Slashdot Mirror
Linux Vendors to Standardize on Single Distribution
Jon James writes "eWeek is reporting that a number of Linux vendors will announce on Thursday that they have agreed to standardize on a single Linux distribution to try and take on Red Hat's dominance in the industry. " The vendors in question are SuSe, Caldera, Conectiva, and Turbolinux. However, as the article also points out - Red Hat has a very well established lead in the corporate market - and Sun's decision to create Yet Another Linux Distribution (Sun Linux! Now With McNealy Vision!) will make the waters even more muddy.
Lucky for Red Hat there are no bigger OS companies around!
I've used SuSE for some time, and been happy.
However, many is the time that I wanted a newer version of software than was available from SuSE. An "uber" distribution, compatible with the assorted branded distros catches my interest because it may increase the likelihood of finding new software in rpm form that may actually work on my system.
Worth watching.
/Me prays its Debian inspired. Perhaps this will put more momentum behind the campaign for destroying the useless (read: Surpassed long ago) RPM standard.
loply.com
It should read .."cash in on redhat's dominance"
These companies came in on the wave of redhat
So they wont use rpm then ?
However, when I think about it, perhaps that makes sense; I'm looking to run a desktop (mostly), whereas I'm presuming that when Linux is used in the corporate environment it is basically only on servers.
Is RedHat really such a good distro for corporate needs, or is it merely that it has a big name so everyone buys it? I always think of RedHat as the distro that's been around forever, even though no one seems to use it (here come the RedHat users to set me straight...) Guess I've been talking to the wrong people.
Corporations never did make good friends to talk to though.
They will announce ... on thursday. But to take the pleasure out of their announcement, Slashdot pre-announces it on wednesday. There goes their 5 minutes in the spotlight. How inconsiderate!
RedHat's success with businesses is not that their distribution is better than others; - although it's a fine distribution tailored for businesses - it's that they give manager's what they want - support contracts, courses and certificates for employees etc.
Businesses don't like to take risks, they want to see a shiny reliable company selling them a reliable product, instead of "some freeware distribution written by no good hippies in their spare time". RedHat gives them the comfort of that illusion.
There are few details that I don't see being resolved yet..
All those companies mentioned don't give free ISO's just like RedHat (and Debian for that matter, as well as Mandrake) which kind of makes sense - a customer who downloads and uses the downloaded ISO's is one less customer who would like to pay for the distribution (not all of them - but most of them)..
I can understand RedHat point - they don't give a shit about people using Linux on the desktop - their eyes are focused only on the enterprise - thats why you won't see RedHat Advanced server available for free download, and you'll need to pay $800 for it (with the bare 30 days support - installation support) so how they're going to compete with RedHat??
This reminds me the LPI exams (which everyone but RedHat stands behind it) VS. RHCE training/exam - how many people here passed the LPI? how many passed the RHCE? somehow I got the feeling that RHCE is WAY more preffered then LPI..
Hetz (Heunique)
If somebody is wondering what LSB is, well no, its not the pre-precursor of LSD; it is the Linux Standard Base
cheers
rmstar
Linux Magazine has an article on why Debian would fill in a good role as 'arbitrator' amongst the distributions and why HP chose to use Debian as their standard distro.
A distro free from vendor squabbling and influence, that's exactly what the Linux 'standard' should be. Now all we need to do is get some LSB action going.
Why are they bothering to come up with a single uber-distro when Debian provides a solid foundation for this kind of work? If I were a Linux distributor, and was starting to realize that I can make money selling services and a name, why would I waste all this money making up yet another installer - hell, I'd hire 10 guys, slap a commercial release on top of Debian every 6 months, and let the community do the heavy lifting - all the while earning open source karma for supporting Debian.
I read about this last night, and had mixed feelings. It's certainly overdue in the market - there definitely needs to be simpler 'cross-distribution' compatibility for installing packages. Yes compiling from source is generally compatible, but not everyone wants to do that, nor should they have to. It's a waste of someone's time to do that in many cases.
I think it may be too little, too late, however. This should have been done over a year ago, and there still seems to be too little information on the specifics of the deal(s). Figure it'll take *months* before this has any impact on the installed base out there, it'll be a miracle if this actually 'saves' any of these distros from further marginalization.
