Customer Reviews

Red Hat Linux 7.1

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

The choice of an OS is a very religeous subject, So dont think too much about the rating, it's either 1 or 5 depending on where you stand. If you are a developer, or a power user, very into messing with every little part of your computer. THIS IS YOUR OS! However, if you are not into those things, and you have problems with computers, and want something relatively simple with a small learning curve, use Windows, BeOS, or MacOS. Linux is still not userfriendly (took me, someone good with computers, 3 hours to get sound working, another Linux expert I know took an hour on his to get sound working). However, due to the power and low overhead you will find this a good operating system if you are familiar with any form of *nix or want a power OS. This will be what my Linux box runs.

I have been using Windows for 6 years now, and every couple of months I normally had to do the old "re-format and re-install" just to keep windows healthy and reduce the number of reboots to an acceptable level.

I always thought that it was common for an operating system to crash after a couple of hours surfing until I installed Redhat Linux 7.1 It has NEVER crashed for me! Its unbelievable!

The installation is even more advanced than Windows 2000 installation which is still largely text based. I installed and configured a dual boot system in less than 15 minutes, via the GUI installation wizard.

The range of Free GPL software for Linux is also very impressive. The only thing now is, that, unlike Microsoft, I have too much choice!!

Amazing!

You can download any version of Red Hat for free. But, this is nice. If you're tired of seeing Microsoft everywhere, this is for you. I've only had this version for about a week, but I don't see any problems with it. The X-Windows style GUI is easy to use, and not for "techies". I got tired of hearing everyone talk about getting their MCSE, and decided to give Linux a try and I don't plan on going back. This is just as easy as windows(in some parts a lot easier) and there is online support, and Linux is very reliable. Give this a try, you'll like it.

This is the best verison of RedHat Linux out there. It's very easy and straightforward to use you have to use fdisk if you got the infamous over 1024 cylinder limit. But the good news is that This verison of RedHat has a special verison of LILO [linux boot loader] that works with Windoze ME so you can use both. It's graphical and all around easy. This verison has the new kernal 2.4 and the new KDE 2.0 also it has this new file navigator called nautilous by Eazeal and is really stright forward. The only thing is is that it's only in the GNOME desktop [like Mac OS][one of the 2 GUI graphical user interfaces that linux has] Plus if you want to listen to sound in GNOME you have to login as root and turn the sound on and restart. The other thing is win your installing linux using fdisk when you have to name your windows partitons the monut just type /mnt/win It's stright forward. I havnt gotten to have previous good linux experiences because I have a new computer and linux wouldn't reconize my cable modem or sound card but this one Does therefore it's the only one I use. What are you waiting for BUy it.

Yes, this release is definately a significant leap from 6.2, but still I wouldn't call it perfect (though, in contrast, I'd give win32 2 stars and MacOS 9.1 3.5). All of the mid/low level GNU utilities work just fine, infact better than their Solaris 8 counterparts (in my humble opinion). It's the UI level stuff that I still run into trouble with, although it's much better than 6.2, where X would freeze the whole system occasionally and wouldn't even let me open up another virtual console to kill the defunct processes. Utilities like Glade have croaked with the occasional segmentation fault, and X will still sometimes freeze on me (maybe It's something I could be doing wrong?), but I'm usually able to get out of it without rebooting. I'm also having trouble getting my USB zip250 drive working (this isn't a major gripe for me, since other, commercial OSes have given me similar problems here). But in spite of all that, I had no trouble getting sound to work, and I was able to get Mesa to build on my machine, and in no time I was writing little GLUT programs to try it out. I'd like to point out that I tried the deluxe edition this time around, and found that It included a cd of non-free 'Enterprise Workstation Software' (or something) which I found to be unnecessary. Given the add-ons included with the deluxe addition, I think I could have gotten by with the standard. Oh, and really the only reason that I got this distribution is that my current linux machine isn't connected to the internet currently, if it were, there'd really be no reason to pay for an upgrade, It's all avalible online, and relatively easy to install.

I just got Red Hat's newest version in the mail the other day. The Install was better than previous versions, it found my monitor and video card with no trouble at all. I had some problems partitioning, however, it gave me an error about the /boot partition being > 1024 cylinders. I quickly found out that this was happening because my Windows 98 partitions were taking up all of the cylinders to and a little above the 1024th. I rearranged my partitions, and created a linux /boot partition completely under the 1024th cylinder and everything worked fine. Other than that problem, everything was smooth. Linux configured my soundcard on bootup, so that was cool too... Anyway there is a lot of cool new features in this version, like "Konqueror(KDE web browser/file manager)" and the new version of KDE is a lot more customize-able than the previous one. There's not a lot I don't like about RH 7.1, overall I think it's a big improvement over my old (RH6.2) Installation.

Here is the ultimate Operating System. Installing it on a Laptop and a Desctop PC there was not a single problem or any unrecognized Hardware. It's fast, it's stable, it's easy to use and has all the tools that may be usefull and even some more.

I LOVE Red Hat linux. It is a GREAT Windows alternitive. It is MUCH better than Windows. I tried other linux distros too such as Linux Mandrake, Debian GNU/Linux, SuSE (by far the worst) but Red Hat Linux is the most bug free, flexible, user friendly, operating system out there.

HOWEVER: If you have broudband you may want to download it...Otherwise...this boxed set is nice :)

The computer I have is a HP that has a win modem and a few other custom things. This version of Red Hat actually reconized it and my monitor. The install is a lot easier and seems to be as stable as an OS can get. With the K Desktop Environment running it looks a lot like windows without the flakeyness of icons being dammaged and other weird things that Windows does.

Debian is said to be the most secure version of Linux so if you want to run a full-time server you might try that or a version of BSD. P.S. If you have never played xBill you have got to try this little game.

I've used Linux (Red Hat, Slackware, Mandrake), Windows, and Mac, and I can honestly say that Linux, in all its incarnations, is still highly problematic, and not ready for general consumer use.

There are a number of problems with this product:

1. Too many distributions (flavors) means hardware incompatability and application incompatability problems. Application A will work on Red Hat, but will not work on SUSE. Scanner B will work on SUSE, but not on... you get the picture. Sure, you can rig it up to work, but most of us don't want to spend 2 days re-compiling the kernal to get a cheap scanner to work on our system.

2. Support is given out on a volunteer basis (unless you pay for it). Unless you are a UNIX/Linux expert, others in the "community" won't even talk to you, and will probably kick you off their message boards. Linux users don't talk to new users. They don't want people using Linux -it is their little private club.

3. Limited or non-existent USB support. You will have to browse the web for some tool for a workaround.

4. No games -at least major games that have been out in the last 5 years.

5. Very few multimedia applications.

6. Installing applications can be a nightmare, as you eneter "dependency hell." The app needs 13 componants, all of which need to be downloaded from different websites and installed in a specific order.

This being said, Linus has its uses. Mostly as a back-end, enterprise database or email server. It is NOT a desktop OS. Red Hat has dressed it up to look like one. When you find yourself typing 700 lines of code to get your camera to work, you will discover that it is a patch job by a bunch of amateurs.

Go with Mac OSX if you want a stable, secure, powerful, OS with multimedia, and UNIX utilities.