Red Hat updates premium Linux
Top Linux seller Red Hat is expected to announce the latest version of its premium Linux product on Tuesday, leapfrogging rival Novell and expanding an effort to coax customers away from Sun Microsystems.
Red Hat Enterprise Linux version 4 is the first time Red Hat's commercial product includes the newer 2.6 kernel, or heart, of Linux. Although Red Hat's previous version included some 2.6 features, it was Novell's SuSE Linux Enterprise Server 9 that was first to include the full list last August, including improvements to communications and memory subsystems.
But Red Hat doesn't appear to have lost ground. "Novell made such a big deal that Red Hat was trailing with the 2.6 kernel. This was going to give SuSE a big entree into enterprises in the United States," said Illuminata analyst Gordon Haff. "That really doesn't seem to have happened."
