Red Hat Linux 7.2

They've also repeated past performances in other, familiar ways. Such as, releasing pre-release software (apparently tweaked into a near-bug-free state by their own developers?)

First thing you *need* to do (unless this is your absolute first time on the Unix side of life): Configure tripwire! I know this is a real pain, but it's also a must! And use ipchains or some other firewall of choice.

Next, *do* get on-line and go through the up2date thing, immediately. Already there are updates, bug-fixes, security issues to be resolved and a new kernel. They are all worth the download time.

After that, your experience should be exceptionally positive and pleasant. This is the *best* distribution I've used as far as hardware support. It out-supports Windows 2000 (one lone box at work).

If you are a newbie (get used to that word :-) and are used to the Microsoft desktop, I recommend choosing the KDE desktop.

The games that come with the Pro version are a fantastic collection. Too bad the regular (cheaper) version doesn't have them. (Our kids use RHL exclusively -- check out lokigames.com).


Greatest Red Hat I have ever used   November 4, 2001
6 out of 8 found this review helpful

I bought this version because SuSE would not install well with my monitor. Red Hat 7.2 automatically installed all of the necessary drivers, and configured my DSL. The nvidia drivers (...)work flawlessly with my GeForce 2 MX. Great job Red Hat!


Best Red Hat version yet released.   December 24, 2001
5 out of 6 found this review helpful

I've used everyversion from 5.2 up to 7.2
of the Red Hat distribution,
and this is the best version I have seen.

The X configuration is much easier to setup, and you get
quite a few good apps prebuilt and shipping on the cd.

However, a couple of things to be warned of. First,
when setting up host name during post install can break
X. to solve
this problem I did set host name during install.
Also Postfix and the
power tools are missing from
this release.


Good base, but lack of powertools detracts   December 15, 2001
4 out of 6 found this review helpful

Overall, Red Hat 7.2 is a good distribution - the installation process is very simple, and should be easy to handle for Windows users trying out Linux for the first time. You can have a ready-to-use system in under an hour if you are fimiliar with Linux, while new users will have to do some light reading from the included installation manual.

-Red Hat 7.2 is a little hardware hungry with the default install. You'll need at least a Pentium II and 64MB RAM to run it smoothly.

-The loss of the powertools CD is a blow for those users who want to tweak their system a little bit, especially those that want to replace Sendmail with Postfix. Replacing Sendmail in 7.1 required a simple RPM installation. Now you get to build Postfix from source.


A good starting place...   March 2, 2002
4 out of 4 found this review helpful

If you're looking to try linux for the first time, this is a good place to begin. Redhat's popularity and (relatively) installationa nd upgrade packages make it very good for windows/mac users to get their feet wet in the unix world. Linux is still very much a tinkerer's operating system with some rough edges, but once setup is finished, I believe a normal user could now operate redhat without being a unix-savvy guru. If you've had some experience with linux before, I would recommend you look at the debian distribution, which offers an improved management/upgrade system and is generally geared a bit more to the unix-savvy.
For those who are unaware, 'Linux' actually describes the core of the operating system (called the kernel), and the rest of the programs, including the 'windows', are packaged together as a 'distribution', which all have different plusses and minuses. Redhat is very popular, so finding support for it is relatively easy. Enjoy!