
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 Beta - ciupicri
https://www.redhat.com/en/blog/powering-its-future-while-preserving-present-introducing-red-hat-enterprise-linux-8-beta
======
Conan_Kudo
> Btrfs has been removed

I'm still incredibly sad about that, especially as Btrfs has become a really
solid filesystem over the last year or so in the upstream kernel...

Reference: [https://access.redhat.com/documentation/en-
us/red_hat_enterp...](https://access.redhat.com/documentation/en-
us/red_hat_enterprise_linux/8-beta/html/8.0_beta_release_notes/removed_functionality#file_systems_and_storage_5)

~~~
williamstein
Indeed, Btrfs is uniquely capable and important. It has lightweight snapshots
of directory trees, and fully supports NFS exports and kernel namespaces, so
it can easily solve technical problems that currently can't be easily solved
using ZFS or other filesystems. Btrfs is also used now for ChromeOS's Crostini
Linux application container.

~~~
justizin
Notable: Btrfs is used for _all_ of ChromeOS and the crostini container is
just another volume.

It's incredibly robust, really confusing why RH would be pulling this.

~~~
ams6110
It was never emphasized, and probably rarely used by their customers. Prior
RHEL release used ext4, then xfs by default. People who run RHEL don't want to
think about what filesystem to use. They want standard, stable, reliable --
not dozens of options and features.

~~~
Conan_Kudo
When you're pushing the container stuff, Btrfs becomes extraordinarily
valuable. Being able to snapshot a base thing and then layer on top, and do
trivial rebasing, as well as cheap replication of container volumes is _very_
useful.

On my Fedora and EL7 systems, I use Btrfs for the OS and for my containers for
those purposes. It's awesome.

------
pksadiq
Release notes here: [https://access.redhat.com/documentation/en-
us/red_hat_enterp...](https://access.redhat.com/documentation/en-
us/red_hat_enterprise_linux/8-beta/html-single/8.0_beta_release_notes/)

For those that matters, MongoDB is not included because it uses Server Side
Public License: [https://access.redhat.com/documentation/en-
us/red_hat_enterp...](https://access.redhat.com/documentation/en-
us/red_hat_enterprise_linux/8-beta/html-
single/8.0_beta_release_notes/#web_servers_databases_dynamic_languages_2)

~~~
ciupicri
Too bad it doesn't come with Python 3.7, only 3.6. Fedora 29 managed to switch
to 3.7, although it was released just two weeks ago.

~~~
apsivam
I'm more surprised by the fact that no Python is installed by default on a Red
Hat distribution

[https://access.redhat.com/documentation/en-
us/red_hat_enterp...](https://access.redhat.com/documentation/en-
us/red_hat_enterprise_linux/8-beta/html-
single/8.0_beta_release_notes/#web_servers_databases_dynamic_languages)

~~~
robohoe
Wasn't python required for YUM to function correctly? Or has DNF been written
in something other than python?

~~~
recentdarkness
Platform python see comment above

------
ghevshoo
> Linux containers, Kubernetes, artificial intelligence, blockchain...

Bingo!

~~~
setquk
This made me cringe so hard when I read it.

Sounds like a IBM Watson promo already :D

~~~
lima
Red Hat marketing was already playing buzzword bingo before they got bought :D

~~~
setquk
Probably right. I think I might just be paying attention to it now looking for
IBM-isms :)

~~~
lima
You get that with any large company, unfortunately.

------
Spivak
The big takeaway for me is that they consider Podman ready to use because it's
honestly amazing. A fully featured container engine that doesn't need any
elevated privileges or a central daemon -- using just Linux namespacing
features. Once people realize the implications of having containers just being
something you can run like any other program with zero fanfare I expect
adoption to explode.

~~~
curt15
There still seems to be some confusing overlap in their tools. For example,
what is the difference between "buildah" and "podman build"?

~~~
vrutkovs
`podman` keeps the compatibility with Docker CLI params, so `podman build` is
a wrapper around `buildah bud`

------
rayiner
> It also includes a new TCP/IP stack with Bandwidth and Round-trip
> propagation time (BBR) congestion control, which enables higher performance,
> minimized latency and decreased packet loss for Internet-connected services
> like streaming video or hosted storage.

I suspect Red Hat didn't rewrite the TCP/IP stack, so can someone translate
this from marketing into nerd? Google doesn't seem to know.

~~~
dijit
BBR is just an algorithm that tries to figure out the best sending rate of TCP
packets. So you don't have to wait for every ACK after a PSH. it was added the
the linux kernel a couple of years ago, good to see it in RHEL.

------
joe_hills
I'm excited to see Apache bumped to 2.4.35 with HTTP/2 support.

Also, PHP has been bumped from 5.4 to PHP 7.2, which will be extremely nice to
have out of the box.

