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A novice review on Redhat 6.2



I got Redhat 6.2 CD very recently from Prof.Sriram. I installed on intel
686 pc. I felt this review would help some one and started typing this
down.

If you don't have patience to go through all of this, there is a little
summary at the end giving info on the packages added and removed. 

This is my first attempt to write a small technical document. I would be
greatly thankful if you can send ME your comments and additions etc.

I searched for reviews on the net. I got one by Joshua Drake ( Webmaster
of the Linux Documentation Project.) In this review I included few things
from his review. 

How different is Redhat 6.2 different from Redhat 6.1 ?

First observation I had is a change in the welcome screen. There is now an
option for a driver diskette. This would apparantly help greatly when one
has to install linux on machines that include hardware that may be
supported by the standard drivers included with Linux. The graphical
installer is getting appreciation from many people, for it is giving a
correct full screen display with all install options, but I didn't find
any difference in this regard. But it is definite X is less buggy than the
previous release. The gmc doesn't crash as frequently as it does ( on my
machine :-) ). When I first started x after configuring it, I had a funny
experience. It gives a window warning that I am working as root. I say OK
and it gives a window saying that gmc has crashed. I click OK and it gives
me the waring window again. The whole things repeated. I tried for some
time to find the end, but you know :-). After the first experience a week
ago I haven't seen any gmc crash till now.

I found few interesting things, one can use fdisk now instead of Disk Druid
for partioning. I haven't used Disk Druid till now I don't know how many
would appreciate this. There is an ability to select RAID ( redundant
array of inexpensive disks ) as a file system. There are few good packages
added like the GNU Privacy Guard (GPG). This is the GNU version of the
Pretty Good Privacy (PGP), and is the best encryption software available I
feel. The next one is the Piranha, which allows the administration of
Linux clusters. Clustering is a technology that allows multiple Linux
machines to act as one. It is an excellent tool for creating fault
tolerant and load balanced services across multiple servers. I haven't
tried this. I will be very thankful if someone can put me fundaes on this.

There is lam ( Local area Multicomputer programming environment) included 
too. There is pvm ( Parallel Virtual Machine System). This is a software
that enables a collection of hetrogeneneous computers to be used as a
conherent and flexible concurrent computational resource. Two worthy
inclusions for the technical documenter have also been made, and those are
Jade and Docbook. Jade is a Standard Generalized Markup Language
(SGML) and Document Style Semantics and Specification Language(DSSSL) 
processor, and Docbook is a Document Type Definition (DTD) to allow the
creation of the stated documents. 

There is a new version of Jikes included. Jikes is a compiler that
translates Java source files as defined in The Java Language Specification
into the bytecoded instruction set and binary format defined in The Java
Virtual Machine Specifications. This open source and its team consists of
several organisations like IBM. There is a rumour that this is the fastest
java compiler for Linux. 

The X configuration was a little simple than before as my vedio card got
detected, even then I ran XF86Setup to get my X configured. It was a
little dissapointing for me as I couldn't get the trailing lines caused on
my desktop when I make a free select to disappear. I don't know why these
lines appear. Iam GUESSING may be these are caused due to incompatibility
of my monitor. I use 15 inch Samsung Samtron 55v monitor.

Redhat now supports display data channel (DDC) DDC is a technology that
allows the installation to query the monitor and find out what its
capabilities are. DDC will not work on all monitors, but it is nice to see
that anyone with a monitor that supports DDC will now have a much easier
time configuring X. 

The sound card got auto detected and auto configured. 

It seems like Redhat 6.2 is packaged for an upgrade. I found some
documentation missing. There are no HOWTO's, gimp manual is missing.
FAQ's are missing. 


A summary :

New additions :

pvm     :  PVM is a software system that enables a collection of het­
           erogeneous computers to be used as a coherent and flexible
           concurrent computational resource.
Mesa    :  A 3-D graphics library similar to Open GL.
jade    :  A Parser and tools for SGML plus DSSSL.
joystick: Utilities for configuring most popular joysticks.
memprof : A tool for memory profiling and leak detection.
gpgp    : Gnu version of PGP
sawmill : A window manager for X window system.
Jikes   :  A java 1.1 compatible runtime compiler by the GNU team.

anacaonda : The Redhat installer available in the form of an rpm
anacron : A cron-like program that can run jobs lost during downtime
apache web server manual is added.
bug-buddy : A GUI bug reporting tool for the GNOME GUI desktop
cd2wav : From digital audios to .wav files.
docbook : A SGML DTD for technical documentation.
kerberos : libraries, programs on work stations, etc.
lam : LAM( Local area Multicomputer ) Programming environment.

Removed :

aktion   :  Movie player for KDE.
faces    :  A list monitor with a visual output.
faq      :  FAQ's about linux.
knfsd    :  The Kernel NFS Server.
swatch   :  Utility for monitoring system logs files.
tunelp   :  Configuration tool for certain lp device parameters.
xfm      :  X windows based file manager.
xwpick   :  Screen shot grabber for X windows system.
xanim    :  animation/vedio/audio player.


I want to use this oppurtunity to thank prof. Sriram for his full hearted
help when ever I needed. Every one of you would have seen his helping
nature when he offered to get Redhat 6.2 CD written for any one who want
it. ( Soaping :-) ) 



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