
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 Beta - palebluedot
https://access.redhat.com/site/products/Red_Hat_Enterprise_Linux/Get-Beta?intcmp=70160000000cINoAAM
======
rdtsc
This is very exciting. I know until it gets all the government certs and
rubber stamps I won't be able to use it at work but if it is out the ball can
start rolling as they say.

Here is the list of all the detail (tech notes):

[https://access.redhat.com/site/documentation/en-
US/Red_Hat_E...](https://access.redhat.com/site/documentation/en-
US/Red_Hat_Enterprise_Linux/7-Beta/html-single/7.0_Release_Notes/index.html)

You can see updated and deprecated packages as well as issues so far in beta.

~~~
polvi
Which certs are most important these days for govt use? Or does it depend on
which department you're going for?

~~~
jlas
There's DIACAP for DoD:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Department_of_Defense_Informati...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Department_of_Defense_Information_Assurance_Certification_and_Accreditation_Process)

------
WestCoastJustin
> _Improved Application Performance and Isolation. Run applications in
> isolated and secure lightweight containers utilizing SELinux and resource
> management. Linux containers provide a method of isolating a process and
> simulating its environment inside a single host. It provides application
> sandboxing technology to run applications in a secure container environment,
> isolated from other applications running in the same host operating system
> environment. Linux containers are useful when multiple copies of an
> application or workload need to be run in isolation, but share environments
> and resources._ [1]

Looks like there is a major shift in that they will support containers out of
the box now. Hopefully we will see some type of GUI to create containers and
manage cgroups. There has also been major effort assigned to getting
containers working with OpenStack and Docker. You can manually
download/compile LXC today, on RHEL 6.4, but it seems like a bit of a hack,
since you need to figure out networking and LVM on your own, never mind
building base container images. Should be interesting.

[1]
[https://access.redhat.com/site/sites/default/files/pages/att...](https://access.redhat.com/site/sites/default/files/pages/attachments/rhel_whatsnewrhel7beta_techoverview_.pdf)

~~~
sharprazor
Sounds a lot like Solaris containers of a decade ago.

~~~
WestCoastJustin
Yeah, I have been doing some research for an upcoming screencast, and this
type of idea is called _Operating system-level virtualization_ [1], and there
is a fairly good table with the various OS's and their take on OS-level
virtualization. E.g. Solaris Containers, FreeBSD Jail, OpenVZ, HP-UX
Containers, etc.

[1] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operating_system-
level_virtuali...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operating_system-
level_virtualization)

~~~
ghaff
Here's a background piece on containers that I wrote a few months back:
[http://bitmason.blogspot.com/2013/09/what-are-containers-
any...](http://bitmason.blogspot.com/2013/09/what-are-containers-anyway.html)

~~~
WestCoastJustin
Thanks. FYI, I just posted this to HN [1]. Seeing as you put in all this
effort, you should have people reading it, outside this thread. Looks like you
made the front page too!

[1]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6889679](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6889679)

~~~
ghaff
Thanks! I was wondering where my piece popped up from :-)

------
keithpeter
_" Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 beta includes three desktops to match different
work styles and preferences: GNOME 3, GNOME Classic, and KDE."_

I know that RHEL is mainly used on servers, but this development looks
significant to me. I look forward to an eventual CentOS 7 release with a
choice of desktops.

~~~
csmuk
As someone who uses CentOS 6 on the desktop, people really should take a look
at this.

For me, it's the only Linux desktop which I can find which is reliable and
works out of the box with all my hardware.

~~~
keithpeter
Yes, I have CentOS 6 on a Thinkpad x200s with hard drive encryption enabled as
my work machine. I find it stable and quite fast. I may leave that machine on
CentOS 6 and put 7 on the 'play' laptop.

My point was giving a _choice_ of desktops is a new departure for Red Hat.
Remember that they employ, or have employed, a number of the Gnome developers,
and that I gather Red Hat has been a major sponsor of Gnome in the past.

