Re: Can we learn something from RH 5.0?

[David Engel <david@sw.ods.com>]

On Sat, Dec 06, 1997 at 09:09:56AM -0500, Alex Yukhimets wrote:
> > Alex Yukhimets <aqy6633@acf5.nyu.edu> wrote:
> > I am just curious: are there any problems with RedHat 5.0? I haven't
> > heard anything about RH 5.0 after its release. Comments anyone?
> > Is there anything we can learn from their experience?
> 
> Hi.
> 
> At the moment I don't know anything from their experience that we could

I only know of one real bug so far.  They didn't apply the fix needed
to use the NIS module from autofs with glibc.  I found that problem
months ago and there is even a commented out line in one of the
Makefiles that says to uncomment this when using glibc.  The biggest
thing we can learn from this is to test, test, test.  They have a very
small staff and probably don't use all of their packages in every day
situations and consequently don't find subtle problems.

I have heard of another possible bug but haven't confirmed it.  It
sounds like they left the default -rpath option for X in their
previous releases.  As a result, libc5 binaries that their users
compiled themselves would crash when -rpath caused them to use the
libc6 libraries instead of the libc5 ones.  This bug is probably real
since I know for a fact that they hacked my ld.so to change the
library search order to get around problems like this.  Their users
are in for a surprise if they install a newer version of ld.so without
getting it through RH.  Of course, I'll probably be the one to get the
bug reports first. :(

> learn but I know that many people are desperate to install it and see
> what is so good about it. I try to persuade them not to do that and having
> libc5-upgrades for Debian-1.3.1 would help me a lot in this task :)

RH5 looks OK, but there are still enough little things about it that I
don't care for that keep me using Debian.

The biggest thing they have going for them, besides name recognition,
is that their installation process is much, much, much simpler and
easier than ours.  I was able to install a reasonably full RH5 the
other night in <10 minutes.  I know ease of installation should be one
of the least important factors in choosing a distribution, but it does
make a big impression on new users.  On the downside, one of the
reasons their installation process is so easy, is that they peform
only very limited configuration.  You have to let the installation
complete and then configure everything except the very basics by hand
or with their sysadmin tools.

One thing we should consider adding to our installation process, is
the ability for a user to request a simple, basic configuration for
everything by default with no interaction required and then be given a
list of things at the very end that probably should be reconfigured.

> are converted. I haven't noticed the -altdev stuff, etc. 

You appear to be correct.  We could use this as a big selling point.
I know the -altdev stuff is a pain to support, but we can tell our
users we are leaving it in for Debian 2.0 and possibly later to help
them in the transition.  This would be very important to users that
are developing with commercial libraries that haven't been converted
to libc6 yet.

David
-- 
David Engel                        ODS Networks
david@sw.ods.com                   1001 E. Arapaho Road
(972) 234-6400                     Richardson, TX  75081


--
TO UNSUBSCRIBE FROM THIS MAILING LIST: e-mail the word "unsubscribe" to
debian-private-request@lists.debian.org . 
Trouble?  e-mail to templin@bucknell.edu .