White Box is the latest project to release a Linux distribution rebuilt from source RPM packages for Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 4.
White Box Enterprise Linux 4 Released
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Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
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Whats the point? CentOS has been out for a while now. How many unencumbered RHEL clones do we need?
yet another Linux distro. And you thought Unix had forking problems?
And don’t tell me that Linux hasn’t forked. If you can’t run binaries from one Linux distro to another, it’s a fork.
It turn out as a fork bomb, dosen’t it ?
Before you start complaining about the “yet-another-distro” phenomenon, please take the time to read up on the White Box project and how it all started.
White Box Enterprise Linux did not come into being because some guy was bored and decided to see if he can create a new distribution – it was out of necessity and desperation.
Besides, WBEL was the first distribution that successfully rebuilt Red Hat’s SRPMs into an installable set of ISO images; CentOS and others followed much later.
I went to its homepage a month or so ago and it had a note indicating that we should use CentOS as they see no reason for so similar projects. Does anyone has a clue about what changed on their minds since?
“And don’t tell me that Linux hasn’t forked. If you can’t run binaries from one Linux distro to another, it’s a fork.”
Well since you generally can if you have the required libraries (a requirement of any modern software), which is ususally the case, I guess I can tell you that it hasn’t?
But I’ve always said that your OS is really the distro you run. Competition is good, but at a certain point it just gets to be a ridiculous amount of duplication of effort.
Besides, WBEL was the first distribution that successfully rebuilt Red Hat’s SRPMs into an installable set of ISO images; CentOS and others followed much later.
“Much” is a huge exaggeration by you. Maybe you should check the date first before making this statement, as the RC from both WHEL and CentOS were released by end 2003.
To be specific, WBEL RC1 was November 14th, 2003, and CentOS 3 build4-rc0 was December 19th 2003. Compared to the timeframe both variants needed to release and stabilize, 1 month is not “much”.
Before you start complaining about the “yet-another-distro” phenomenon, please take the time to read up on the White Box project and how it all started.
However, if you compare the present state of WBEL and CentOS, it is well justified to call WBEL’s “publicity” as disproportional, with a lot of people even not aware of other alternatives.
Don’t get me wrong: WBEL is a fine distribution for a one man’s project, but it is a one man’s project. This starts e.g. with the issue of having no timely releases.
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“And don’t tell me that Linux hasn’t forked. If you can’t run binaries from one Linux distro to another, it’s a fork.”
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Well it hasn’t forked :-P. Download the binaries from http://www.openoffice.org….they run just fine on any distro. Same with Mozilla, StarOffice, Amsn, and numerous other programs. Try doing that with Solaris, AIX and HP-UX
Anyways, I really don’t see the point of WhiteBox anymore. CentOS releases updates quicker, releases whole new versions of the distro faster, etc etc. Scientific Linux has a different goal, so that is understandable. But why don’t the Whitebox guys start helping out with CentOS?
Don’t tell me that none of you honestly think that acceptance of Linux hasn’t been hurt by the confusion surrounding the number of forks and the inability to decide on a desktop (KDE vs GNOME).
And I don’t care if you call it a FORK or not, I call a spade a spade! Even the Debian people have been complaining about the inability to build Ubuntu packages on raw Debian. And the SUSE, RedHat, and Debian installers are certainly not compatible. So, face it world, we got forks here!
Microsoft is sure getting a lot of mileage out of this needless market confusion to the detriment of Linux.
Linux doesn’t need binary compatibility.
Either get binary software from a repository that is for your distribution, or re-compile the source.
AFAIK, all Linux software works on all Linux distributions.
This simply cannot be said for Windows.
There is no confusion here, either. Use one or the other – whatever works for you. Install both and let your users each decide which they would like to use.
A far better choice than being forced to use the one option, as with windows, and not being able to divorce other things from the monopoly desktop – example to get rid of the insecure internet browser or the disloyal media player (disloyal in the sense that it has Hollwood’s interest’s above those of the computer owner).
“There is no confusion here, either. Use one or the other – whatever works for you.”
