RHEL WS?

[Preston Crawford]

----- Original Message -----
From: WipeOut
Sent: 1/20/2004 2:25:43 PM
To: fedora-list at redhat.com
Subject: Re: RHEL WS?

> Bevan C. Bennett wrote:
> 
> > WipeOut wrote:
> >
> >> I have just been looking at the RHEL versions and the WS basic 
> >> version is not too badly priced, especially for us as a startup, but 
> >> we would want to use it for our servers.. :)
> >>
> >> Is anyone familiar with this product?? Can it be used for web/email 
> >> servers or is it restricted in some way?
> >
> >
> > Have you read their "which to choose" pages at:
> > http://www.redhat.com/software/rhel/comparison/
> >
> > WS is, of course, short for 'Workstation', and is supposed to be for 
> > desktop systems.
> >
> > ES (enterprise server) is geared towards small departmental servers 
> > like you describe.
> >
> > The biggest differences according to the chart referenced above appear 
> > to be:
> >
> > * ES includes amanda-server, arptables_jf, bind, caching-nameserver, 
> > dhcp, freeradius, inews, inn, krb5-server, netdump-server, 
> > openldap-servers, pxe, quagga, radvd, rarpd, redhat-config-bind, 
> > redhat-config-netboot, tftp-server, tux, vsftpd, ypserv, while WS does 
> > not. (both have apache).
> > * ES has no 'premium edition'
> > * ES does not support 64-bit systems or >8GB of memory on x86
> >
> > Their footnote for the first difference says:
> > "Red Hat Enterprise Linux products are based on the same core kernel, 
> > libraries and utilities, and also share the same major package sets. 
> > However, because Red Hat Enterprise Linux WS is not designed for use 
> > in server environments, there are some differences between family 
> > members in terms of their server package sets."
> >
> >
> 
> I realise that "WS" is for "Workstation" but thay also mention that is 
> the one to use for clusters so I figured that there must be some server 
> aspect to it..
> 
> As for "ES", Yes I understand its the one to use for departmental 
> servers but I am trying to cut costs, and I need 3 servers for our new 
> business.. ES is just too expensive..
> 
> Looks like its back to Fedora and trying to manage the upgarde cycle.. :(
> 
> Later..

I agree. This is very confusing. We've been through this before. I asked, personally, about the products Red Hat is selling at the store. Yes, Red Hat is selling boxed-set products at the store for $100. It's called Pro Workstation or something like that. But no one can give me a clear idea on whether these include errata upgrades, for how long, etc. And then we get this garbage about "this isn't meant to be a server", etc. Strange strange stuff.

Reminds me of when I quit using Microsoft products. It was when they developed a pretty decent codebase in NT, but decided arbitrarily that one was a "server" and one was a "workstation". The only difference between the two (other than price) was essentially that the workstation was a crippled version of the server. That's when I said enough of that.

Same with Red Hat. They're bent on pushing RHEL Server, so the message is that you can't use anything but that as a server. Or that you "shouldn't" or whatever. Either way it's a confusing mess and thus instead of getting my $100 I use Fedora.

Preston