Red hat linux 9.0

Though normally focused on Linux products for business, Red Hat takes another stab at simplifying its OS for mainstream users with its newest iteration. While not as elegant or refined as its chief competitor—SuSE Linux Professional 9.0—Red Hat Linux 9 Professional is nonetheless perfectly serviceable. Distributions such as Lycoris Desktop/LX Deluxe and Xandros Desktop 1.1 might appeal more to home users, however, because of their similarities to Windows, while Red Hat and SuSE distributions remain the most well-rounded business products of the bunch.

From the start, simple, straightforward configuration screens effectively hide the sometimes-intimidating Linux mechanics under Red Hat's hood. But Linux enthusiasts need not worry; they can still pass instructions to the kernel before the graphical installation tool takes over.

Red Hat is the only distribution in our roundup that bases its default interface, named Bluecurve, on the Gnome graphical desktop environment rather than KDE. Bluecurve eliminates many obvious differences in look and feel between Gnome and KDE.

Red Hat's interface provides a clean layout, though Red Hat's menu structure is less organized than SuSE's. In addition, Red Hat uses many different small utilities for configuration, making it more difficult to locate the right tool for any given situation; SuSE's YaST2 is more intuitive.

Though not new, the product's seamless integration with the Red Hat Network—for application updates and patch management service—is still its standout feature. While many distribution vendors offer similar services, none can match Red Hat's price, breadth of features, or speed.

For Web browsing, Red Hat uses Mozilla as its default. Though we like Konqueror's integration of a file and Web browser, we find Mozilla to be faster and less cluttered. The use of Ximian's excellent Evolution as a calendar and e-mail application is also very welcome. As for office applications, Red Hat, like SuSE Linux, includes only the open-source app OpenOffice (www.openoffice.org) instead of CodeWeavers' CrossOver Office (www.codeweavers.com). And the default package selection offers no support for playing DVDs or MP3s.

Overall, we were impressed with the maturity of Red Hat's release, but we hope that the plethora of configuration utilities will be condensed in a future version.

Copyright ?? 2004 Ziff Davis Media Inc. All Rights Reserved. Originally appearing in PC Magazine.