
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.4 Released - gtirloni
https://www.redhat.com/en/about/press-releases/red-hat-bridges-hybrid-multi-cloud-deployments-latest-version-red-hat-enterprise-linux-7
======
lima
Really happy with my move from Ubuntu LTS to CentOS 7.

QA is so much better. I had so many production breaking bugs with Ubuntu,
especially on bare-metal.

RPM packaging is more fun than DEB. I'm even using it for application
deployment with tito[1].

Even the software deployment story got better thanks to the Software
Collections
([https://www.softwarecollections.org](https://www.softwarecollections.org)).
Rock solid base OS and an up-to-data application stack.

CentOS on the servers + Fedora desktop is a great combination, since you can
re-use your whole build infrastructure and skills for your workstations.

[1]: [https://github.com/dgoodwin/tito](https://github.com/dgoodwin/tito)

~~~
ashark
> QA is so much better. I had so many production breaking bugs with Ubuntu,
> especially on bare-metal.

Is it (Fedora) much better on the desktop? I dumped Win10 a couple months ago
to go back to Ubuntu for the first time since PulseAudio broke everything
horribly and I swore off Linux on the Desktop forever (haha), and I was
shocked to find that the UIs of both Gnome and KDE have if anything _more_
rough edges than when I last saw them as far as usability goes, performance
(UI responsiveness mainly) is generally mediocre to poor, and that both are at
least as unstable/buggy as before (KDE significantly worse than Gnome in that
regard, though neither's good).

I'd consider jumping ship to an RPM-based distro for the first time since 2004
or so if the desktop experience is less... well, bad, frankly. Going back to
Win10 isn't an option. What a garbage fire.

~~~
willtim
Try something simple like i3

~~~
subway
As a user of i3, it is anything but simple. Outside the standard DEs, you
vastly complicate things like power, network, and display management. It's
possible to build out a fully functional environment with i3, but it is far
from simple.

~~~
willtim
For the pieces you mention, I use tlp, connman and xrandr. Yes they have a
small learning curve and I wouldn't recommend them to everyone, but they are
stable and not likely to change (whereas Apple/Microsoft/Redhat are constantly
reinventing their UIs).

Building out a desktop environment from ones own choice of components is much
more aligned with the Unix philosophy.

~~~
subway
I don't disagree that building your own DE is a fantastic way to operate, but
the point remains that it is in no way, shape, nor form simple.

It's taken years for my own collection of tools to stabilize enough that it
isn't painful to juggle ethernet/wifi/mbim connections. So that my displays
are properly laid out (automatically) when I get to the office and plug in my
monitor. So that my laptop consistently sleeps when I close the lid, instead
of continuing to run in an enclosed bag. So that GPS on my cellular card is
usable at the same time as an internet connection. So that Java applications
run properly (don't forget to tell your window manager to lie about its
name!).

Now that I've wasted so much time over the last decade tweaking and tuning
this environment to make it stable and mine, I wouldn't give it up for the
world -- and suspect I _can 't_ give it up at this point without massive
changes to my workflows.

~~~
willtim
You are quoting me out of context. I originally said i3 is simple in a reply
to a post complaining about KDE and GNOME, both of which are hugely complex
installations of numerous libraries and services. So complex in fact, that
they cannot be made to work reliably. Granted i3 provides substantially less
functionality, but this comes from being _simple_.

Your examples above are mostly common configuration issues, easy to find with
Google. Even a Windows user would likely need to Google many things (e.g.
disabling forced updates, privacy settings, registry hacks).

I'm also skeptical that Gnome or KDE will make it significantly easier to
solve such configuration issues. Do they even allow settings to be easily
moved to another machine? Unfortunately Linux in general will always need some
tweaking to work with specific hardware.

~~~
subway
You provided absolutely no context to go with what was quoted.

You replied suggesting a specific window manager (a single component within a
desktop environment) to a post lamenting the rough edges in popular modern
DEs. You made no indication that your recommended replacement offers no way to
hot plug a monitor, connect to the internet, or even launch an arbitrary
application without installing and potentially configuring additional
packages. These are very basic features folks have come to expect in a DE.

Making this sort of recommendation is throwing the user headfirst into a
painful situation likely to give them an extremely negative impression of i3.

