Red Hat is pleased to announce the availability of the Red Hat
Enterprise Linux 5 Beta 1 milestone.
This is a public beta. Feel free to forward this announcement to
anyone who may be interested in testing this beta release.
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 Beta 1 is a preview of the next
generation of Red Hat’s comprehensive suite of enterprise operating
systems, designed for mission-critical enterprise computing and
certified by top enterprise software vendors. More information on
the current, supported releases of Red Hat Enterprise Linux is
available at:
http://www.redhat.com/software/rhel/
This announcement includes details on obtaining the beta
software, reporting bugs, and communicating with Red Hat and other
testers via mailing lists during the beta period.
The development of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 is closely aligned
with Fedora Core 6 and the upstream community.
This is the first Red Hat Enterprise Linux release that includes
Xen based open source virtualization technology. The Red Hat
Enterprise Linux 5 Beta 1 release contains virtualization on the
i386 and x86_64 architectures as well as a technology preview for
IA64. We are particularly interested in your feedback on the Xen
technology.
Other focus areas for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 Beta 1 testing
include the following:
- Network storage (Autofs, iSCSI)
- Kexec / Kdump (replacing Diskdump and Netdump)
- Smartcard integration
- SELinux Security
- Installer improvements
- Clustering and Cluster File systems
- Analysis and Development Tools (SystemTap, Frysk)
- Stateless Linux Enablers
- Infiniband and RDMA (OpenFabrics.Org)
- New Driver Model for better integration of out-of-kernel-tree
drivers
This beta release supports a wide range of hardware platforms
including:
- 32-bit x86-compatible (i386/i686)
- 64-bit AMD64 and Intel EM64T (x86_64)
- 64-bit Intel Itanium2 (ia64)
- 64-bit IBM eServer iSeries and pSeries and POWER (ppc64)
- 64-bit IBM eServer zSeries (s390x)
New Packaging Structure
The architecture of the media kit and RHN channel structure has
changed from previous versions of Red Hat Enterprise Linux. The
number of different variants and media kits has been reduced to the
following:
- Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 Client
- Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 Server
Red Hat Enterprise Linux Client is available for the i386 and
x86_64 architectures only.
Beyond the core distribution, these media kits contain a number
of optional directories that provide additional functionality.
Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server
- Cluster – Fail-Over clustering and Web load balancing
- ClusterStorage – Parallel storage access via clustered volume
manager and GFS cluster file system - Virtualization – Xen virtualization environment
Red Hat Enterprise Linux Client
- Desktop – Desktop applications including Evolution and
OpenOffice (not available on the Server) - Workstation – Full Engineering Workstation and Developer
package set - Virtualization – Xen virtualization environment
Accessing the Software
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 Beta 1 is made available to existing
Red Hat Enterprise Linux subscribers via RHN. The beta channels
will automatically appear in your account within the next 24 hours.
Installable binary and source ISO images are available via Red Hat
Network at:
https://rhn.redhat.com/network/software/download_isos_full.pxt
You will be required to login using a valid RHN account with
active entitlements. If you’d like to test our Beta product and
don’t have an active RHEL entitlement, please contact contact a
local Red Hat representative or request an evaluation entitlement
at
http://www.redhat.com/rhel/details/eval/
Note that while this page says Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4, you
automatically receive Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 Beta 1 access
along with the Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 trial subscription.
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 is still in development and therefore
the contents of the media-kit, the implemented features and the
supported configurations are subject to change before the release
of the final product. The supplied beta packages and CD images are
intended for testing purposes only. Remember that this early access
software is not supported and is not intended for production
environments! Do not publish any benchmark or performance results
based on this beta release. Upgrading from beta releases to the GA
product will not be supported.
Installing the Software / Registration
Key
The installer requires entering a registration key in order to
configure the repositories offered for installation. In this beta
release, the registration code implementation is a stub and will
accept a character combination that then is mapped to the
repository selection. The keys are:
Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server
V ==> Virtualization
C ==> Clustering
S ==> ClusterStorage
Red Hat Enterprise Linux Client
D ==> Desktop
W ==> Workstation
V ==> Virtualization
On a Server media kit, entering “SV” in the registration code
dialog will activate the ClusterStorage and Virtualization
repositories.
Note: On the client “D” should always be entered.
Bug Reporting
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 Beta testers, who have assigned
Technical Account Managers (TAMs) and/or Technical Partner
Managers, should report all bugs with this beta release using your
current Issue Tracker account.
All other beta users should report bugs using Red Hat’s
Bugzilla. To report and query for bugs in this Beta release, you
need a Bugzilla account with access to the “Red Hat Enterprise
Linux Public Beta” product.
To report a bug via Bugzilla:
- Login to the Bugzilla home page at http://bugzilla.redhat.com.
If you don’t have an existing account, simply create one by going
to this page: - On the Bugzilla home page, choose the “New” tab. Proceed to
Step 3, “Choosing Your Product” by clicking that button at the
bottom of the page. - Choose Product “Red Hat Enterprise Linux Public Beta”.
- Choose Version “rhel5-beta1”.
- Choose the component against which you wish to report a
problem, such as kernel, glibc, etc. If you do not know the
component or want to file a bug against the general product, please
choose “distribution” as the component. - Choose the platform, such as: “All”, “x86_64”, etc.
- Provide the information about the problem you’re reporting by
entering information in the appropriate fields. In the Summary
field, provide a clear and descriptive abstract of the issue. In
the Description field, please state clearly that you are using a
Beta 1 package and provide the full package versions of
any components you are experiencing problems with (as packages may
be updated). - Check to make sure that all information is accurate and click
the “Commit” button to submit your problem report.
Known Issues
The release notes are at the end of this announcement. You can
view additional known issues in the Red Hat Knowledge Base system
at:
http://kbase.redhat.com/faq/topten_105_0.shtm
Mailing Lists
For Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 and subsequent updates, the
announcement mailing list is rhelv5-announce redhat com. Subscribe
using the web-based mailing list interface at:
http://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/rhelv5-announce
Red Hat has created a public mailing list for general discussion
of the Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 (Tikanga) Beta releases. To
subscribe to the list, send mail to rhelv5-beta-list-request redhat
com with ‘subscribe’ in the subject line. Leave the body empty. Or
subscribe using the web-based mailing list interface at:
https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/rhelv5-beta-list/
Thank you for your interest in the Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5
beta program. We look forward to working with you to ensure a high
quality release!
Sincerely,
The Red Hat Enterprise Linux Team
Full Announcement with Release Notes
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