Customer Reviews

RED HAT SOFTWARE Red Hat Linux 9.0 Pro

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

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*

I have Red Hat 9 Professional, and of all the Linux distributions I have tried it is my favorite.
It's all good news as far as setting up and using this distro. It detected ALL my hardware, (ls120 SuperDisk drive, Intel proV 100 onboard lan, onboard ct5880 sound, RAID/ATA/IDE bus channels, CD-RW, all 4 harddrives, etc...) It automatically configured my internet connection, sound, etc...
One caveat- if you have a broadband internet connection, (like me), you will have no problems.
If you have a slow internet connection, then getting the system up2date after installation would be a VERY long process.
If you have a slow internet connection, be sure to pare down the number of packages you want to use up2date to update.
If you have a slow internet connection, and install everything anyway :-), when you go to use the "up2date -u" command, (to update everything on your system automatically), you will be embarking on a very long journey because there's a lot of stuff on the 4 install CD's!
I heartily recommend this distro. It comes with good documentation, which is a dire neccessity with any Linux distro.
And it comes with 60 days High-Bandwidth acces for updates and downloads, so you can have a completely updated system as fast as your internet connection allows. Your 60 day high-bandwidth access also allows you fast downloads of any updated iso's in your channel, (your system architecture type, i.e. i386), see the "easy iso" section online, so you can download and burn an updated install cd, (or entire set), for instance.
I did that, and my download speed was a constant 200-210KB/second, which is as fast as my connection allows.

I recommend Red Hat 9 over Mandrake 9, Slackware, SuSe 8, and especially over Lycoris.

If you can't afford to buy Red Hat 9 pro just yet, consider Red Hat 9 personel, or download the red hat 9 iso's and use them for a while. You wont have the documentation on paper, but they will still give you a 7 day high-bandwidth access demo account to get up2dated with.
When you can afford it, buy the boxed set - for 3 reasons;
1. you'll be supporting a really good open-source company
2. you'll have the printed documentation
3. you'll have a full set of CD's, AND a DVD. 8 disks in all - 3 install, 3 source, 1 documentation, 1 multimedia and office apps, 1 DVD with all of the above on it, (I assume, I dont have a dvd drive :-))
Do yourself a favor and do NOT buy Lycoris Desktop/LX Amethyst 2.
Happy Linuxing!

Red Hat was a pioneer. It ruled the Linux world at one point. Not anymore. The company has announced their decision to exit the retail linux market and the end-user linux distribution. They will focus on the server market and the business/corporate clients.

If you want a good Linux for home or office use and you are experienced, get SuSE 9.0 pro instead. If you are a begginer and want to move from the expensive/buggy/intrusive Windows platform to Linux, try LindowsOS 4.0.

Sure, if you want Windows then why are you looking at this? If you want to try something new and works great then this will replace Windows just fine. It comes with hundreds of dollars in software. You would spend that amount easily on the Windows side of things.

Oh and as far as modems go... I've used it for years with modems, ISDN and now cable modems. Just don't buy junk and you'll be fine.

Finally, RedHat isn't pulling it from the market. Thats the fun half truths we regularly get from Redmond. The product is alive and well. We simply have to read about what they are doing at www.redhat.com. Fedora is the next release of RedHat Linux. Remember that these release versions are stable though they have been pushing people to use the WS or ES versions of RedHat. You want a version like this then it will work just fine. The WS and ES versions however are built from this. (note to self.. learn how to better explain years of business model in only a few lines)

Personally I play games on Windows and work on Linux/Unix.

FYI.. never had a pony tail but I do like my new beard ::grinz::

Absolutely Wonderful! Installed perfectly with no hitches. Includes just about everything anyone would ever want - word processor, spreadsheet, presentation graphics, firewall, fax software, CD burning software, games, beautiful desktop, infinitely configurable, no nagging for authorizations, server software, e-mail, web browsing, and on and on. This is so complete it isn't even funny. And the price is amazing considering you would spend hundreds if not thousands to outfit a comparable Windows system.

And the real beauty - it isn't so full of security holes.

This is simply excellent software. I still run dual boot but am now off the other guy's upgrade treadmill.

I have read the other reviews here and it's interesting to see the diverse knowledge gap with Linux. The bottom line is this version installs easily and configures quickly IF you read the install guide and TAKE YOUR TIME. It is important to understand what the machine will do before you install it no matter what OS you choose to use. There are tons of applications you can install and configure at install time that will make your life VERY easy. As for security - There is no way windows compares to this. Using firewall features such as iptables and TCP wrappers, you can lock down a RedHat Linux box a lot tighter than a windows box. Bottom line - Buy it. If you need help - ask and read.

Okay I tried SUSE because it was a little bit cheaper and I thought hey it should do the same things. I was wanting to just set up a testing server for sites Im making. I must of tried to get MySQL to install 10 times, using both the built in installer and the packages from the mysql website. NOTHING WORKED. So I got this version of Red Hat, installed simply, and EVERYTHING works! I admit I bought this more or less to play with, I use XP pro for virtually everything, but if you want a version of linux that works spend a little more to get Red Hat.

I just couldn't install it... apparently, even though my monitor is brand new, it's just not supported by the installation process. Instead of using this one, I had to turn to Mandrake, which hasn't given me any kind of trouble (I'm actually using it right now).

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.

As advertised, quick delivery.
No box, but all of the manuals and cd media were delivered.
No problem doing the installation.
Highly recommend this seller.
This was installed on a usb external hard drive. The documentation was essential to this type of installation.