Red Hat Professional Workstation

Rating:
Summary: No software is available
Review: After purchasing this software I quickly found out
that you are your own 'support' person. If some
application does not work, then you have to search
on the internet, or user forum. I don't know about
you but I do NOT trust complete strangers on the
internet. It is like inviting someone into your
house you don't know. If you want to use Adobe you
can forget it because they do not make any software
for Linux. And several other popular Windows apps that
are not there. So in the end I wound up buying a MAC, at
least there is software available and MS Office!

Rating:
Summary: Outdated and did not work correctly
Review: For what this redhat workstation cost me, one would think that it would work like it should. Software patches, how many bugs can this Redhat have, I have never seen so many patches to download in my life. I spent hours downloading and the system would hang up and quit responding! How any can say this is worth 5 starts, maybe a NEGATIVE 5 rating!

This has to be the biggest over-rated bunch of NON-working software I have ever purchased. If you liked Windows 3.1 then this is for you. Not only that at least Windows has applications, this Redhat has a bunch of apps that don't work, or you can't figure them out......

Rating:
Summary: Different distros have different strengths
Review: Here is an update of what I've decided:

I use Red Hat Enterprise Linux as a home desktop OS because that is what we use at work. Also Red Hat is very strong if you are going to run it as a server - not as a workstation. If you do programming with non-gcc compilers, like Intel's compiler, Red Hat is a good distro because it has strong compiler support (by Intel). Some people have trouble getting Intel's compiler to work right on a Debian based system like Xandros. But SUSE would be fine in this regard. Also, Red Hat gives virtually no worthwhile phone or email support. But I doubt the other distros give any worthwhile support either. You can also get about the same thing from Red Hat by getting their free Fedora edition. Red Hat's new Wide Open magazine will help you learn more about this and other Red Hat packages, but again you won't get any hand holding. I'm not sure they even print a decent book any more, just giving you that annoying pdf file edition that you have to scroll back and forth and never know where you are at or where anything is and can't make any notes in.

I'm thinking now for a desktop distro for the Windows type lover, Xandros might be the best distro. It doesn't change very often, and they have concentrated on the desktop, rather than on the server like Red Hat. However, Xandros only works on 386 architecture, whereas Red Hat supports AMD64, Opteron, Itanium, and other CPU chips. So don't get it if you are a engineering type person who is dreaming about doing serious 64 bit computation at home someday, or a gamer who whats 64 bits.

SUSE falls somewhere in between. I think as a desktop product it is a bit better than Red Hat. It has fairly good non-gcc compiler support. It works well as a server, but not as strong as Red Hat.

Rating:
Summary: Different distros have different strengths
Review: Here is an update of what I've decided:

I use Red Hat Enterprise Linux as a home desktop OS because that is what we use at work. Also Red Hat is very strong if you are going to run it as a server - not as a workstation. If you do programming with non-gcc compilers, like Intel's compiler, Red Hat is a good distro because it has strong compiler support (by Intel). Some people have trouble getting Intel's compiler to work right on a Debian based system like Xandros. But SUSE would be fine in this regard. Also, Red Hat gives virtually no worthwhile phone or email support. But I doubt the other distros give any worthwhile support either. You can also get about the same thing from Red Hat by getting their free Fedora edition. Red Hat's new Wide Open magazine will help you learn more about this and other Red Hat packages, but again you won't get any hand holding. I'm not sure they even print a decent book any more, just giving you that annoying pdf file edition that you have to scroll back and forth and never know where you are at or where anything is and can't make any notes in.

I'm thinking now for a desktop distro for the Windows type lover, Xandros might be the best distro. It doesn't change very often, and they have concentrated on the desktop, rather than on the server like Red Hat. However, Xandros only works on 386 architecture, whereas Red Hat supports AMD64, Opteron, Itanium, and other CPU chips. So don't get it if you are a engineering type person who is dreaming about doing serious 64 bit computation at home someday, or a gamer who whats 64 bits.

SUSE falls somewhere in between. I think as a desktop product it is a bit better than Red Hat. It has fairly good non-gcc compiler support. It works well as a server, but not as strong as Red Hat.

Rating:
Summary: Hats off for Red Hat
Review: I am a long time Linux user and this so far the best release by
Red Hat.
Installing is a breeze, desktop is very nice. Default install most
features for average user. You can add more programs later thru
package manager, which is very easy to use.
Updating the system is easy with "up2date", which notified you when
updates are available. OpenOffice works like a charm.
For advanced power users there is tons of tools for programming,
editing, developing etc.
Burning CD's and DVD's is easy as click and drag.
For photo editing users there is a GIMP, very powerful editing
software.
My system is running very fast and stable with this Red Hat release. I did not have one single crash yet since I installed it
in Nov-2003.
If someone is looking for alternative operating system, this one
deserves to try.

Rating:
Summary: Easily connects to internet through router/DSL network.
Review: I love the Linux/Unix environment for programming and its power, but had trouble connecting to the internet in SUSE through my new home network with a DSL modem, a router and my wife's Window XP computer. But with this product it connected with about five mouse clicks and is working great.

Here's how to do it for a network Hub configuration (as I understand it): telephone line connected to DSL modem which is connected through an ethernet cable to a router (I used Cicso's LinkSys) and then ethernet cables from the router to both computers.
Go to the Red Hat Icon start menu.
System Tools.
Internet Configuration Wizard
Select Ethernet Connection
Select the device it should have already located - press "forward"
Select Automatically obtain IP with dhcp
Forward, then Apply.
Everything suddenly works! You can surf the net at lightning speed!

I believe if you don't have the router and just a computer and DSL modem you will select xDSL instead of Ethernet Connection at that junction.

Email was fairly easy to set up. I got momentarily stuck since I didn't at first check the box for "requires authentication" for the Outgoing SMTP. If your service uses this (and SBC-Yahoo DSL does), then this box must be checked. A box will then open for you to insert the password for your service.

You can simply buy the third party CD's (after all this is open source) without the offical Red Hat box - $89 is kind of pricy. The offical box would be good for regular updates and security fixes from Red Hat, but I would wait for the price to come down a bit. If Red Hat would add virus protection to their subscription service, then I feel the subscription would be worth $60 a year or so. But right now the product is new and they're collecting the low hanging fruit. For the average person they need to drop the price a bit and give you a little something more for the subscription.

Rating:
Summary: Too much trouble
Review: If time was money I would be a rich woman after spending hours with my pc thanks to linux. It is about as easy getting devices to work as have dental work without numbing medication. Whoever states that Linux is cheaper to run than Windows does not own a business. It costs more money in the fact it never works right or you have a application crash with a 'SEGV' error. AGGRRR, I think now I have some very expensive coasters for drinks... I am going back to Windows something that WORKS!

Rating:
Summary: Redhat Professional Workstation
Review: If you purchase this particular type of WS, you are going to lose $100.00, there is not great differences between Redhat 9.0
and Fedora Core 1,2, anybody is able to get them for free,Rednat support is lousy,it is like talking to a wall,you have to provide your own support, the updating procedures are lousy too,and they can be obtained thru the internet, you will be getting less features than in the old personal and professional box,4032 packages compared to 6,632 from Fedora, it is a big difference, no more books, no more DVD disks. It is time to move to another distro like Suse or Mandrake that even provide better customer service, if you do not like their products, you obtain an RMA, it can be returned to them, win RedHat PWS, your money is gone to the trash, it is not the old Professional set, it is the personal set with network updating, it is not their enterprise software neither, it is only named like that, but it is the same old personal set that will cost you more money, and if you want to read about it, you must spend $55.00 more dollars to buy a book from a book vendor