UnitedLinux LLC began with much energy and promise in May 2002, as four Linux vendors joined to create a standardized, certified and robust enterprise-focused version of the open-source operating system.
But things haven’t exactly turned out as planned. The first version of UnitedLinux debuted that November, but the group’s Web site hasn’t been updated since April 2003.
Whatever happened to UnitedLinux?
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Eugenia Loli
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IBM was very big behind United Linux because they are getting sick of Redhat having so much control and power over enterprise Linux. IBM wants Linux to be big, not Redhat.
UnitedLinux wasn’t expected to go far once SCO showed how they wanted to be “involved”. What about UserMode Linux? Last I heard, it was supposed to be the next big thing. Now, rumor is that basically no one is interested in going that route.
In fact, Sco pretty killed it by himself. The distribution UL was already 95% SuSe based (YaST 2 + files and directory names + packages). Even more, Novell is the arch-rival of Sco. Conectiva is not very popular in North America. So this left Turbo Linux, who have in their newer distribution some interresting things, like PowerDvD, license for reading windows files (wvm movies). Also, Sun produced recently two distributions based on United Linux (Java Linux). They both sucks, because they are based on the old 8.1 SuSe/United Linux, have bad support for Java(the language) and use a badly customised Gnome Desktop (real Gnome is much more functionnal and is not cutted down, even on SuSe who is KDE-oriented) . They also contain too much proprietary contain to be useful in a free software office setup.
If they don’t want Red Hat taking over why not just make a better product instead of shitty tactics like making a ‘standard’ and telling red hat about it I think it was 8 hours before the press release. yeah, some ‘united standard’
Caldera became SCO, claimed Linux is Bad, SuSE fired back with a couple press releases saying SCO is a mean kid, the end.
SCO happened.
And RE: UserMode Linux…
If you mean UserLinux, then its still alive. google for it.
UnitedLinux is dead. It’s as simple as that. Red this (Dutch) article for more information: http://webwereld.nl/nieuws/18874.phtml
That guy doesn’t know what the hell he was talking about. IBM has very good relations with RedHat. If anything it was other Linux distros who felt left out on the fat deals RedHat was getting from IBM and others. They decided to collectively put together a Linux distro strictly for enterprise based market. Of course it all feel apart as soon as the whole SCO thing started up. When Novell picked up SuSE it was as good as dead.
Heise (German) also has an article about that: http://www.heise.de/newsticker/result.xhtml?url=/newsticker/meldung…
— “If you mean UserLinux, then its still alive. google for it.”
Im pretty sure he didn’t. UserLinux is a disto, while User Mode Linux is somthing more. It allows, for instance, the running of multiple “virtual” linuxs on one machine simultaneously.
We had a job setting up a SuSe server for a customer. They had bought Suse server 8 that was based on United Linux but we did not know that when we accepted the job. It turned out to be 2 years old, based on a 2.4 kernel and didn’t work with the customers brandnew hardware specifically the ATI 9200se video card.
It had a huge problem with the RAID mirror created during the install that caused it to slug almost to a halt when running the init scripts at boot time.
It turned out the only way to update it (if there even were any updates) was from within X-Windows but there was no luck with that as it didn’t support the card.
Anyway the customer ended up with Debian on the server.
Of course the new SuSe server will be out soon and I’m sure it will be great I really think Novell shouldn’t be selling this United Linux version especially if it wants to gain and keep loyal customers.
I frequently see on magazines offers of hosting in UserMode Virtual Machines.
Priced between a simple web-space and a full-blown dedicated machine, they offer you basically a dedicated server which you can destroy at your will. Then you go to the web management console and click “format and install Distro X in my usermode machine” and you are back online ^__^
Maybe when the SCO debacle is done there will be renewed interest in this. All I ask is a common package format and that config files stay in the same place. That’s all.
Its dead, as R.seibt said.
For a long time he claimed that SuSE will go on to support it. Yes, SuSE would had done it by themselves. But now they are owned by Novell.
You can find it easily on the press-releases by SuSE (in german and in english). try it.
what happened ? Nothing, its over.
SuSE was the technical BackBone, SLES was UnitedLinux.
Possibly, Novell will possibly work together with the other partners left (SCO terminates its partizipation by themselves).
Connectiva and TurboLinux are now alone in emerging markets, Connectiva in south americas, Turbo in asia – pacific. both are strong enaugh to survive.. SuSE is part of Novell. SuSE didn’t survive.
UnitedLinux was dead before born to be alive.
Cheers Frank
Isn’t discussing User Mode Linux a bit off topic?
The following link provides a short history behind UL, and it’s demise.
http://www.bash.org/?106579
Look at distrowatch, with the shear number of linux distros out there, a united linux is not possible. There will always be yet another linux variant out there….
Linux isn’t about standardizing an OS, it’s about freedom of choice. Right?
The number of Linux distros had nothing to do with the demise of Unitied Linux. What brought down UL was SCO’s stupid lawsuits and SuSE being bought out by Novell. As far as standardizing goes that sounds like a troll to me. Let me ask you something. Where are all if not most of the system wide config files stored on Slack, SuSE, Mandrake, Debian, and Fedora ??
Jack, that was absolutely priceless! Thanks for the link, now I have to IM to everyone I know…
as long as everyone unites behind a common standard my innovations will have plenty of room to succeed.
I’m doing it all over from scratch. I don’t care how long it takes or if it conforms to standards. I don’t pay lip service to brand names or money.
This type of disorgranized junk does not help Linux at all. And it’s why many will remain with Windows for some time.
That’s around the time one of its members (Caldera, aka newSCO) started with its litigation. If you’re trying to cooperate with a group of 4 while one of your members starts to sue a vital part of what the group is actually about, you don’t continue to cooperate, right?
Dead. As pointed out. Move on, you can found a project with another name and exactly the same aim and its all okay. Besides, Freedesktop.org does something similar on the desktop view, and it turns out pretty well, huh?
Companies got to intereseted in the money making potential.
Red Hat, Suse, SCO the cash cows ( well maybe not the later).
United?…HA…Look at how the “Big” distros even to this day deviate from each other….RedHat has it’s tool’s Suses has Yast and im sure Turbo and SCO have tools of there own. All these tools “Lock” a user into that distribution..Packages are another story.
I maybe dating myself here, but anyone else remember back in the day when you were a Linux user you used Linux and not mandrake or redhat. I mean sure you had your distro..but you could move from one to the other with little fuss….ahh sweet sweet nostalgia
-Nx