Red Hat Linux 6.0 fully supports RAID hard-disk subsystems, including the ability to hot-swap disk drives without turning off or rebooting the system. And for the first time, Red Hat will provide 30 days of unlimited free telephone support.

Art Fowler, a Unix systems administrator and Red Hat Linux user at Northrop Grumman Corp.'s commercial aircraft division in Dallas, has manually installed most of the functions that are provided in Red Hat Linux 6.0. "If I had any new installs, I'd enjoy having [6.0]," Fowler says. Fowler runs both KDE and Gnome, sometimes simultaneously, without any system conflicts.

Don Lafontaine, a senior systems programmer at Canadian National Railway Co., has been testing Red Hat Linux 6.0 and is pleased with what he's seen. "I was hoping for SMP support in a later release, but I didn't expect it in 6.0," Lafontaine says. "It runs really well."

Dell Computer says it will ship Red Hat Linux 6.0 preinstalled on selected PowerEdge servers, Precision workstations, and OptiPlex desktop PCs. Red Hat has also certified Linux 6.0 to run on four-processor Dell PowerEdge 6300 servers and on two-processor Precision workstations.

Red Hat Linux 6.0 is priced at $79.95 for two system CDs and one applications CD, installation and getting-started guides, and 30 days of unlimited telephone support. For $39.95, users get the two system CDs and an installation guide. Users can also download the system free from Red Hat's

FTP site (ftp.redhat.com). But, Lafontaine says, the system is large enough that users should only download Red Hat Linux if they have "a maniacally fast link.