[Rule-list] Re: i386 kernel not included?

[Wojtek Pilorz]

On Sun, 20 Oct 2002, Glen Lee Edwards wrote:

> Date: Sun, 20 Oct 2002 13:51:04 -0500
> From: Glen Lee Edwards <glen at fcwm.org>
> Reply-To: rule-list at nongnu.org
> To: rule-list at nongnu.org
> Subject: Re: [Rule-list] Re: i386 kernel not included?
> 
> Colon,
> 
> Red Hat has changed its marketing focus.  It is no longer providing an 
> operating system for the masses, but instead is going after those who 
> have money.  Money is the bottom line.  They no longer care if 
> individuals who are on a budget and download RH for free of the net are 
> able to install/use it.
I feel this is not quite fair to say that. RedHat still allows everybody to
download full versions of their base Linux systems from the net (I am not
talking about Advanced Server, but those on budget will most probably not
need that), also as very convenient ISO images; even though they prefer
users to buy boxed versions and /or maintenance services (which is not hard
to understand, is it?) they allow their software to be mirrored widely to
ease access for those on budget.
 They still provide security updates for RedHat Linux 6.2, which runs quite
well on older hardware (I run it on an old IBM Thinkpad, with 32 MB of RAM
using X and KDE, and once X and KDE loads it is very usable); in fact I
consider RedHat Linux 6.2 such a good version I run it most of time
everywhere (I mean on the machines I am allowed to install Linux on), with
some software taken from later releases (e.g. vim 6.1) and recompiled for
6.2.

While I agree that they do not care about users who have old hardware as
far as new RedHat Linux versions are concerned, I believe it is not fair to
say they do not care about them at all.

> 
> What you're saying might work short term.  But long term we're going to 
> be forced into either buying new hardware or going with a different 
> Linux distro.
Or using not neccessarily the lastest and greatest one ...

I remember to be able to install RedHat Linux 5.2 over network on i486
machines with 8MB of RAM and 100MB hard disk using standard installer...
too bad 5.2 is dead for quite some time...

> 
> Glen
> 
[...]

Best regards,

Wojtek



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