RHEL7 Release Candidate

Hello All

ftp://ftp.redhat.com/redhat/rhel/rc/7/

You can download Release Candidate ISOs of the forthcoming Red Hat Enterprise Linux release now. This replaces the previous beta release (which is still on the ftp server). RHEL is commercial software, you can pay for support. The distribution forms the basis of a number of free clones; CentOS, Scientific Linux, Springdale Linux and, notoriously, Oracle Linux. Each major Enterprise Linux release is supported for 10 years.

Interesting how the RHEL7 release is available in four flavours; client/server/compute node/workstation.

The RHEL7 release candidate 'workstation' ISO is shipping Gnome *classic* as the default desktop session based on my test install this morning. If you stay within the default package repository and add the free fluendo mp3 player codec package and select the HTML 5 YouTube player, it all works nice and slick. Add the EPEL el7 beta repository and I can get R-3.0.2 installed, which brings texlive as a dependency, and then the RStudio IDE. Add Oracle JDK and Eclipse and that is my basic environment sorted.

Painless installation except for - I had to laugh given Mrk's recent article - finding the right printer definition file for my USB Samsung ML-1640 laser printer! The story there is that the RHEL supplied package repositories are now split into default and 'optional' packages. The ppd I needed, along with Xsane and a few other bits and pieces are in the 'optional' package repository. For this RC installation, I had to add .repo files manually.

Solid, stylish, and apparently very stable. This is for non-production use (check the openssl version!) but the various clone releases will be very similar to this I imagine.