2002.05_Red Hat 7.2 Update Tested.pdf

FEATURE

WORK REST

Red Hat updates

& PLAY

T he update pack arrived on the doormat and

The new Red Hat

Linux 7.2 Update pack

is released. Jack

Owen takes a look to

see if its worth the

time and money

after fighting with the wrapping we were

greeted with a single A5 piece of paper, three

CD-ROMs and a credit card-sized Survival CD-ROM.

The paper explains that the two update CDs are

bootable and will update your current Red Hat

distribution, while the Utilities/Games CD can be

browsed and installed if you wish.

some time. The video conferencing software makes

use of your webcam but can work with just voice

input.

Multimedia is also taken care of with Xine,

vcdimager and GIMP plug-ins. Then we come onto

games. Here Red Hat have realised that perhaps we

all need a little time to unwind and have included the

flight simulator FlightGear plus another twenty games

to keep us happy. The Wine release included is from

the very end of January.

Up to date updates

Having religiously followed the Red Hat

Network Errata warning and updating

packages when reminded, the

autoboot disc ran smoothly

without the need for

intervention.

Hundreds of packages

are included and the most

noticeable updates included

KDE 2.2.2 and XFree86 4.1. In

the background though are the more

important changes such as Openssh and

rsync. The latter we had already updated

but this did not hinder the process.

The second disc of the update pair contained the

source rpm files and a copy of the rescue CD.

Hopefully with Red Hat we will never need to find

out if this works. The text file for this part of the CD

is worth reading, not so you can remember it

verbatim but so that when disaster happens you

know what to expect on the CD. We particularly liked

the cut down e3 editor and the graphical installer,

Anaconda.

Small and neat

The final disc in the box is the credit card-sized Sys

Admin CD. I have to say that just the kudos of having

this meant everyone else in the department was

jealous. It was quite noisy in the drive at first but

quickly quietened down. This provides the same data

as was on the second update disc, containing a

30Mb Red Hat distribution. With this you have the

tools to check and recover filesystems. The

monitoring software lets you check and manage a

network while the editors and mail utilities will

handle any communications problems quickly. The

purpose of this CD, apart from making others

envious, is that by always being able to carry it with

you, you always have tools to hand. Yes, full

distribution discs and a laptop are the ideal weapons

of choice, but the quick and dirty fixes that this disc

provides mean it will soon become invaluable.

Conclusion

Rather than release yet another distribution and

cause everyone to reinstall, this update pack is ideal.

Security and peace of mind is taken care of and the

update of packages is a nice bonus. The utilities and

games add a little fun to make the updated Red Hat

7.2 system rival any of the newer distributions. Red

Hat also gives the impression that it was aimed at the

busy system administrator. By including the utilities

CD it has shown that it’s not all about work and

some joy can also be had. There again the credit card

CD is worth the pack alone. Well, that’s enough of

what is included. We’re off to play Parsec and maybe

try out more programs under Wine.

Red Hat 7.2 Update Pack

Fun with a capital F

The third CD-ROM is the Utilities/Games CD. This CD

is more of a bribe to keep you from straying to other

newer distributions rather than an essential addition

to the Red Hat package.

To ease printing CUPs is provided along with the

latest foomatic drivers. If security had still been an

issue after updating then the new FireStarter firewall

configurator will win you over. Gnomemeeting is also

included, which we had been waiting to try out for

Supplier Red Hat

Web www.europe.redhat.com

For Great Sys Admin disc

Against If you donwload updates

it’s inessential

rating

LINUX MAGAZINE

Issue 20 • 2001

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