep only one window manager, remove lots of development tools, etc. And recommened RAM for graphical mode is 192MB! (If this is too high for you, use some lightweight window manager and fine tune the system.)
* RPM-based installation of softwares is quite a problem. The versions of the libraries are not compatible. Then you have to go installing the software recursively. Such problems are rarely encountered in the system when installation is done from source. eg. Gentoo. But, installing Gentoo takes lot of time and patience (which I surely don’t have).
But this problem is there with Mandrake and other RPM based systems. So not really a big hindrance as such.
* No support for mp3 format (due to IPR issues). You have to get extra software from xmms.org to make xmms play mp3.
RH is considered good for servers. But with KDE/Gnome/... even on desktop RH is cool!
Bottomline: I am happy with it.
--shashi
ps: If you have used RH9, do let me know if your experience.