Looking to deploy Linux in the enterprise without a price tag? In this DesktopLinux.com feature, Tom Adelstein teaches users how to put together an enterprise Linux desktop using freely available sources. Offering budget conscious users a guide for a Linux-based system suitable for business, the article highlights the similarities between Red Hat’s legacy 7.3 software and current Enterprise Linux 3.0. Adelstein rebuilds servers running Red Hat 7.3 using RHEL source rpms and provides offers a step-by-step tutorial for companies that are searching for a reliable DIY Linux IT solution.
How to Build a Free Enterprise Linux Desktop
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli
sure, it’s “free” to implement, but what about the costs of admins? what about the cost of support down the line?
What about when Redhat comes after you for copyright infrigement (a.k.a stealing)?
there is this thing…called the GPL…cool bit of reading..you might want to give it a try
White Box Enterprise Linux is built from RHEL SRPMs.
http://www.distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=whitebox
Cheers
What about when Redhat comes after you for copyright infrigement (a.k.a stealing)?
RedHat cannot come after you for copyright infringement of FOSS programs.
They can come after you for *trademark* infringement of the RedHat logos and such and possibly copyright infringement of their artwark, which is not FOSS (and not software, for that matter).
That’s kind of the deal with White Box and Tao and NPACI Rocks. They take the RedHat sources, recompile and distribute without the two packages containing RedHat logos and artwork. RedHat made it very easy to do this by separating those components into only two packages.
“An Enterprise Quality Desktop
What makes this hack of RH 7.3 an enterprise quality desktop?
….
Both Novell SuSE and Red Hat won their EALS based on platforms that are two generations old. That means RH 7.3 Linux was good enough two versions ago to be considered safe.
…
By rebuilding RH 7.3 based on the Red Hat Enterprise Linux sources, the underbelly of the distribution starts to look like an enterprise grade distribution, even though it is not Common Criteria Certified.
….
So this RH 7.3 hack isn’t a certified enterprise desktop, but it will run dependably and will have community support for quite a while in the future. It also allows you to see how the enterprise people work and why their products have become so popular.
…”
“good enough”, “starts to look like”, “…hack isn’t a certified”!
I’m confused!!! In the end what is the difference between a certified enterprise desktop and just an enteprise desktop?
Anybody tried and deployed any of the distros (whitebox, caos, Lineox, etc) based on Red Hat Enterprise Linux? Any favorites?
sure, it’s “free” to implement, but what about the costs of admins? what about the cost of support down the line?
It is certainly not free to implement, and anyone who thinks that is an idiot. Replacement of Windows desktops is always going to be artificially expensive at the moment, due to the fact that you’re replacing it with something that isn’t Windows and is different. The medium to long-term payoff, however, is rather difficult to quantify at the moment. Hopefully, we’ll have some good case studies as time goes on. Which brings me neatly on to another point.
In terms of the costs of admins, and the costs of support – well – that’s a question you want to seriously ask yourself of all those Windows TCO studies. Does anyone factor in security costs, Client Access Licenses and the buying of additional software such as anti-virus software? I haven’t seen a winning Windows TCO stdy produce figures on that yet, but we all know that’s what you need to run a Windows environment. Then we might actually be able to compare accurately
.
What makes a distro an “enterprise distro” is the backing of a company. DIY, even using RHEL as a base, isn’t going to get you an enterprise Linux desktop.
bad wording on my part, didn’t meant free to implement, just meant that any joe shmoe can dl and install the rpms, but other costs mitigate the initial “free” factor. i also wasn’t giving another _specific_ platform as an alternative. nothing is free, support and maintanence costs down the line will essentially zero out any cost justification (free or not) as these costs will dwarf initial costs substantially, regardless of the platform 🙂 and that’s not even mentioning custom app development down the line, training new hires (who more than likely will come from a different platform), etc.
What about when Redhat comes after you for copyright infrigement (a.k.a stealing)?
In addition to the GPL comment here above, i’d like to add that you’re not allowed to use the RedHat trademark nor the RedHat art. That’s it afaik; that’s exactly what WhiteBox Linux has done. If you’d carefully paid more attention you’d read that this is precisely what RedHat intended since this is what they argue in e.g. interviews. For example GFS (Global File System), developed by RedHat is GPL and SUSE (a competitor of RedHat) or whoever is allowed to use it under the terms of the GPL.
“How to Build a Free Enterprise Linux Desktop — based on Sun JDS only”
The reason is that the author conveniently sidetracked KDE and its impact on new users moving to Linux.
GNOME’s menu positioning, the desktop layout etc is quite alien to newbies coming over from Windows (and that’s what the enterprise is using today).
So, at least in the spirit of open-source, authors should be honest to make their intentions clear about what exactly they are promoting!
RHEL is based on Red Hat 9.0. RHEL 2.1 is based on Red Hat 7.2. None of the RHEL offerings were based on Red Hat 7.3!
That said, rebuilding RHEL from source code is not too hard. There was even a mailing list, both Whitebox and Tao have good HOWTO information that tells you how to do most of the hard work.
Enterprise doesn’t just mean “choice of applications”. Anyone can slap a usable distro together (depends on definition of usable, I suppose).
Redhat is “enterprise ready” because of the support infrastructure. Throw away the support you get when you buy the product, and it’s no longer an attractive enterprise solution.
Who cerifies a distro to be enterprise ready?
What quailifies a distro to be enterprise ready?
if we are going to throw the name around at least put it out there right, it’s Red Hat
GNOME’s menu positioning, the desktop layout etc is quite alien to newbies coming over from Windows (and that’s what the enterprise is using today).
