 | |
 GNOME 2.2, the default desktop on Red Hat Linux 9 | |
| Developer | Red Hat |
|---|---|
| OS family | Linux (Unix-like) |
| Working state | Discontinued |
| Source model | Open source |
| Initial release | May 13, 1995; 29 years ago (1995-05-13) |
| Final release | 0.9[1]  alias Shrike / 31 October 1994; 30 years ago (31 October 1994) |
| Package manager | RPM Package Manager |
| Kernel type | Monolithic (Linux) |
| Userland | GNU |
| License | Various |
| Succeeded by | Red Hat Enterprise Linux,Fedora Linux |
| Official website | www |
Red Hat Linux was a widely usedcommercialopen-sourceLinux distribution created byRed Hat until its discontinuation in 2004.[2]
Early releases of Red Hat Linux were calledRed Hat Commercial Linux. Red Hat published the first non-beta release in May 1995.[3][4] It included theRed Hat Package Manager as its packaging format, and over time RPM has served as the starting point for several other distributions, such asMandriva Linux andYellow Dog Linux.
In 2003, Red Hat discontinued the Red Hat Linux line in favor ofRed Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) for enterprise environments.Fedora Linux, developed by the community-supportedFedora Project and sponsored by Red Hat, is a free-of-cost alternative intended for home use. Red Hat Linux 9, the final release, hit its official end-of-life on April 30, 2004, although updates were published for it through 2006 by theFedora Legacy project until the updates were discontinued in early 2007.[5]
Version 3.0.3 was one of the first Linux distributions to supportELF (Executable and Linkable Format) binaries instead of the oldera.out format.[6]
Red Hat Linux introduced a graphical installer calledAnaconda developed by Ketan Bagal, intended to be easy to use for novices, and which has since been adopted by some other Linux distributions. It also introduced a built-in tool calledLokkit for configuring thefirewall capabilities.
In version 6 Red Hat moved toglibc 2.1,egcs-1.2, and to the 2.2 kernel.[4] It was the first version to use theGNOME as its default graphical environment.[7] It also introducedKudzu, a software library for automatic discovery and configuration of hardware.[8]
Version 7 was released in preparation for the 2.4 kernel, although the first release still used the stable 2.2 kernel. Glibc was updated to version 2.1.92, which was a beta of the upcoming version 2.2 and Red Hat used a patched version of GCC from CVS that they called "2.96".[9] The decision to ship an unstable GCC version was due to GCC 2.95's bad performance on non-i386 platforms, especiallyDEC Alpha.[10] Newer GCCs had also improved support for theC++ standard, which caused much of the existing code not to compile.
In particular, the use of a non-released version of GCC caused some criticism, e.g. fromLinus Torvalds[11] and the GCC Steering Committee;[12] Red Hat was forced to defend this decision.[13]GCC 2.96 failed to compile the Linux kernel, and some other software used in Red Hat, due to stricter checks. It also had an incompatible C++ABI with other compilers. The distribution included a previous version of GCC for compiling the kernel, called "kgcc".
As of Red Hat Linux 7.0,UTF-8 was enabled as the defaultcharacter encoding for the system. This had little effect onEnglish-speaking users, but enabled much easierinternationalisation and seamless support for multiple languages, includingideographic,bi-directional andcomplex script languages along withEuropean languages. However, this did cause some negative reactions among existingWestern European users, whose legacyISO-8859–based setups were broken by the change.[citation needed]
Version 8.0 was also the second to include theBluecurvedesktop theme. It used a common theme for GNOME-2 and KDE 3.0.2 desktops, as well as OpenOffice-1.0. KDE members did not appreciate the change, claiming that it was not in the best interests of KDE.[14]
Version 9 supported theNative POSIX Thread Library, which was ported to the 2.4 series kernels by Red Hat.[15]
Red Hat Linux lacked many features due to possiblecopyright andpatent problems. For example,MP3 support was disabled in bothRhythmbox andXMMS; instead, Red Hat recommended usingOgg Vorbis, which has no patents. MP3 support, however, could be installed afterwards, through the use of packages. Support for Microsoft'sNTFSfile system was also missing, but could be freely installed as well.
Red Hat Linux was originally developed exclusively inside Red Hat, with the only feedback from users coming through bug reports and contributions to the included software packages – not contributions to the distribution as such. This was changed in late 2003 when Red Hat Linux merged with thecommunity-basedFedora Project. The new plan was to draw most of the codebase from Fedora Linux when creating new Red Hat Enterprise Linux distributions. Fedora Linux replaced the original Red Hat Linux download and retail version. The model is similar to the relationship betweenNetscape Communicator andMozilla, orStarOffice andOpenOffice.org, although in this case the resulting commercial product is also fullyfree software.