~~~
TallGuyShort
>> giving a choice of desktops is a new departure for Red Hat

Is it? I've only used RHEL on servers but I've used CentOS on my desktops and
laptops for a long time with many re-installs - I've always seen the choice to
use KDE as part of the base install.

~~~
kbenson
Yeah, coming from the RH/Fedora world, it seemed weird when other distros
starting spinning specialized versions for a different window manager on the
desktop, such as kubuntu. I guess that's because they wanted to have more
control over the "experience". RHEL is about getting shit done when you know
what you are doing, not holding your hand and making you feel comfortable, so
I guess with those different expectations it's a bit easier.

~~~
keypusher
Fedora ships a whole bunch of different spins, including desktop flavors.

[http://spins.fedoraproject.org/](http://spins.fedoraproject.org/)

~~~
kbenson
Did they always? I remember it usually being as simple as installing the RPMs,
and running the switchdesk utility. I always had to do that (or generally
something more involved because of my choice) to run FVWM2.

~~~
Shish2k
Ubuntu also allows you to just install the packages for a different desktop;
the differently branded install CDs are mostly for people who come from
windows or OSX and thus believe that the desktop == the OS and it's impossible
to change once installed :P

------
nailer
> The Btrfs file system is now supported.

Nice.
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Btrfs#Features](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Btrfs#Features)

~~~
sciurus
From the draft of the new storage administration guide:

Btrfs is still being actively evaluated for stability during the Red Hat
Enterprise Linux 7.0 beta. The following target use cases will only be fully
supported if it passes our tests: * The system partition only use case. This
will allow btrfs only to get used for system installation, not only for a
user's data. Currently it is unclear whether this will be restricted to this
single disk or not. * Use btrfs for desktop and laptop users including their
data partitions. * Use btrfs as the base file system under scale out "big
data" file systems, such as gluster and Ceph.

[https://access.redhat.com/site/documentation/en-
US/Red_Hat_E...](https://access.redhat.com/site/documentation/en-
US/Red_Hat_Enterprise_Linux/7-Beta/html-
single/Storage_Administration_Guide/index.html#ch-btrfs)

------
vondur
Wow, XFS by default, is there any other distro that uses it by default? Makes
me miss my old SGI machines...

~~~
zx2c4
I was struck by that too, and came here to make the same comment.

Why do you suppose they went with XFS? Ext4 seems like the defacto file system
these days, but I know a lot of people seem to prefer XFS for one reason or
another. It's a surprise to me that RHEL decided to default too it.

Anybody care to shed some light?

~~~
rwmj
It's all about expected disk sizes in 10 years time (when RHEL 7 main support
ends). Ext4 scales up to around 16 TB -- I know it theoretically can support a
much larger volume size, but in practice it doesn't work so well. XFS handles
tens of terabytes without a problem and Red Hat has been supporting huge XFS
volumes for years with many customers (who in earlier versions of RHEL paid
extra for that support).

------
rodgerd
Performance Co-Pilot being bundled as part of the monitoring tools is pretty
interesting; I see one of the devs has been blogging about it in the last
month or so: [http://developerblog.redhat.com/2013/11/19/exploratory-
perfo...](http://developerblog.redhat.com/2013/11/19/exploratory-performance-
pcp/) and [http://developerblog.redhat.com/2013/11/26/performance-
regre...](http://developerblog.redhat.com/2013/11/26/performance-regression-
pcp/)

~~~
Game_Ender
That is a very awesome tool, I am really wondering why I have not seen it
before.

~~~
rodgerd
I saw at at linux.conf.au in 2010 and it looked good, but also as though it
hadn't been worked on for a while. It looks like it's had a lot of neat stuff
added in the last 3 years.

------
rch
"All Java 7 packages (java-1.7.0-openjdk, java-1.7.0-oracle, java-1.7.0-ibm)
in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 beta let you install multiple versions in
parallel, similarly to the kernel."

This sounds pretty convenient to me.