That’s why Microsoft executives say they’re gonna make Windows more enterprise-ready. Hmmm… well that is able to correlate with what you say, but it sure ain’t likely given Microsoft only puts energy if they get more control, customers hence money as a result of their efforts.
We’ll see what Novell will do. It appears they’re gonna use GNOME and KDE.
Slightly OT, IMHO You can build a headless system just as easy as one with a head.
So, by that definition, Windows will have a much harder time becoming enterprise ready.
just my 0.02Tenge worth.
Back OT, One of the great advantages of OSS is that you have the ability to “Roll Your OWN”. The One Size fits all as dictated by some companies is actually more “Communistic” that the varied and diverse products that are coming out of the OSS Community. If I were producing a “Company Desktop” for several thousand seats, I would be able using OSS to create a single distro that installed everything in one go. Add a few custom packages at the end to provide the default configurations and you are all set to roll it out. This ability can save a lot of time and effort.
Check out http://www.centos.org to see how this can be done in a very professional manner, where (re others) the admins don’t have to suffer, as it is a full rhel clone. And no, copyright issues don’t apply (re others) as the only copyright problems exist in the redhat artwork, which has been replaced.
What about when Redhat comes after you for copyright infrigement (a.k.a stealing)?
Copyright infringement is not stealing. The two aren’t even *remotely* similar concepts.
To me, any enterprise desktop need to have advance desktop setting permissioning (keep users from breaking their menus and other things) and also a central management console allowing to manage these setting remotely and push updates and install software packages.
It’s not covered by the article but how would you achieve that ?
“(keep users from breaking their menus and other things)”
“kiosk mode” available on the latest KDE.
“manage these setting remotely and push updates and install software packages”
webmin.
These and other “enterprise-related” features/programs can be installed on more or less any and all distributions. On the other hand, system-stability/uptime/blue-screen-less/seg-fault-less should be the numero uno criteria for any distribution used for enterprise deployment.
One point that is *always* conveniently ignored when talk is about costs and “Enterprise” Linux is the certification.
Sure, if all you want is a Linux installation of some sort, you couldn’t care less for any certifications. But we’re talking enterprise here, which means you need those boxen to run *applications* on them, and that doesn’t mean MySQL!
I am working in one of Germany’s major banks. About every year, the Federal Banking Supervisory Office checks our architecture – after all, we’re handling a sizeable amount of Germany’s economy here. What do you think they’d say if we were running mission-critical stuff on a homegrown Linux system? They’d have our backsides!
Try to get an Oracle admin support the database on a homegrown system. He’ll merely point out your system isn’t certified and disclaim any Oracle malfunction.
Just two examples…
1) the author said he wanted a rhel system to test on, not for production.
2) this had absolutely nothing to do with windows vs. linux TCO, nothing to do with kde or gnome, and even less to do with sun JDS (how that got brought up boggles the mind)
is it too much to ask that people RTFA before commenting on it?
that being said, very cool article. looks like fun to put together, i may try it out for my fileserver or something.
@ matt:
> 1) the author said he wanted a rhel system to test
> on, not for production.
Either your production system is a “real” Enterprise system, then you damn better test on an identical machine instead of a homegrown copy, or it isn’t, in which case the whole point is mood.
> 2) this had absolutely nothing to do with windows vs.
> linux TCO…
The title says “free”, the summary says “freely available” and “budget conscious”, the intro says “cost benefit”, and the evangelists keep ranting about how cheap Linux is.
Come again?
The title says “free”, the summary says “freely available” and “budget conscious”, the intro says “cost benefit”, and the evangelists keep ranting about how cheap Linux is.
—
of course they do. whats your problem with that?
thats the problem when you dont RTFA, sometimes the summery and title of an article can lead you to believe its about something it isnt. this article isnt “ranting about how cheap linux is”, its about how to turn rh 7.3 into rhel.
and the difference between a “Real” enterprise system and this is certification and support (as has already been mentioned in the comments)
@ matt:
> this article isnt “ranting about how cheap linux
> is”, its about how to turn rh 7.3 into rhel.
And I pointed out that you cannot “turn rh 7.3 into rhel”, because RHEL is a certified system for which you get professional support and anything you patch together from RH 7.3 isn’t.
> …and the difference between a “Real” enterprise
> system and this is certification and support (as
> has already been mentioned in the comments)
…including mine if you would “RTFC”.
The “real” in my comment referred to a system that carries some mission-critical application in some mission-critical surrounding (instead of carrying your homepage, for example). In such an environment, you test your software on *exactly* the same setup as the production environment, *including* the OS setup.
Means, something you patch from RH 7.3 isn’t fit as testbed for something that deserves the title “enterprise”. If it does, in your eyes, you don’t need an “enterprise” Linux in the first place, but just another Linux boxen.
Now stop insulting me, will you?
I think this was one of the most boring and uneducating reviews/reports I’ve ever read. Or maybe I just did not get it.
Ehrm, I guess this post doesn’t really add to the discussion. I just needed at channel for my frustration. Sorry 😉
I have been using White Box Enterprise Linux (WBEL) with Oracle 9i for several months now and find it to be reliable, dependable and highly useful. This is a good distro for those folks wanting to get the grasp of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 3.0 but don’t want to (or can’t) pay the support costs. For full-fledged enterprise computing in a medium to large company I would still recommend purchasing RHEL or Suse/Novell enterprise for the SLAs and service/support given by those companies.