RED HAT SOFTWARE Red Hat Linux 9.0 Pro
by Red Hat Software
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List Price: Category: Software See more product details and other editions |
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Software Reviews of RED HAT SOFTWARE Red Hat Linux 9.0 Pro
Customer Review: Great OS Not Ready For Primetime
Summary: 3 Stars
I'm a computer tech in Alaska. I support about 150 users. My job among other things is to try out new products for users, and I borrowed Red Hat from the other tech in my organization. I tried loading it with no success to a 1Ghz Mini ITX motherboard, and kept getting Idle Process failed error messages, and the install would just hang.After about a day of that, I pulled up a 500 mHZ Gateway w/256mb ram and 40 gig drive. The install went fairly easy and all modules loaded correctly except the sound module, which later properly installed, but reads as "failed" when shutting down. I don't know what that's about. Ok, after the install I inspected the interface and found it to be quite easy to use. You have to get used to all the different ways Red Hat refers to tasks etc. such as icons are called "emblems."
I opened the browser, Mozilla 1.0, and it worked fine except when I went to download Opera for Linux, I was faced with a dozen cryptic flavors that I don' know about. So I tried one for Red Hat and the install failed. Then I tried to connect to the local Windows NT4 network, and it was so cryptic and hard to find networking that I gave up. They recommend downloading a program called Samba, to connect to Windows, but if this function isn't built into Red Hat by default, they're going to lose potential customers. It should be very easy to connect to a Windows network, because, like it or not, that's the real world for now. Open Office Org seems okay, it's great to have a non Microsoft alternative!
I have wanted an alternative to Microsoft for a long time. If Red Hat adds Windows Network and Print services I think it'll have a winner. Worth the small investment if you use it at home.
Customer Review: Great sytem
Summary: 4 Stars
I recently started using this product and I feel it's very user-friendly. There weren't any hitches in the installation, comes with an excellent disk partitioning system that enables you to do some great partitioning and dual booting before installing. The list of programs and features are excellent. If you don't mind reading help files to get the gist of the programs you'll be fine. And the price just can't be beat.Customer Review: Sometimes the easiest way is the best way, or vice versa.
Summary: 5 Stars
For years now, people have been asking me about Linux - how hard is it to learn? When will it be easy enough for a "non-techie" to use? My answer, as of Red Hat 8+ is pretty much - now.If you use your PC to play on the web, "do" email, and use "Office"-type applications, it's probably easier these days doing so on Linux than on Windows XP. Go read the reviews of XP on this web site! The way they throw around acronyms: NTFS, ASPI, Microsoft "Product Activation" ("Dear Microsoft, is it okay for me to use my computer now?")... Red Hat 9.0 installs with a fairly simple and intuitive wizard. You can (the easiest way) decide to run only Linux on your machine, or, if you have a bit more technical acumen, you can run both Linux and Windows on the same machine (switching between the two by rebooting).
Some people are put off by the command-line interface in Linux (looks like DOS), but honestly, how often do you use DOS on your Windows system? Just like windows, everything can be done by clicking on an icon. Red Hat 9.0 ships with a graphical inteface called "Bluecurve" that looks and works VERY similarly to MS Windows - "Start" button, taskbar, icons on desktop - and puts everything near your fingertips.
Red Hat also comes with Mozilla (a web browser very similar to Netscape), Evolution (an Outlook-like email client and personal scheduling program), OpenOffice.org (a MS Office XP replacement that reads and WRITES your MS Word, MS Excel, and MS Powerpoint documents), and about 1400 other games and applications. Other standouts include GnuCash, the Linux version of Quicken, the Tux Racer game - if you haven't played it yet, there's demos for all operating systems on it's web site - suitable for all ages, and KStars, the desktop planetarium, and did I mention about 1400 other games and applications?
P.S. I'm guessing that with the recent Microsoft Blaster worm (and Slammer, and Nimda, and... ), the points about security risks in using Microsoft products - as opposed to Linux - is well made. *cough*
Customer Review: The security is better.
Summary: 4 Stars
MSN 4 Life states "...dont for one minute think that Linux is LESS of a security risk. What a joke that previous reply was, considering Linux released more "patches/fixes" last year than Microsoft..." However, the release of more patches and fixes has a lot more to do with the design schema/process of open source than with whether or not it is less stable/secure than MS product. (Nevermind the argument that MS simply releases less patches and updates because they aren't keeping up the security for their products) There are far more cracks, viruses and trojans that are out to exploit MS products than there are for GNU/Linux (not the least of which is due to so many more MS users being "available" to exploit.) It could easily be argued that the greater number of patch/update releases for Linux simply demonstrates a more responsive/dedicated community in regard to security issues than what is seen with Windows (despite whatever marketing mumbo-jumbo MS wants to spout about "trusted computing" or whatever...)Customer Review: Are you kidding?
Summary: 3 Stars
Its ok...but dont for one minute think that Linux is LESS of a security risk. What a joke that previous reply was, considering Linux released more "patches/fixes" last year than Microsoft. The product itself is probably the best it has ever been, (thanks to the open source community) ;) Still compiling and configuring isnt for the noobies out there....(yet) :)