That’s fine for all us computer geeks, but this just doesn’t work the average home user we’re trying to lure away from Windows. And add the different distros, the different installers, and the incredibly difficult hardware support (xfree86) and you see why Windows is still kicking Linux’s butt!
OK, fair enough, one month is not “much”, so I’ll give you this one.
As for the second part of your comment, the poster I was responding to did not question the “publicity” – he questioned the need for creating another distribution. I thought it was fair to point the poster to the motivation behind the existence of WBEL. It is obvious that he knows too little about the project to express any opinion on it.
WBEL was not developed for him. It was developed for the benefit of the visitors of a small public library, which (presumably) gets very little funding and can’t afford either Windows of RHEL. So instead of complaining about a “yet-another-distro”, we should applaud the guy who made Linux possible in a library. When Red Hat decided to cut off the supply of free distribution releases and there was much uncertainty about Fedora, he went on to develop his own distribution so that the library visitors can continue using the existing infrastructure. How many of us would have done the same? Not many, I suspect.
This is open source at its best and while I agree that there are too many useless distributions, WBEL came into being for a very good reason. I don’t believe it should be subjected to excessive negativity as expressed by the above poster.
I don’t believe it should be subjected to excessive negativity as expressed by the above poster.
Well, I agree with you that the poster above likely do not know the background of WBEL. But on the other hand, distribution do not neccessarily derive their “right” by mere history. For example, SLS also came into being for a very good reason, but is there much reason now?
I think same is the issue with WBEL. The few weeks when there were no RHEL clone developed and supported by a quite reliable group is over for a long time now. For example, CentOS 4 is available for 2 months now, and even the RHEL 3 Update 4 was picked up by WBEL with extreme delay.
So I think it is fair to question whether there is need for another RHEL _4_ clone from WBEL’s side.
It is fine for anybody. I can make either one work quite similarly to a Windows desktop. A few Distros even take the trouble to do exactly that – Linspire or Xandros.
The install isn’t a problem either. Just stick to the “install new software” for your chosen distribution. All software installs on any system – you just don’t have to bother with instructions that apply to a different distribution.
I make all my machines dual-boot. I refuse to expose any Windows machine to the Internet, so if my family members want to use the net, they must use Linux.
None of them have had any trouble whatsoever with Linux. They all say there is barely any difference.
The only thing that keeps Windows as popular as it is is astroturfers like your good self, who lie to poeple about how hard Linux is supposed to be.
Don’t tell me that none of you honestly think that acceptance of Linux hasn’t been hurt by the confusion surrounding the number of forks and the inability to decide on a desktop (KDE vs GNOME).
In that case the situation would be even worse in windows, as QT, gtk+, wxWidgets,… runs on windows as well, apart from Microsofts toolkits and can be used to build windows programs. QT is even quite comman and used by many large software companies.
You can run Gnome apps on KDE desktops and the other way round. Cut & Past and drag & drop works between them, and various theme engines make them look similar.
But yes, you are a perfect example of Linux beeing hurt by this confusion that mostly is a result of the people confused never have tried Linux in real life.
And I don’t care if you call it a FORK or not, I call a spade a spade! Even the Debian people have been complaining about the inability to build Ubuntu packages on raw Debian. And the SUSE, RedHat, and Debian installers are certainly not compatible. So, face it world, we got forks here!
And there are a lot of win XP software that doesn’t run on win2k. Sometimes windows apps complain that they need a newer version of MFC42.DLL for an applicaion to install. In such cases windows people usually follow the recomendation and upgrade it. Debian people don’t. Instead they complain that the package doesn’t work.
Besides, in this case Whitebox Linux is an exact copy of another Linux distro. The only thing that differs is the name, the price and the support, so software compatibility shouldn’t be much of a problem, especially since the distro copied is one of the most used commercial Linux distros.
Today you have two Linux distros widely used in the enterprise that is Red Hat and Novell/Suse it is no more problem making software that run on all them, and then some, than to make software that runs on all versions of windows.
And as for Microsoft getting a free ride on this confusion, perhaps that is the case, but even so, the windows market share on the desktop is going down, and Linux is going up. On the server side the prospects for Microsoft seam to be even worse. Companies like Unisys that once was the Microsoft showcase for Windows on high end hardware now provide Linux solutions. Count the number of computeres on the top 500 fastest computers in the world list that runs Linux and the ones that runs Windows and I would be very surprised if I found one single windows system.
