
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 released - lubomir
https://www.redhat.com/en/enterprise-linux-8?701f20000012hnlAAA#
======
chomp
Wrote this comment a while ago for anyone wondering about this:

Just installed it in a VM, changes that jumped out at me:

• No Python (that you should develop against) installed out of the box.
There's a /usr/libexec/platform-python (3.6) that yum (dnf) runs against, and
then python2/python3 packages you can optionally install if you want to run
python scripts.

• Kernel 4.18

• No more ntpd, chrony only

• /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts is a ghost town, save for a lonely ifcfg file
for my network adapter. No more /etc/init.d/network, so /etc/init.d is finally
cleaned out. It looks like static routes still go in route-<adapter> and you
ifdown/ifup to pull those in (it calls nmcli).

• Pretty colors when running dmesg!

~~~
sparkling
It makes a lot of sense that OS-stuff points to a seperate Python interpreter,
don't you think? I like this approach.

~~~
vbezhenar
Do you think that there should be separate platform-sh interpreter for system
shell scripts, and so on? That kind of strange for me. Probably difference is
that shell is "complete" program, while Python is not.

~~~
auscompgeek
The difference with system shell scripts is that you can't accidentally
clobber libraries that the system tools require to work - shell scripts don't
really have any notion of installable libraries.

~~~
owl57
It's not like you can't clobber PATH with ease and in diverse ways… It's just
less easy to unclobber: huge hacks like Nix are born in this quest.

~~~
pfranz
> huge hacks like Nix are born in this quest.

Would you mind elaborating on this? Maybe I'm using Linux wrong, but Nix seems
like a huge step forward fixing a lot of my frustrations. Admittedly, I
haven't used it in production.

One huge benefit of language-specific package managers is having multiple
versions of packages on the same system and you can choose which you'd like
for the project (without changing the OS). I feel like 10 years ago I heard a
lot of grumbling about languages like Ruby or Python should just use apt/rpm,
but I haven't see any OS package manager put much effort into this use-case
(this is ignoring mac/win support). The closest I've seen is something like
Red Hat's Software Collections.

Personally, I feel strongly that any software that's critical to your company
should be decoupled from the OS. This is borne through painful and much
delayed OS updates and following it makes things much easier long term.

My personal use-case is that different projects (working on multiple in
tandem) need different stacks of versions. Also giving the ability to swap
versions on the fly. Here's one package manager specifically designed for it
[https://github.com/nerdvegas/rez](https://github.com/nerdvegas/rez)

Swapping versions in Linux is pretty heavy out of the box (with rpm/apt);
download, remove old versions files, write new versions files. Only one
installed at a time. a/b comparing libraries is a pain. For the things I need,
I build things into folders like libjpeg-turbo/2.0.2 and nasm/2.14.02 and set
the ./configure flags to point to these...basically a more ad hoc approach to
what Nix does.

Where am I going wrong?

------
w-m
Here are the actual release notes (which don't seem to be linked anywhere from
this marketing page):

[https://access.redhat.com/documentation/en-
us/red_hat_enterp...](https://access.redhat.com/documentation/en-
us/red_hat_enterprise_linux/8/html-single/8.0_release_notes/index)

~~~
CiPHPerCoder
Good news: They ship PHP 7.2

Bad news: ...without ext/sodium

That's a frankly irresponsible decision for Red Hat to make.

~~~
Conan_Kudo
> That's a frankly irresponsible decision for Red Hat to make.

You say that without knowing anything at all about the situation? If you're a
Red Hat customer, you could file a support ticket to get it pulled back in.

Historically speaking, Red Hat is rather conservative about the number of
crypto libraries they pull into their system because of the requirement to
validate the system for certifications. But if there are legitimate
requirements to have it included and managed by the base system, then usually
they'll work to fix this if they are informed that it's needed.

Again, if no one has officially requested it, then why would they pull it in?

It can also help to file bugs on RHEL 8 in the Red Hat Bugzilla:
[https://bugzilla.redhat.com/enter_bug.cgi?product=Red%20Hat%...](https://bugzilla.redhat.com/enter_bug.cgi?product=Red%20Hat%20Enterprise%20Linux%208)

~~~
CiPHPerCoder
> If you're a Red Hat customer, you could file a support ticket to get it
> pulled back in.

