Pointless rant: Red Hat Enterprise Server sucks!

[Craig White]

On Wed, 2007-08-08 at 16:03 -0700, Kurt Granroth wrote:
> Craig White wrote:
> > Shame on you Kurt for thinking that Red Hat should pander to your SuSE
> > driven expectations.
> 
> Yes, shame on me for expecting that Red Hat behave like an OS worthy of
> being the class leader.
----
somewhat argumentative considering that you are not using an installer
but rather an image created by others. The reality is, changing
hostname, etc. is a rather simple process for those who know Red Hat
topology and for those who are reduced to Linux server management via
Yast, it's going to be painful. From your perspective, I can see where
you're coming from. From a Red Hat perspective, you bring a limited
skill set that they are unlikely to satisfy regardless of their efforts.
Installing X and the various system-config-*utils* or Webmin are the
most reasonable options.

As someone who routinely sets up 'headless' servers on RHEL (or clone
variations like CentOS), I don't find it a burden at all. I typically
set up a 'local' user, configure nx and run an nxclient connection so I
get a "X" connection and still have the runlevel set to boot a non 'X'
bootup.
----
> 
> > First off, the full host name configuration tool smacks you in the face
> > on install. With a little planning before the install, this would have
> > never been an issue in the first place.
> 
> Unless, of course, you didn't do the install.  This is a virtual server
> that is setup from an image.
----
point is that you have punted to someone else's image. Setting the
hostname & ethernet configurations, date/time, etc. are also part of the
'firstboot' routine which apparently wasn't included in your 'image'
either - too bad...not Red Hat's fault.
----
> SUSE has all of their config modules equally available in TUI mode.
> There's really no excuse for RH not to.
----
I don't recall ever seeing any explanation for this but you could put in
an RFE in Red Hat's bugzilla which of course would be the most
appropriate place for your commentary if you actually were seeking a
change of behavior. 

Since you prefaced your commentary with 'Pointless rant' - I probably
should have skipped over the bait but I simply couldn't pass on it since
you wish to hold up the company that is using Microsoft to sell its
software though their flawed partnership.

I also note that SuSE demonstrated no interest in opening up their
software such as their Directory Services or Groupwise while Red Hat
purchases software like the Netscape Directory Server and open sources
it. When I compare the philosophies of the two corporations, it's pretty
clear to me which one is committed to enhancing the Free Software/Open
Source community and which one exploits it for their corporate gain. But
to stay on your point, Red Hat was sufficiently burned by the old
linuxconf to invest energy into aggressive/overarching configuration
utilities.
----
> 
> > You could install webmin and use that (definitely my preferred tool for
> > Cron/DNS/DHCP/LDAP Users and Groups/Cyrus-imapd and now, their new
> > version provides full Bacula support) and sat back and rocked. Out of
> > the box, webmin understands chroot based bind (named on RHEL) and is one
> > of the few DNS management tools that doesn't totally suck.
> 
> I installed webmin yesterday.  It's handy in cases... but fundamentally,
> it just like a remembered -- way way too cluttered.  A good config
> screen always shows the most common options only so you can get down to
> business as fast as possible.  If you want more options, you typically
> click an "Advanced" button or tab.  Webmin throws EVERYTHING at you all
> at once.  It's just barely better than reading the man page to figure
> out how to edit the files yourself.
----
http://www.webmin.com - see mailing list. Jamie is totally responsive to
patches, suggestions, feedback...better than any other open source
developer I have watched over the years. 

Knowing the vast philosophical differences between KDE and GNOME on this
very topic, it's clear that there isn't one pat philosophy that is
universally adopted. With respect to webmin, it's a module by module
basis and varying amounts of attention have been paid to each specific
module but for the most part, it's all there.
----
> 
> > Now, considering your methodology of creating the files on SuSE and
> > using rsync to bring them over tells me that you completely turned off
> > Selinux because you would have pulled out every hair on your head if
> > selinux were not disabled.
> 
> Yep.
----
let me see if I got this straight...you claim that you don't want to run
X on a server because of your attention to security but you disabled the
most sophisticated layer of primary security?
----
> 
> > Thanks for the pointless rant - probably would have been better directed
> > at the Zimbra folk who chose the RHEL platform for their product than to
> > this list but perhaps not unexpected coming from someone who has
> > eschewed their Linux desktop in favor of Mac OSX.
> 
> Actually, I have since switched back to using Linux as my primary
> desktop.  I got hooked on Amarok, Digikam, and Compiz/Beryl.  I think,
> though, that I'll always be switching back and forth between Linux and
> OS X as my primary desktop.  Neither really satisfies all of my needs
> and it seems that I get to my tolerance with one and switch to the
> other... until I get too pissed off at that one and switch back.  So on
> and so forth.
> 
> It goes without saying that my servers will always be Linux.  SUSE
> Linux, if possible ;-)
----
You can purchase support vouchers for SuSE from your Microsoft rep too.

My own perspective is quite a bit different. The issues that I see as
most important are how much rebuilding, repackaging, building from
source, how are updates distributed, how long is this install going to
be supported to be far more important than the comfort of some text
based configuration utilities in terms of choosing a distribution. I got
zenoss installed, configured and working in 2 hours on RHEL 5. That was
very impressive. Different strokes for different folks I guess.

Craig