~~~
catinsocks
I don't think that this is new (other than 1.7 being the default now) unless
they are using something other than alternatives:
[https://access.redhat.com/site/documentation/en-
US/JBoss_Ent...](https://access.redhat.com/site/documentation/en-
US/JBoss_Enterprise_Web_Platform/5/html/Installation_Guide/sect-
use_alternatives_to_set_default_JDK.html)

~~~
rch
New to me :)

What I recall from a while ago is finding systems with just openjdk and having
to install the 'official' version manually. That could have been Fedora
though.

------
jlgaddis
64-bit ISO: ftp://ftp.redhat.com/pub/redhat/rhel/beta/7/x86_64/iso/rhel-
everything-7.0-beta-1-x86_64-dvd.iso

~~~
keithpeter
Is this an 'open' beta or do you need a subscriber key? Just curious, I
usually wait for CentOS for a desktop installation on a laptop

~~~
rodgerd
Their betas are open, but you may not receive much in the way of updates
(including security updates) if my experience with the RHEL 6 beta was
anything to go by.

You _should_ be able to flip into CentOS 7 fairly easily when they release,
though.

~~~
keithpeter
I'll install it on an external hard drive and have a play. Thanks.

------
jlgaddis
I'm happy that MariaDB 5.5 is replacing MySQL but not so happy that
Thunderbird is being removed in favor of Evolution.

XFS is the default filesystem.

"Multiple required authentications" in OpenSSH. Nifty.

~~~
oofabz
It's probably because Mozilla announced that Thunderbird is now in maintenance
mode. They do not plan to add features or make major changes anymore.

To some that may mean Thunderbird is complete and mature, but RedHat must
believe that Thunderbird is now a dead end.

[https://wiki.mozilla.org/Thunderbird/New_Release_and_Governa...](https://wiki.mozilla.org/Thunderbird/New_Release_and_Governance_Model)

------
tirant
For Desktop users (RHEL is also used in workstation environments):

"Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 beta includes three desktops to match different
work styles and preferences: GNOME 3, GNOME Classic, and KDE"

------
dschiptsov
Fedora 18 is already matured?) Or it is based on outdated 17th?

~~~
keithpeter
[http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=MTU0MDk](http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=MTU0MDk)

Suggests Fedora 19 package set and 3.10 kernel.

~~~
sturadnidge
If I'm not mistaken nodejs was in that package set, good step forward for
enterprise adoption if it's in RHEL7!

~~~
rodgerd
node.js is already in the Software Collections repo for RHEL 6, so you can get
a Red Hat supported, maintained node.js already.

~~~
sturadnidge
Did not know that, cheers!

------
Spiritus
Anyone know which Python version will get bundled with RHEL 7?

~~~
gerjomarty
From the release notes[1], at least the beta version comes with Python 2.7.5.

[1]: [https://access.redhat.com/site/documentation/en-
US/Red_Hat_E...](https://access.redhat.com/site/documentation/en-
US/Red_Hat_Enterprise_Linux/7-Beta/html-single/7.0_Release_Notes/index.html)

------
ts4z
Anybody know if they have the new C++ toolchain that will allow Chrome to
start working again?

------
diakritikal
> _systemd & OpenLMI_

With the next SLES also going systemd by default, Do you think this will force
the hand of the few holdouts left? Going I can't see vendors wanting to
support all of systemd, upstart, sysvinit.

~~~
air
Debian seems to feel that way and is choosing between upstart and systemd
[http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-
bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=727708](http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-
bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=727708)

------
thyrsus
How long were the beta periods for RHEL 4, 5, 6? I know there's no commitment,
but I'd like to tighten my vague idea of how long the beta period will be.
Right now, I guess more than a day and less than a year.

~~~
derekp7
Typically about 6 months, judging from the press releases announcing the
public betas of 4, 5, and 6, and comparing to the GA release dates.

RHEL 4 beta: Sep 27, 2004 / GA: Feb 15, 2005

RHEL 5 beta: Sep 7, 2006 / GA: Mar 15, 2007

RHEL 6 beta: Apr 21, 2010 / GA: Nov 9, 2010

------
svennek
Has anyone found the root password for the kvm qcow2?

~~~
kinneyd81
I had to boot from an .iso and mount up the filesystem to reset it. Also
disabled selinux on reboot. If you find it out, please post, I'm curious
myself.

