redhat tries apt-get

[Kevin Buettner]

On Sep 25,  1:47pm, der.hans wrote:

> > I think you're referring to Red Hat Network.
> > 
> > As I understand it, it is free for up to five machines.  If you have
> > more than five machines that you wish to keep up to date with this
> > service, then you have to pay for it.  Also, there are varying levels
> 
> OK, that's a big difference. Number of machines shouldn't matter, but this
> will cover most non-business cases. Does the machine have to
> register? e.g. if I were to do updates via a proxy/masquerade can RedHat's
> servers tell the difference?

As I understand it, registration is required, though the amount of
information that you're *required* to supply is pretty minimal.  They
have thought about privacy concerns and are sensitive to privacy
issues.

I don't know how they distiguish one registration from another; I
suspect that it is not done by IP address alone (if at all).

> > of service and support, some which cost more than others.  For more
> > details, see
> > 
> >     http://www.redhat.com/products/support/network/
> 
> Ah, it's only free until 01Dec as part of a trial period :(. Also, one has
> to register to use it :(!

This came up today on one of the internal Red Hat lists.  It is my
understanding that there will be a part of the service that will be
permanently free even after the trial period.  (I was told last week
that it'd be free for five or fewer machines.  I've just sent a query
to one of the internal lists asking for a clarification on this
point.)

Obviously, Red Hat expects to make money from the enterprise customer
who needs help in managing and upgrading their systems.  For this type
of customer, it's probably well worth it.

> It doesn't solve the problem when we do it here. We need to complain on
> lists where the RedHat marketing people hang out :(.

An excellent point.  In general, it won't help to complain about a
problem of any distro in this forum.  The best that can happen by
bitching about it here is to learn of a workaround; or the fact that
a supposed bug is actually a feature.

If you use Red Hat Linux and have encountered a bug, the place to
report it is at

    http://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla/ 

> I'd prefer RedHat be excellent all the way around, but some things are
> definitely lacking.

Again, I recommend using Bugzilla to let the people at Red Hat know
about the problems you've found.

Kevin