Anyway, If I was a windows user I would worry much more about the Longhorn fork to be released any year now. Who knows what programs that will run on that when it finally gets released.
You probably visited:
http://whiteboxlinux.net/news.php
not the official site:
http://www.whiteboxlinux.org/
Not sure the background, but the latter site is the official home. The note on the other isn’t by the creator.
That’s fine for all us computer geeks, but this just doesn’t work the average home user we’re trying to lure away from Windows. And add the different distros, the different installers, and the incredibly difficult hardware support (xfree86) and you see why Windows is still kicking Linux’s butt!
It is quite obvious that you havn’t used Linux for quite some time if ever as xfree86 is now replaced on most (all?)
Linux distros. Today most hardware work on Linux, even my old HP scanner that doesn’t run on windwows. True there are some hardware companies that still don’t support Linux but that is easily solved, don’t buy products from them.
The reason windows have a dominant position over Linux on the desktop is that up until a few years ago most Linux developers didn’t care about the desktop, while windows have been desktop centric for over 10 years.
In the past Linux people had a tendency to say: if it can’t be done in “vi” it’s not worth doing. This probably had something to do with them feeling that it was important for them to master a difficult system. Today the situation is totally different. Now usability is cool, and the do it all in “vi” guy is considered a man of the past.
The major distros Novell/Suse and Red Hat have only tried to reach the desktop for a year or so. Even with that almost unexistant commersial effort to get a Linux desktop it still gains on windows. To make it even worse for Microsoft many Linux applications are cross platform and runs on windows as well. Having applications like OpenOffice.org attacks the strongest card of Microsoft, file format lock in. Today OpenOffice/StarOffice have about 10% of the market share for office suits. Mozilla Firefox is gaining on internet explorer and so on. The more applications that looks and work the same windows and Linux the less inclined people will be to pay the Microsoft tax for the OS. So the kicking windows is doing right now could very well be the spastic kicks of death.
I love RHEL 4 Desktop. I use it everyday on my lap top. Very solid. I hope they make a more targeted effort for individual users like Novell recently has by shipping individual NLD 9 boxes for $50.
I can only use RHEL 4 Desktop because I’m a student and its only $25.
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I love RHEL 4 Desktop. I use it everyday on my lap top. Very solid. I hope they make a more targeted effort for individual users like Novell recently has by shipping individual NLD 9 boxes for $50.
I can only use RHEL 4 Desktop because I’m a student and its only $25.
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Why not use CentOS? It is running on my desktop, and I recently installed it on my mother’s machine (which is good, 7 years without having to upgrade the OS). Paying Red Hat for Enterprise Linux for a single desktop is kind of silly in my opinion. To each his own though.
I wonder why your comments are not moderated down, since you advertise for your own site (http://bitsofnews.com) all the time.
It isn’t a market.
Firstly, Linux applications are compatible across all distributions. For example – Scribus desktop publishing – I can run the exact same application and version on RedHat, Madriva, SuSe or Debian (any of many variants including Ubuntu, MEPIS and Knoppix).
Secondly – I can do this for nil cost – I can download Scribus for free, install and run it on any Linux distribution – and my use of this pakage will never appear anywhere in any market figures – leaving non-thinking people like you to imagine that some Windows desktop publishing package or another has most of the “market”.
As others have said, WBEL was the first. I believe that the guy that did WBEL is actively involved with CentOS. RHEL and its clones are about stability, longevity, and upgrade path.
One of the criticisms of WBEL was that it was a one man effort. What if Donovan got hit by a bus? What would our Enterprise do then. Or what if Donovan get’s bored and decides not to provide an upgrade path to later RHEL releases? What would our enterprise do then? So it makes sense to continue WBEL for those who chose it initially, giving them plenty of time to migrate off if they so choose. Especially since (and I’m guessing here) most of the real work is done by the CentOS project and naturally flows down to WBEL.
