Red Hat Linux 7.3 Coming Soon?

Mike Angelo -- 2 May 2002 (C)

Webmaster's Note: Red Hat Linux 7.3 is out! Please see our article, Red Hat Linux 7.3 Distribution Released, for updated information about the Red Hat Linux 7.3 release and download links.

It now appears that the Spring 2002 Red Hat Linux release will carry the Red Hat Linux 7.3 edition designation. Moreover, it's likely that Red Hat Linux 7.3 will be released on or before 7 May 2002.

Red Hat official spokes-people are keeping mum about the Spring 2002 Red Hat Linux release. However, the giveaway is in the Red Hat Booth Presentation Schedule for Networld+Interop set for next week in Las Vegas, Nevada, USA.

At 3:00 P.M Tuesday, 7 May 2002, the scheduled Red Hat Booth presentation is Red Hat Linux 7.3 New features and enhancements by Shelly Bainter, Product Manager. Of course that event might be nothing more than an advanced presentation or announcement about the upcoming Red Hat Linux 7.3 release. But chances are the 7-May booth presentation will coincide with the release of Red Hat Linux 7.3.

Meanwhile, we have obtained some information that Red Hat Linux 7.3 already has been shipped to the Red Hat mirror sites. Additionally, the information we obtained indicates the mirror site admins have been told to hold release of Red Hat Linux 7.3 until 6 May 2002.

Red Hat Software released the second beta of its upcoming, Red Hat Linux 7.3 Linux distribution -- code-named Skipjack-Beta2 on 5 April 2002. The first 7.3 beta was released on 3 April 2002.

Red Hat Linux 7.3's predecessor, Red Hat Linux 7.2 is an excellent product. It would be very surprising if Red Hat Linux 7.3 were not also an excellent product. Along with Caldera OpenLinux, Mandrake, and SuSE, Red Hat Linux is one of the four major Linux distributions. Many people consider Red Hat Linux the leading Linux distribution.

According to the Skipjack-Beta2 announcement and other Red Hat information, Skipjack-Beta2 has the 2.4.18 Linux kernel and includes the very new KDE 3 desktop (which includes KOffice), GNOME 1.4 (including Evolution), XFree86 4.2.0, and Mozilla 0.9.9. Likely that will be the lineup in the final release version of Red Hat Linux 7.3.

We have not checked Red Hat Linux Skipjack-Beta2 yet. However, here is the meat of the Red Hat Skipjack-Beta2 announcement. Links for more information about Red Hat Linux 7.2 and for downloading Red Hat Linux 7.2 after the Skipjack-Beta2 announcement are at the end of this article.

From: redhat-announce-list-admin@redhat.com

Subject: Announcing the second public beta of Red Hat Linux: Skipjack

Date: 5 Apr 2002 23:08:35 +0200

It's time for another installment of "As The Packages Churn." In today's episode, the young Cups McDriver continues her quest to wrestle away control of Printers, Ltd. from the powerful L.P.R. Meanwhile a visitor to Skipjack, Alternatives de Debian, tries to mend fences between Hendrik Postfix and Pixie Sendmail. Also Mayor Kernel, still recovering from recent recompiling, tries to bring peace within the Desktop crime syndicate, as the war for control escalates between Keyser Denis Edwards and Gnome Widget.

Can the little town of Skipjack survive if Keyser Denis uses the dragon? What devastation would result from Gnome putting his foot down? And what if the lovely Alternatives can't mend the symbolic links which are so much a part of Hendrik's and Pixie's lives?

All these questions . . . and more . . . are answered in the second public beta of SKIPJACK. Much like the first beta, it's packed with the very latest technology, including:

- the 2.4.18 kernel

- XFree86 4.2.0

- GNOME 1.4, including Evolution

- Mozilla 0.9.9

and much, much more

Red Hat does not recommend the use of beta software on mission critical or production systems. In fact, all of the bits have been specially marked "beta" and your machine will know (hope you don't have stairs in your house.)

If/when you find bugs, please report them at:

https://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla

Please use the "Red Hat Public Beta" product and the "skipjack-beta2" version.

Also note that upgrades from one beta to another are never supported by Red Hat. In particular, upgrades from the first public beta of Skipjack are known to cause problems, so please perform a fresh installation.

SKIPJACK can be found at a number of places around the world. Specifically:

ftp://ftp.redhat.com/pub/redhat/linux/beta/skipjack/

or, at the following mirrors:

[Big snip]

or check http://www.redhat.com/download/mirror.html for a mirror near you.

[Big Snip]