Still using Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 5.x? Red Hat hasn't forgotten about you. The Raleigh, NC-based open-source company has just released RHEL 5.10, the latest minor release of the mature RHEL 5 operating system.

While RHEL 6 has been Red Hat's most up-to-date release since 2011, many businesses have elected to stick with the tried and true RHEL 5.x. Red Hat has committed to supporting RHEL 5, as it has with its other Linux distributions, for a minimum 10-year life-cycle. In the case of RHEL 5, production support will continue until March 31, 2017 and Extended Upgrade Support, which amounts to critical security patches, will continue until the first quarter of 2020.

In a statement, Jim Totton, Red Hat's VP and general manager of the Platform Business Unit, said, "The release of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.10 continues Red Hat’s commitment to the Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 platform’s 10-year life-cycle, with new capabilities to provide platform viability for years to come. "

This latest release includes enhanced reliability and security features . It also includes an updated version of OpenSCAP—the open-source Security Content Automation Protocol (SCAP) configuration scanner.

RHEL 5.10 also included the following new features:

MySQL 5.5, the most recent, stable version of this open-source database. MySQL 5.5 includes a number of improvements in terms of speed, scalability, and ease of use. For customers' convenience, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.10 also includes MySQL 5.1, which is required in order to upgrade to MySQL 5.5.

Enhanced Subscription Management Tools, which now provide more insight into how customers can optimize and benefit from their Red Hat subscriptions. With Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.10, customers can better match subscriptions to their unique system needs, better report on and manage subscription usage across a large inventory of systems, and add custom, searchable key value pairs to systems, all without having to go through the Red Hat Customer Portal.

Red Hat Access, delivered through the Red Hat Support Tool, provides an integrated, seamless way to get answers with exclusive Red Hat Knowledge, use Red Hat’s automated diagnostic services for problem determination, and engage with Red Hat directly from a Linux terminal. Customers can use Red Hat Access to quickly resolve issues and analyze log files, core dumps and error messages, all from within Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.10.

RHEL 5.10 customers with RHEL Developer subscriptions will also gain access to Red Hat Developer Toolset 2.0 , This computer language package includes Eclipse 4.3.0, Dyninst 8.0, and Strace 4.7, as well as the GNU Compiler Collection (GCC) 4.8 update for C, C++, and Fortran programmers.

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