Red Hat Linux 8.0: The best version yet?

ANALYSIS I've been an avid Linux user for a long, long time. I was there when everything was configured via text editor and the X Windows system relied on xf86config. During these dark ages, server configuration was a nightmare and the desktop was a choice between fvwm2, Blackbox, or text mode. Fortunately, Linux has come a long way, and Red Hat version 8.0 illustrates just how far it's traveled. Let's take a look at some of the best features of this new Linux version. Post-install impressions
The first thing to impress me about the new OS was that Red Hat instinctively recognized hardware that I would have previously had to configure manually. For example, upon installation there was automatically an entry located in the /etc/fstab that would allow me to mount my USB flash card reader with the simple command mount /mnt/flash. Red Hat 7.3 wouldn't even support that particular reader (which was just a generic USB reader/writer for flash cards). There were also a few changes made to the installation process, such as changes to the network configuration. In an attempt to make the configuration simpler, Red Hat 8.0 tries to configure networking for you -- primarily by selecting DHCP and trying to get an IP address for you. If that fails, you're asked to enter the basic information in a graphical configuration tool. If you get this information incorrect and try to use either netconf or linuxconf after the installation is complete, neither tool will be there. Instead you'll find a much more robust network configuration tool. Riding the curve
The new look and feel of Red Hat 8.0 took the Linux community by storm. The new desktop is called BlueCurve and is a compilation of the best of what is available. Red Hat decided it was time to clean up the Linux desktop and started with GNOME. It wasn't so much a rewriting of the code as it was a total change of the look and feel. By adding some elements of KDE, some elements of Windows XP, and some elements of GNOME, Red Hat has come up with a highly intuitive desktop. This intuitiveness has come at the expense of "Windows-ifying" the Linux desktop. Not only was the GNOME panel altered to look more like the Windows taskbar, but the icons have a Windows XP feel as well. Take a look at Figure A below. As you can see, the basic, untouched desktop looks very similar to that of a Windows desktop -- right down to the Internet Configuration Wizard. BlueCurve makes much better sense of the start menu breakdown. Before BlueCurve, the Linux start menu seemed to be a haphazard attempt at making sense of where submenus and entries should fall. Now applications are bunched together in a logical order. For example, OpenOffice was once given its own menu that often cluttered up the start menu. Now OpenOffice is located in the Office submenu. At one point, the Internet (aka Networking) menu housed so many networking tools it was impossible for the common user to make sense of each entry. Now only Internet tools (e.g., browser, chat, e-mail, and video conferencing) are placed in the Internet menu. Figure A also illustrates the various entries in the start menu. The meat of the OS
Every IT pro knows that the desktop is far from the meat of the operating system. Sure, the desktop is where the user will feel most at home, and unlike earlier entries from Red Hat, the 8.0 machine will be primarily configured from within the desktop. Because of this, the Linux GUI configuration tools have all been given makeovers. Many of these tools -- the X Windows Configuration tool, the Internet Connection Wizard, the Apache Configuration tool, and the various network configuration tools (e.g., DNS, NFS, and Services) -- are simple-to-use versions of earlier network configuration tools. Thanks to these newer GUI configurators, setting up Red Hat Linux for any given service is as simple as point, click, and apply.