A Penguin in the Orchard

RedHat 8.0

Given my general impatience with waiting for new releases, I installed the RedHat 8.0 beta version on the machine in our offices yesterday evening. I took a bit to play with it beyond the install and came away with some initial impressions.

First off, I do understand the concerns of some of the Linux pursists out there regarding the desktop. The default desktop installation has a clear XP look and feel - heresy in the open source community. Rounded edges, the Redmond blue, similar button placement. While I think it was a good idea to simplify the desktop a bit, I’m not sure the default look and feel was the smartest thing RedHat could have done.

I selected the Desktop version from the install options. It seemed likely that this was the smallest version of the install. It’s clearly oriented toward the home user with office and multimedia apps aplenty, but no real technical underlying programs visible. For instance, the Gnome panel contained icons for word processing, spreadsheets and email, but no terminal icon. I was able to add a term app pretty easily, but then I’ve been digging in Linux (and RedHat, specifically) for more than six years. RedHat is truly walking a fine line with this approach. Will users who install the Desktop version want a terminal option? Maybe not.

The menus in the Desktop version are very simple. In fact, they’re the simplest menus I’ve seen in a major Linux distribution. Again, many of the higher level technical and admin-type programs have been stripped from the menus for the sake of simplification. While I was able to find most of the ones I regularly use, they weren’t present in the menus. Again, maybe it’s six of one, half-dozen of another.

I did notice, however, that in the Desktop version, apache was installed. This seems a bit wrongheaded if the idea is to create a desktop for new users. Httpd started at boot, as well. So here’s the philosophical dissonance of the Desktop version - a web server installed and booted by default in the installation designed for those who probably have no idea how to secure or administer it. It’s a security hole waiting to be cracked.

I’m not sure, but it actually felt like the code overhead for the new desktop was a bit heavier, as well. I had previously configured KDE to run very quickly on that machine. The new desktop seemed a bit sluggish, hesitating when launching apps and moving windows around. Maybe it’s the side-effect of a beta version. If not, there’s clearly still some work to do.

That’s about all I got the chance to look at in the hour or so I was in the office. I think I’ll re-install later in the week (probably with the release version) and select a different install option. I’m curious as to the differences between them and how the accessibility and visibility of the core Linux toolset varies from install to install.