RedHat Enterprise Linux 5

[Gizmo]

Ok, is it possible for me to download RHEL 5 for evaluation purposes, WITHOUT having to buy an $80 or whatever subscription to the Redhat Network? Does anyone know?

[Áedán]

This might be why ThePlanet offer CentOS - it's an unbranded RHEL, based on the RHEL source.

[Necorum]

http://www.apac.redhat.com/register/evaluation/

[Gizmo]

Thanks Necorum. I actually found that about 10 minutes ago.

[Necorum]

lol i evaul'ed it along time ago np

[Necorum]

not 5 though i dont think

[dsio]

Originally Posted by Áedán

This might be why ThePlanet offer CentOS - it's an unbranded RHEL, based on the RHEL source.

Interestingly though, the default OS option when you order a TP server is CentOS, yet they offer RHEL for free as well. Don't know why anyone would get CentOS, when you can get RHEL with the support included for the same price. :\

The only downside to CentOS, is that there are several very poorly designed pieces of software designed for Fedora/RHEL, that detect CentOS and don't recognize that its a RHEL clone, promptly terminating their install script. Usually only takes a few minutes of jiggery-pokery to convince it otherwise, but there are even a couple that have binary installers or encrypted scripts that make it impossible.

[Áedán]

I have to wonder if I'd actually want to use a bit of software where the installer is so badly written. It doesn't exactly inspire faith in the rest of the software.

[dsio]

Originally Posted by Áedán

I have to wonder if I'd actually want to use a bit of software where the installer is so badly written. It doesn't exactly inspire faith in the rest of the software.

Yea, but this is what happens dude: Some company's board of directors asks their IT guy to find out what is the best groupware suite or whatever they're after.

The guy goes to wikipedia, spends a few minutes browsing, finds out which one has the most ticks in its feature matrix and buys a license for that one. Its a proprietary piece of software, costing $10K++, or $100/head or something, and they buy it, without testing it.

Then they need it hosted, and send the license information and instructions to the service provider. Service provider discovers, that said product either requires to completely take over the entire OS, won't work in chrooted hosts, and won't even work in virtualized hosts, and requires a specific version of a specific distro, set up a specific way, or it won't work. But the guy picking it out doesn't think about that. He thinks "Wow! AJAX is 1337! Look at the spinny email icon, and the cool effects!" and he wants it.

This is despite the fact that google offers the same thing, only cleaner, simpler and free... and there are 10 or so open source equivalents that do the same job, better, without demanding the world.

Seriously, the quality of some extremely expensive proprietary enterprise grade software packages is of such a poor state that you could be forgiven for thinking it was written by a monkey on a typewriter.