14 DAY TRIAL // On July 9, Red Hat had the pleasure of announcing the immediate availability for download and testing of the Beta release of the last maintenance version for the Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 distribution, which is supported for 10 years.
The current version of the long-term supported Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 operating system is 5.10. The distribution will be officially provided with software updates, bug fixes, security patches, and general improvements for three more years, until March 31, 2017.
“Now, in 2014, the original retirement year for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5, we still see an active, dedicated customer base that has come to value this long, predictable lifecycle in addition to the platform’s inherent security, stability, and reliability,” Brian Gollaher said in the official announcement.
The Beta release of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.11 introduces new storage drivers for Red Hat customers who use the latest storage adapters from certified Red Hat hardware partners.
It also introduces various improvements to Red Hat Access Support’s debugging functionality, making it easier for customers to manage, diagnose, and engage with Red Hat employees straight from the operating system.
“Today, we are pleased to announce beta availability of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.11. This release continues to provide system administrators with a secure, stable, and reliable platform for their organization’s enterprise applications.”
“While primarily focused on improving security and stability, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.11 Beta provides additional enhancements to subscription management, debugging capabilities, and more,” was stated in the official release notes.
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.11 Beta contains various enhancements for Red Hat Enterprise Linux guests that run on the VMWare ESXi operating system-independent hypervisor.
In addition, this final Beta release of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 brings more information from subscription management services, which will allow Red Hat users to manage subscriptions easier than ever before through both the command-line and the graphical application.
As usual, Red Hat customers who use the Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 operating system will be able to upgrade their installations to the 5.11 release as soon as it is available for download on Red Hat’s Customer Portal at https://access.redhat.com/downloads/.
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.11 Beta is available for download right now for all Red Hat customers and partners who have an active subscription, but keep in mind that it’s unstable and it should not be deployed on production machines.