I just installed Red Hat 9 on my old gaming rig, and I just can’t believe how great it is.

I thought Red Hat 8 was good, worthy of up a full number upgrade over 7.3, Bluecurve was a step in the right direction, but 9 is really that good. The fonts are the best I’ve seen – and that’s something I had always wanted to update previously on my RH and Debian boxes, but 9 is fantastic. The software is good and up to date without being scary new, apt-get works like a charm (thanks Freshrpms!), the menu issues were fixed, and the network browser works great.

Just having installed it again, it’s slick, installs easily, and just runs. I replaced my Debian box with it — running a version called “unstable” just never seemed right, though I love Debian, both from a technology standpoint and a belief standpoint. I think Red Hat is doing the right thing in taking a stance on copyright issues similar to Debian with MP3, NTFS, etc. And Red Hat is doing it without falling behind on the applications front.

I can’t recommend Red Hat enough – it was more than worth it to buy a Red Hat Network subscription.