Release dates were drawn from announcements oncomp.os.linux.announce. Version names are chosen as to be cognitively related to the prior release, yet not related in the same way as the release before that.[4][16]
The Fedora and Red Hat Projects were merged on September 22, 2003.[17]
| Version | Type | Code name | Release date | Kernel version | Comment |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| — | test | Preview | 26 June 1994[18] | 1.1.18 (dev) | First test release, not publicly distributed. It used the RPP package manager. |
| 0.9 | beta | Halloween | 31 October 1994 | 1.0.9 (stable) 1.1.54 (dev) | Purchased beta, came with documentation and graphical system management tools. |
| 1 | stable | Mother's Day | May 1995 | 1.2.8 | ACC Bookstores (Bob Young) bought out Red Hat Software, Inc. (Mark Ewing) and introduced the "Red Hat Commercial Linux" moniker. |
| 1.1 | bug fix | Mother's Day+0.1 | August 1995 | 1.2.11 1.2.13 | Called "Mother's Day Plus One". |
| 2.0 | stable | — | 20 September 1995 | 1.2.13–2 | First stable RPM release, and the first one to use the "Red Hat LiNUX" branding. |
| 2.1 | bug fix | Bluesky | 23 November 1995 | 1.2.13 (stable) 1.3.32 (dev) | The firstAlpha release (January 1996) was based on this version. |
| 3.0.3 | stable | Picasso | 1 May 1996 | 1.2.13 | First version released for multiple architectures and executable formats (x86/Alpha, ELF/a.out) at the same time. Introduced the Metro-X server, glint graphical management tool for RPM, and graphical printer configuration. |
| 3.9 | beta | Rembrandt | July–August 1996 | 2.0 | RPM was rewritten in C. PAM and kernel modules were introduced. |
| 4.0 | stable | Colgate | 3 October 1996 | 2.0.18 | Added support forSPARC architecture and ELF executables on Alpha. Introduced Shadowman™ logo, free electronic format documentation and the Red Baron browser. |
| 4.1 | stable | Vanderbilt | 3 February 1997 | 2.0.27 | InfoWorld, Best of 1996, Operating Systems. |
| 4.2 | stable | Biltmore | 19 May 1997 | 2.0.30–2 | Shipped the old libc 5.3 instead of the buggy 5.4 release. This decision was widely criticised, but avoided many issues. |
| 4.8 | beta | Thunderbird | 27 August 1997 | ? | Introduced glibc 2.0. |
| 4.9 | beta | Mustang | 7 November 1997 | ? | Cemented the two-cycle beta release style due to massive changes in the C library version. |
| 5.0 | stable | Hurricane | 1 December 1997 | 2.0.32–2 | Introduced BRU2000-PE™ backup and the Real Audio™ client and server. 1997 InfoWorld Product of the Year. |
| 5.1 | stable | Manhattan | 22 May 1998 | 2.0.34–0.6 | Introduced the Linux Applications CD, GNOME preview version (separate, not default), linuxconf, and the Netscape browser. Last release to load a live filesystem from the CD. |
| 5.2 | stable | Apollo | 2 November 1998 | 2.0.36–0.7 | GNOME technology preview (separate, not default). |
| 5.9 | beta | Starbuck | 17 March 1999 | ? | |
| 6.0 | stable | Hedwig | 26 April 1999 | 2.2.5–15 | Introduced glibc 2.1, egcs, and Linux 2.2.GNOME 1 was integrated. |
| 6.0.50 | beta | Lorax | 6 September 1999 | ? | Introduced a completely rewritten graphical installer (anaconda), with graphical mode and text mode implemented in Python. |
| 6.1 | stable | Cartman | 4 October 1999 | 2.2.12–20 | InfoWorld, 1999 Product of the Year, Operating Systems and multiple other awards. |
| 6.1.92 | beta | Piglet | 9 February 2000 | ? | |
| 6.2 | stable | Zoot | 3 April 2000 | 2.2.14–5.0 | First release to offer ISO images for FTP download. |
| 6.9.5 | beta | Pinstripe | 31 July 2000 | ? | |
| 7 | stable | Guinness | 25 September 2000 | 2.2.16–22 | First release to support Red Hat Network out of the box. Caused the gcc 2.96 flame war, leading to the 2.96RH name being used later. |
| 7.0.90 | beta | Fisher | 31 January 2001 | 2.4 | First release with Linux 2.4. |
| 7.0.91 | beta | Wolverine | 21 February 2001 | ? | |
| 7.1 | stable | Seawolf | 16 April 2001 | 2.4.2–2 | First release to debut a new kernel stream out of the beta cycle. First release to simultaneously support all included languages. Introduced the Mozilla browser. |
| 7.1.93 | beta | Roswell | 2 August 2001 | ? | ext3 becomes default; the installer offers to convert ext2 filesystems. LILO replaced with GRUB as the default bootloader. |
| 7.2 | stable | Enigma | 22 October 2001 | 2.4.7–10 | GNOME 1.4, KDE 2.2. Would serve as the development basis for RHEL 2.1 AS (Pensacola). |
| 7.2A | stable | EnigmaA | 29 December 2001 | 2.4.17 | GNOME 1.4, KDE 2.2.2. Has version in the letter A. |
| 7.2.91 | beta | Skipjack | 22 March 2002 | ? | Expected to ship a lot of new programs (gcc 3, GTK 2, Python 2) that were postponed for 8.0. |
| 7.3 | stable | Valhalla | 6 May 2002 | 2.4.18–3 | KDE updated to 3.0.0. Last release with the Netscape browser. |
| 7.3.29 | beta | Limbo | 4 July 2002 | ? | 700 MB ISO images were tested, but they proved problematic. |
| 8.0 | stable | Psyche | 30 September 2002 | 2.4.18–14 | gcc 3.2, glibc 2.3 RC, OpenOffice 1.0.1,GNOME 2, KDE 3.0.3. Introduced the Bluecurve™ cross-environment unified look and feel. |
| 9 | stable | Shrike | 31 March 2003 | 2.4.20–8 | KDE 3.1 and GNOME 2.2. Introduced NPTL support with glibc 2.3.2 and kernel 2.4.20. Would serve as the development basis for RHEL 3. |
| 9.0.93 | beta | Severn | 21 July 2003 | ? | Final RHL release. It would be merged with Fedora Linux to form release Fedora Core 1 test 2, version 0.94. |
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