I have never spent $1 of my own money on Red Hat. After seeing this, I never
will.

~~~
Conan_Kudo
Just so you know, there's a bug report requesting this extension to be enabled
and shipped:
[https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1714591](https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1714591)

------
apaprocki
One thing to keep in mind if you build a lot of C++ -- this is the first RHEL
version to use the C++11 ABI. Be prepared!

------
lelf
In case someone from RH is reading this: “Get the Study” links to
[https://www.redhat.com/en/page-not-found](https://www.redhat.com/en/page-not-
found)

~~~
nilskrau
working link: [https://www.redhat.com/en/engage/economic-impact-
rhel-s-2019...](https://www.redhat.com/en/engage/economic-impact-
rhel-s-201904230659)

found by removing the query part

------
_Understated_
I have no appreciable Linux skills so forgive my naïvety with this question:

In the promo vid on their site, there are a couple of people gaming. Is this
alluding to the fact that you can game on RHEL or that it powers the backend
of games?

Just curious...

~~~
aetimmes
Probably a little bit of both.

You _can_ game on RHEL but it wouldn't be my first choice of distro for it -
IMO, Ubuntu and Fedora are both better-suited for that task.

~~~
_Understated_
Why is that? Is it driver-related? Or is it that RHEL is more for stability
rather than speed?

~~~
eitland
RHEL comes with a price tag (although I think they now have free developer
licenses.)

Also RHEL development moves sloooowly. This is a feature and one of the main
reasons to go with RHEL instead of not only unsupported distros but also
supported-but-faster-moving distros, kind of like on Windows LTSB (I know to
little about both to compare them, but enough to know that in certain
organzations the promise that it will stay the way it is and by default only
receive security updates is a huge feature.)

~~~
lmns
They do have their Software Collections with new major releases for nodejs,
python etc., though. It is only the base system that moves slowly.

------
foobarbazetc
Woooooooohooooooooo!

We basically packaged our own RHEL8 on top of 7 and I’m glad we don’t have to
do that for 95% of the packages anymore.

------
acdha
They don't appear to have updated their official Docker registry yet but it
should hopefully be available soon for anyone who needs to test things:

[https://access.redhat.com/containers/?tab=images#/registry.a...](https://access.redhat.com/containers/?tab=images#/registry.access.redhat.com/rhel8)

Following the pattern of
[https://access.redhat.com/containers/?tab=images#/registry.a...](https://access.redhat.com/containers/?tab=images#/registry.access.redhat.com/rhel8-beta)
and
[https://access.redhat.com/containers/?tab=images#/registry.a...](https://access.redhat.com/containers/?tab=images#/registry.access.redhat.com/rhel7)

~~~
Spiritus
See [https://www.redhat.com/en/blog/introducing-red-hat-
universal...](https://www.redhat.com/en/blog/introducing-red-hat-universal-
base-image)

~~~
acdha
Thanks! I hadn't seen that before and it's definitely relevant, especially the
free-to-share part.

------
cwt137
I only saw one beta. Thats crazy if they released with only doing one beta.

~~~
satya71
Fedora is their alpha, and beta to some extent

------
digitalsushi
anyone have any insights on how oracle does their intake of this to create
OEL? it's always been a bit of a mystery to me.

~~~
pnutjam
Download CentOS

grep -rli 'centos' * | xargs -i @sed -i 's/centos]/Oracle\ Unbreakable\
Linux/gi' @

done

~~~
pjmlp
It is a little bit more than that.

~~~
digitalsushi
I know there's quite a bit of testing involved to verify their unbreakable
kernel stuff and ksplice stuff is compatible. I would suspect there is also
the spacewalk integration stuff that is fairly different than redhat's
satellite stuff.

~~~
pnutjam
I didn't realize, until recently, that satellite 6 is no longer based on
spacewalk.

------
ParadisoShlee
I sure Love that "web consol".

~~~
pnutjam
looks like a toned down version of webmin.

~~~
hadrien01
It's Cockpit.

[http://cockpit-project.org/](http://cockpit-project.org/)

~~~
pnutjam
Yeah, I know it's cockpit. I'm not sure what it brings to the table. It's
already possible to lock down webmin pretty heavily if I want to trust a
windows admin to do linux.

------
robbyt
With the whole IBM thing going on, I bet CentOS 8 is going to take longer than
usual to be released.

~~~
unixhero
What is IBM doing with this?

~~~
tux1968
They acquired RedHat

~~~
dralley
The sale is not completed, yet.

------
ilovecaching
With Shadowman gone and Redhat now a branch of IBM, this RHEL release is
really dampened for me.

~~~
Diederich
Can you expand on that?

~~~
B1FF_PSUVM
I learned that the logo now is all hat:
[https://www.zdnet.com/article/goodbye-shadowman-red-hat-
chan...](https://www.zdnet.com/article/goodbye-shadowman-red-hat-changes-its-
logo/)