~~~
willtim
> _You provided absolutely no context to go with what was quoted_

Not explicitly, but I never said configuring or using i3 was simple. It is a
very valid point, but is does not refute the fact that i3 is itself simple.

> _You made no indication that your recommended replacement offers no way to
> hot plug a monitor, connect to the internet, or even launch an arbitrary
> application_

I should have written more originally yes, but I have since given my
recommendations for these. So why bring it up again?

> _Making this sort of recommendation is throwing the user headfirst into a
> painful situation likely to give them an extremely negative impression of
> i3._

This is Hackernews and I was replying to knowledgeable posters. I think it is
safe to assume they will look into it first without getting into a "painful
situation".

Although you do raise some good points, I feel it is your posts that have
given an overly negative impression of i3.

------
rodgerd
Notable point: Red Hat are effectively declaring btrfs has no future.

From the release notes: "The Btrfs file system has been in Technology Preview
state since the initial release of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6. Red Hat will
not be moving Btrfs to a fully supported feature and it will be removed in a
future major release of Red Hat Enterprise Linux."

[https://access.redhat.com/documentation/en-
US/Red_Hat_Enterp...](https://access.redhat.com/documentation/en-
US/Red_Hat_Enterprise_Linux/7/html/7.4_Release_Notes/chap-
Red_Hat_Enterprise_Linux-7.4_Release_Notes-Deprecated_Functionality.html)

~~~
quicksilver03
That's bad, Btrfs has really grown on me, especially the ability to mix drives
of different sizes in a RAID configuration.

XFS is just not flexible enough, I don't like to be unable to shrink a
partition once created.

It looks like I'll be back to ext4 and various kludges then.

~~~
moonbug
Or, assuming you get over your partition resizing fetish, just stick with XFS.
It's as close to bulletproof as you'll find on Linux.

~~~
mkj
Yet to gain data checksums though.

------
Mojah
A very big change, although not widely reported, is the update to OpenSSL
1.0.2k, which brings ALPN to RHEL & CentOS.

This in turn allows HTTP/2 on Chrome to work again if you're using Nginx as a
TLS proxy on your server.

Some more info here; [https://ma.ttias.be/rhel-centos-7-4-restores-
http2-functiona...](https://ma.ttias.be/rhel-centos-7-4-restores-
http2-functionality-nginx/)

~~~
lima
Another big change is SELinux support for overlayfs, which means you can use
the overlayfs2 driver with Docker without disabling SELinux.

------
flyinghamster
One thing that is souring me on RHEL+clones is Red Hat's habit of yanking
drivers for SAS and SCSI controller cards. On my home file server, CentOS 7 is
the end of the line unless I buy a new HBA.

Then there was the old Dell server at a customer's site that we were planning
to use for a development/testing system. It had a perfectly functional PERC/4e
RAID controller, but Red Hat yanked the driver in 7.0, never mind that Ubuntu
Server works perfectly on the same hardware. We ended up picking up a cheap
refurbished desktop to use as the development box.

~~~
akulbe
This is one reason I don't run RHEL on bare metal, but only on a VM(ware)
host. I know it's not free, and not cheap, but I'd rather not hassle with
issues like that.

~~~
virtualwhys
ESXi is most definitely free if you can live without the enterprise features.

For example, in many setups a max of 8 cores per VM is sufficient, and IIRC
there are no longer memory or storage limits for the free tier.

The web admin (which replaces phased out vCenter admin interface) is pretty
decent. Between that and the cli you're sorted for most non-enterprise use
cases.

But yeah, if you need vMotion and all the other orchestration features, the
licensing is...far from free.

------
apearson
Anyone know how much a lag CentOS is normally behind Red Hat releases?

~~~
wyoung2
About a month:

    
    
      7.0: 4 weeks
      7.1: 3 weeks
      7.2: 4 weeks
      7.3: 5 weeks
    

Source:
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/CentOS#CentOS_releases](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/CentOS#CentOS_releases)

------
toyg
Does it come with python3 installed by default, like recent Fedora?

~~~
Spiritus
No. And it won't be until (at least) RHEL 8. It's available from SCL[1] and
IUS[2] though.

[1] [https://www.softwarecollections.org](https://www.softwarecollections.org)
[2] [https://ius.io](https://ius.io)

------
smegel
Nice.