If something happens to any of the open source developers anyone can take his place and do the job because is FREE SOFTWARE
the same thing if linus stops working on the kernel anyone can take the kernel and keep developing
what happens if you use a comercial closed source and the company goes away ?
For the trolls that are saying linux has forked…
Your full of crap.
I can take a console application I compile with Kylix (www.borland.com) on Gentoo, take that file and copy it to any other distro, open a command line and type ./myprogram and guess what it runs….
Because we have Apt-Get, RPM and other packaging systems does not constitute a fork, they all run the same kernel.
Now if someone forked the kernel, then we would have a fork.
I’m not sure how to interpret your reply. I’ve said nothing about opensource vs proprietary. I said that WBEL is probably being continued because its users were promised that it would in the beginning. Even in the FOSS world a project can die if *no one* works on it. In this case, Donovan is continuing his work to fulfill a promise, what encouraging people to migrate to CentOS at their convenience.
Since the major difference between the 2 projects is the artwork, and the major work is being done jointly, I don’t understand what down-sides you see in the project being continued for another release.
excuse me what is your objective in using a Linux Distro? I use a Linux Distro because it give me choice, it doesn’t lock me into one company, and because I can dig anywhere in it to learn. Perhaps… it may never become the desktop of chioce for Joe 6-Paks ** who ever he is ** because of this, though I would totally disagree with you on the subject. But Linux, and the Distros produced are what they are, and they will stay that way. Because they, a group of people right down to one person, are given the ability to express what they see as the desktop of choice. And of the backs of all these people work we are provided a really good ** not perfect ** way for all of us to use our computers.
Use your Linxs Distro, which ever you choise, and thanx the people that put alot of hard work into it. And don’t worry if it is going to take over the world. You probably wouldn’t know what to do with the world if it was given to you.
thanxs
In my opinion. Theres only 3 species of GNU/Linux Gentoo, Debian, and Red Hat everything else is just an extension of one of these.
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In my opinion. Theres only 3 species of GNU/Linux Gentoo, Debian, and Red Hat everything else is just an extension of one of these.
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And when Slackware was formed, they jumped in their handy time machine, went forward, copied Red Hat and then went back and beat them to market? What about SUSE (originally based on Slackware, but later converted to RPM package manager)?
I would say that there is only two. That would be Red Hat and Suse/Novell.
Not that Debian, Gentoo, Ubunto and some others not are good. They are, in some respects they might even be better than Red Hat and Novell, but they can’t offer the same commersial support as Red Hat or Novell. This will not matter to the home user, but it will matter in the board rooms when large companies make decisions on their IT strategy.
This is why, commercial apps mainly will be tested on either Red Hat or Novell if not both. This does of course not mean that such applications will not run on Gentoo, or Debian. They probably will, but the company selling the application may be less willing to give you support.
There seems to be no SuSE/Novell clone, why? It was impossible because of the YaST license, but that’s no longer an issue since the license was changed. Is anybony working on something like that? It’s a serious question…
For corporate use I would agree that Red Hat and Novell/Suse are the leaders. I was talking about Distros in general and where they came from. Personally, I think Suse is one of worst Distros I have ever used both the free Pesonal versions and their commercial version which I wasted my money on. Many of distros are based are on the 3 that I cited earlier. Yes there are still some “original” distros out there, however they are limited when you look at the big picture.
As I understand it, distros like this and CentOS are essentially the Redhat Enterprised distro repackaged, rebranded, and offered for free? Meaning, with these free OS’s, do you get everything that is included with the commercial red hat distro?
The software is same. What you don’t get is support. The high price of RHLE is not for the software but for the support.
Paying Red Hat for Enterprise Linux for a single desktop is kind of silly in my opinion.
Why that? For academic users, having 1 year subscription to RHN does make sense. And why shouldn’t people support Red Hat, who does the real work to assemble a distribution and support it for 5 years?
It is quite simple: If everyone starts to use CentOS, there will be no CentOS.
“Personally, I think Suse is one of worst Distros I have ever used both the free Pesonal versions and their commercial version which I wasted my money on”
Personally, Suse 9.2 Pro boxed version is the first Distro I have used that everything works right out of the box, I use it at work and would recommmend it to anyone. I use NLD9 on my laptop at home and have come to the conclusion that paying for Linux is worth it. You “seem” to get a more polished product..IMHO..of course..