~~~
lotyrin
They didn't really have a choice, PHP runtime versions have aggressive EOL
dates these days.

~~~
pjmlp
They might, but ISPs still aren't in a hurry to support v7.

------
jcadam
The linux box sitting on my desk at work is running RHEL6 (which is really
starting to get super annoying). My IT dept is just now starting to roll out
RHEL7.

~~~
kokey
That RHEL6 will still be supported with security and stability patches until
2020.

------
amluto
Wow, they based on Linux 4.18! Good for them! I was worried they’d pick 4.14
or earlier, which would have been regrettable in terms of keeping the
speculation attack mitigations maintainable.

~~~
stuff4ben
I wonder why not 4.19 which I thought was an LTS kernel?

~~~
rwmj
Red Hat backports features aggressively and is one of the largest contributors
upstream. The kernel version or whether it's LTS upstream doesn't matter.

------
Shelnutt2
gcc 8.2! Being on gcc 4.8.5 for RHEL 7 instead of 4.9 was a minor pain point
for some c++11 or newer libraries when developing. Nice to see them jump all
the way to the 8.x series.

Also great to see xfs gain COW support in RHEL, they are working to make up
(in features) for dropping btrfs with xfs. We'll see how stratis works out.

~~~
MikGue
gcc 8.2 is also available for RHEL 7:
[https://developers.redhat.com/products/developertoolset/over...](https://developers.redhat.com/products/developertoolset/overview/)
It's included in the subscription.

------
mikece
I wonder how many companies will either not upgrade to RHEL 8 or seek to leave
RHEL because of the acquisition by IBM.

~~~
gaius
The real question is if IBM will cut off CentOS in the hope of driving
customers to pay for RHEL.

~~~
rwmj
So I work for Red Hat and the truth is no one will know until after the
acquisition, but there are certainly no plans for that, nor have I heard
anyone even discussing such a thing. CentOS is a valuable part of Red Hat and
an important part of keeping users in the ecosystem even if they're not paying
us, so it wouldn't really make any sense. IBM aren't stupid (despite nonsense
that people write online), and Red Hat is a cash machine and they'd be stupid
if they messed with a proven model which works.

~~~
ianai
Seems like supporting and incorporating RHEL support into IBM’s business is
the reason they bought RHEL. They effectively grew their business contracts
with the addition of all the RHEL contracts.

If anything, I would expect business as usual for their business customers. It
was a really obvious market move in hindsight.

~~~
merb
my guess is they bought redhat because it bought coreos. and ibm wanted that,
too.

~~~
recentdarkness
That’s a big premium over this what? 250 million?

------
IshKebab
> Linux containers, Kubernetes, artificial intelligence, blockchain and too
> many other technical breakthroughs to list all share a common component -
> Linux

Erm what? Only two of those are built on Linux. If there's too many to list at
least don't list unrelated technologies.

~~~
ape4
Anyone know what AI and blockchain it has?

------
wyldfire
Rust, python 3.6, great stuff!

------
jdoss
Here is a download link to the DVD iso (rhel-8.0-beta-1-x86_64-dvd.iso) for
those that are interested:

[https://red.ht/2ROrd80](https://red.ht/2ROrd80)

------
gnufied
Yay finally 4.18 Kernel in RHEL.

------
fredsanford
I guess if you cross a Red Hat and a Big Blue dinosaur a big purple dinosaur
could be the result...

[https://i.etsystatic.com/5700633/r/il/ea2ba9/1552167872/il_5...](https://i.etsystatic.com/5700633/r/il/ea2ba9/1552167872/il_570xN.1552167872_fvki.jpg)

------
muhbags
Finally no Python 2.7 anymore!

~~~
langdon
Well, not exactly, you can still get it, it just isn't default :)
[https://developers.redhat.com/blog/2018/11/14/python-in-
rhel...](https://developers.redhat.com/blog/2018/11/14/python-in-rhel-8/)

------
cwt137
With the AppStream, does that mean Software Collections is no longer needed?

~~~
langdon
Not really an "either or". However, AppStream provides similar functionality.
See this post:
[https://developers.redhat.com/blog/2018/11/15/rhel8-introduc...](https://developers.redhat.com/blog/2018/11/15/rhel8-introducing-
appstreams/) for more info.

------
fulafel
Is there anything public on release date aims?

~~~
carwyn
When it's ready. If there's one thing Red Hat have been pretty good at it's
being conservative and not worrying too much about schedule slips.

------
j1vms
Thought for a moment I read IBM Enterprise Linux 8 Beta, anyone else?

