Linux vendors Red
Hat Inc. and Novell
Inc.'s SUSE division Wednesday unveiled updates for their enterprise Linux
operating systems, adding new capabilities and hardware support in between the
next major releases of their products.

Red Hat introduced its latest operating system update, Red
Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 5.2, which includes enhancements in virtualization
capabilities, updates for user desktops, encryption and security improvements,
while SUSE announced the availability of its Service
Pack 2 for SUSE Linux Enterprise 10 operating systems.

Red Hat's update comes 15 months after the release of Red
Hat Enterprise Linux 5, which was a major operating system upgrade in March
of last year. Version 5.2 now supports the use of up to 64 CPUs and 512GB of
memory in one system to run larger-scale virtualized servers, which is up from
the current maximum physical limit of eight CPUs, said Daniel Riek, the product
manager for RHEL. Also new is virtualization support for NUMA (Non-Uniform Memory
Access)-based architectures, as well as features that deliver reduced power
consumption, according to Red Hat.

Also in RHEL 5.2 is certification and support for use with IBM's new high-performance
cell blade systems.

For users, RHEL 5.2 offers enhanced support for the laptop suspend, hibernate
and resume features, as well as updated graphics drivers and the latest versions
of a wide range of open source desktop applications, including OpenOffice
2.3 and Firefox 3, according to Red Hat.

SUSE's Service Pack 2 includes a subscription management tool to help make
it easier for system administrators to securely manage their SUSE Linux software
updates in a centralized deployment while adhering to their corporate firewall
policies and regulatory compliance requirements, according to SUSE. The tool
will enable administrators to distribute the updates at the same time for all
desktop, server or point-of-sale systems that are running Service Pack 2, rather
than having to run them separately for each system.

The service pack also includes virtualization improvements, such as support
for fully virtualized Windows Server 2008 and Windows Server 2003, as well as
the live migration of Windows Server guests across physical machines. Updates
have also been made to the YaST management toolset, such as first-boot enhancements
and network module support for new devices.

Network management improvements include support for IPv6, while desktop improvements
include better interoperability with Microsoft
Windows and Office via local NTFS file system support. Also featured is
improved integration with Microsoft Active Directory and an upgrade to OpenOffice.org
2.4 Novell Edition.

» posted by abennett

Computerworld

• Email
• Print
• Share
  • Slashdot
  • Digg
  • Stumble
  • Reddit
  • Newsvine