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Paying Red Hat for Enterprise Linux for a single desktop is kind of silly in my opinion.
Why that? For academic users, having 1 year subscription to RHN does make sense. And why shouldn’t people support Red Hat, who does the real work to assemble a distribution and support it for 5 years?
It is quite simple: If everyone starts to use CentOS, there will be no CentOS.
If anyone ever wonders why more commercial companies don’t GPL their code, this is probably a big reason why. If somebody else can simply repackage it and offer it for free like the Redhat leeches are currently doing, with the opinions like the one listed in bold font above, who the hell is going to pay for it? If you can sell support with the product or customize the hell out of it and resell it, you have a lifeline. If not, you’re basically S.O.L.
There are concrete reasons why I chose an academic subscription to Red Hat over other Linux distributions. Here they are:
1. Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 is polished. It has a profesional appearance. Most importantly it detected my video and audio settings upon installation. The other polished distributions I tried (Ubuntu/NLD 9) couldn’t do both on my new Dell Latitude 110L.
2. RHEL 4 includes all the software I use everyday. OpenOffice.org suite, Firefox browser, Evolution email/contact/calendar, Gaim instant messaging, Real Player and Rythmbox jukebox. They are fully integrated and work flawlessly. Bugs are fixed through system updates.
3. Red Hat actively promotes and contributes to the open source movement. Academic yearly subscription is $25 US. That’s a good price for all the software that comes with it. I hate to think how much the same would cost on Windows or Mac. Ouch. Knowing that it’s Red Hat assures that my OS is going to be the best that open source can offer for years to come.
4. Stable and predictable releases. I really don’t need to upgrade every three months. I like to take time to learn my OS and software before upgrading. System upgrades will seem more substantial then miniscule. For example I am looking forward to the speed and feature increases of Gnome 2.10, Beagle search, and OpenOffice 2.0 whenever RHEL 5 comes out. In the meantime I can learn what I have.
5. High speed downloads. I can download updates and the OS istelf from high speed servers.
Thank you,. That is exactly what happened.
Thats whats so great about GNU/Linux. Suse didn’t work for me at all. For you it seems perfect. I wasn’t locked into just using Suse, I had other choices available. I have respect for what Novell/Suse has done, it’s just not for me.
Excuse me?
As far as I am concerned ther are only two.
Slackware and the others.
Seriously, I feel that there are four basic Linux types – those based on or inspired by Debian, Redhat, Slackware, and sourcebuilds (gentoo, lfs, etc.).
I agree to each his own. Not to long ago everyone was touting Mandrake 9.2 as being the latest/greatest and it had a bug at the time that flashed my LG cd-rom making it unusable, $29 (for the new drive)later I was back to older but more ME friendly RH 8.0..It was a while before I ventured out into the different distro world again.
But now things are moving so fast in the world of Linux I don’t mind paying for a OS if it suits my needs. I enjoy so much all the different flavors it never gets boring. I am constantly crusing OSNews and Distrowatch to read about the latest.
I don’t think I could go back to several years of the same OS again..
</rant>
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John Morris is the man behind WBEL.
Donovan Nelson is the person who’s refocused his efforts from WBEL to CentOS–he wasn’t the starter of WBEL, but rather an active community member at one time.
Those are good reasons to use RHEL 4 with an Academic license. I unfortunately can not get an academic license as I graduated from college back in July.
My way of thinking is, Use RHEL on your workstations and servers, and on your personal systems at home, or on test systems that you don’t want to have to buy a RHEL license for.
I’m using Centos 4 on one of my workstations here at home, and I like it very much. I used to use Whitebox, but the lengthy delays of security patches,etc. for it caused me to worry about the longevity of a one man operation. With CentOS I don’t have to worry about that, as there are dozens of individuals involved with with keeping the CentOS project running.
My way of thinking is, Use RHEL on your workstations and servers, and on your personal systems at home, or on test systems that you don’t want to have to buy a RHEL license for.
I meant to say, use CentOS on your personal systems at home or on Test systems that you don’t want to have to buy a RHEL license for.
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