~~~
svennek
I mounted it (by the ways of qemu-nbd and so forth) and chrooted into it. It
seems like there are no accounts with a valid password in it..

~~~
hvs2
Based on
[https://access.redhat.com/site/solutions/641193](https://access.redhat.com/site/solutions/641193)
the root account is disabled but sudo is granted to the uid 'cloud-user'.
Basically, it is configured to use cloud-init and be provisioned ssh keys.

If a root password is required, the KB recommends using 'guestfish --rw -a
<image>', mounting the filesystem, and running vi against /etc/shadow.

------
drinchev
Can anyone explain a bit more about what happened to Red Hat? I'm about behind
the history of this Distribution. Last time I read about it I found out that
is paid and I never considered it, because of that. I'm using Slackware for
most of my servers, but I don't know what is the target market or what is more
special in Red Hat Enterprise.

~~~
mdmarra
There are some misconceptions here. RHEL does not cost a cent. _Support_ for
RHEL, which includes security fixes through the package manager costs money.
Security fixes and other patches and updates are still released as source by
RHEL, as required by the GPL.

If you really wanted, you could run RHEL with no subscription and compile your
own updates from the source that they release. In practice, this is next to
impossible to maintain as an individual, but it is exactly what CentOS,
Scientific Linux, and other related EL distributions do. They remove the RHEL
trademarked logos, compile the code released by RHEL, and make it available
through a generic yum repository that doesn't require a RHEL subscription.

So, in short, RHEL doesn't cost money, support and packaged patches do. CentOS
gives you binary and version compatibility of RHEL without the cost.

------
berkut
Anyone know what version of gcc it'll ship with? Couldn't find that in the
tech overview PDF...

~~~
nailer
From Chapter 11: Compilers and Tools in release notes:

11.1. GCC Toolchain

In Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.0 Beta, the gcc toolchain is based on the
gcc-4.8.x release series, and includes numerous enhancements and bugfixes
relative to the Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 equivalent. Similarly, Red Hat
Enterprise Linux 7 includes binutils-2.23.52.x.

These versions correspond to the equivalent tools in Red Hat Developer Toolset
2.0; a detailed comparison of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 and Red Hat
Enterprise Linux 7 gcc and binutils versions can therefore be seen here:

[https://access.redhat.com/site/documentation/en-
US/Red_Hat_D...](https://access.redhat.com/site/documentation/en-
US/Red_Hat_Developer_Toolset/2/html-single/User_Guide/index.html#sect-
Changes_in_Version_2.0-GCC)

[https://access.redhat.com/site/documentation/en-
US/Red_Hat_D...](https://access.redhat.com/site/documentation/en-
US/Red_Hat_Developer_Toolset/2/html-single/User_Guide/index.html#sect-
Changes_in_Version_2.0-binutils)

Notable highlights of the Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.0 Beta toolchain are the
following:

\- Experimental support for building applications compliant with C++11
(including full C++11 language support) and some experimental support for C11
features.

\- Improved support for programming parallel applications, including OpenMP
v3.1, C++11 Types and GCC Built-ins for Atomic Memory Access and experimental
support for transactional memory (including Intel RTM/HLE intrinsics, built-
ins, and code generation)

\- A new local register allocator (LRA), improving code performance.

\- DWARF4 is now used as the default debug format. A variety of new
architecture-specific options.

\- Support for AMD family 15h and 16h processors.

\- Link-time optimization support.

\- Enhanced warnings and diagnostics.

\- A variety of new Fortran features.

------
radoslawc
I'm glad to see XFS got some love. Also PTP is nice feature.

~~~
chjohnst
PTP testing so far is looking quite good!

------
e40
I'm glad I can stay on 6.x until all the kinks are worked out with systemd. I
was on whatever Fedora made the switch to systemd and it was pretty painful.

------
rob22
I am looking forward work with XFS....how is possible to migrate XFS from ext4
if i want to update RHEL 6.x to RHEL 7....

------
shmerl
How far away do you think is the release?