Someone else mentioned Redhat feeds into an 'illusion' that businesses want - 'shiny support', etc. It's no illusion. It may cost money, but damn it - if someone in a business needs support for something (driver doesn't work, upgrade broke, whatever) having a *real person* to call who's been trained on that particular distro is invaluable. Yes, it may cost $200. Yes, you 1337 geeks out there could hang around in IRC for a few hours waiting to get an answer. *Businesses* can't afford to do that. Furthermore, they shouldn't have to put up with those channels of support (not reliable enough - quality of support is hit and miss, and they can't afford to wait for the 'hit' all the time). Whether or not they ever need it ('linux is so stable!') the fact that it's there is more than comfort enough to persuade people to go the Redhat route.
Furthermore, the Redhat certification and training and all the other secondary services simply help to bolster their lead in the mindshare of the business market. Maybe it's just that they had more cash to play with after their IPO - if so, they've put it to good use.
creation science book
If they're going to standardardise on one distribution, why don't they standardise on Redhat? No, Seriously.
Something needs to be done, because the Linux community is allowing itself to get slipped into the Microsoft mindset. With the LSB in place, there should be none of this business of "targetting a distribution" or other Microsoft-like lock-in nonsense.
1: The LSB needs to be in place.
2: All major distributions need to adhere to it, and the minor ones should too, for that matter.
3: Education is key, that LSB-compliance is the real crux of the matter, not some specific distribution.
4: Packaged software should state its requirements relative to the LSB. LSB+foolib+barlib, etc. Some distributions may choose to distinguish themselves by including foolib and/or barlib out of the box. The ISV should also have copies/pointers for foolib and barlib on their web site.
5: Distributions are good. More are better, as long as LSB can solve the interoperability and installation problems.
I'm disappointed to see LSB mentioned only once as of my writing this post.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
Actually not, they are just adapting to a new form of existance. Targeting geeks it was simple, every geek has it's own needs and would like it's own distribution.
Targeting masses actualy defines being more organized and more uniform. This way linux development actualy speeds up, what's one of the main things of this merging.
Setting one standard and deploying jobs across few companys that had to do all the work untill now. Speed is increasing, uniforming gets better and most importantly. There is a higher organisation level
Signature Pro version 1.13.2-3 release 83.5 beta3try7 after-breakfast edition
It can't be ease of use, that is not the point of UNIX-like operating systems. Some distros may get close to the ease of use of Windows, but is that really the primary goal of any distribution?
It can't be the prettiness of the desktop. Window managers are not tied to the distributions, although some prefer prefer certain desktop suites. However you look at it, there is a UNIX that takes the desktop beauty pageant hands down: Mac OS X.
Maybe you judge "best" by how much control you have over the operating system... does that require working with source in all cases, or is fine-grained package management good enough? They all give you incredibly control over the operating system, differences in the layout of /etc aside.
I could keep on going, but I'm sure you get the point. How much "better" a distribution is has to be looked at very subjectively and therefore the judgement lacks meaning. As long as a distro works, installs, is reliable, and essentially does what it claims to do, you have to give it the stamp of approval as a good distribution. Past that, everything is a matter of opinion.
Perhaps, for business, Red Hat simple is the best. Personally, that is the conclusion I've come to. I love Mandrake, prefer it, more or less, to Red Hat, however I've chosen Red Hat for the servers I build (and I build servers both for personal projects and for use by the large telecommunications company I work for) and for workstations. My workstation at the office is Red Hat, while at home I use Mandrake.
Each has their benefits. I've played with Debian, Storm Linux, Progeny (i.e., Debian+), Gentoo, and so on. Every distribution has something of value, some only as learning tools.
If we want to get very Darwin about the whole thing, then Red Hat is obviously the fittest distro. Its not the first, but it is the largest, most widely used, and has all but wiped out older "species" like Slackware, IMO.
perl -e 'print $i=pack(c5, (41*2), sqrt(7056), (unpack(c,H)-2), oct(115), 10)'
You know, I could care less if there are 5 or 5000 Linux distributions out there. But I'm really getting tired of the lack of binary compatability between distributions. And when I say that, I mean lack of binary compatability all the way from libc up to the desktop environment. I can compile simple command line apps and have it run on most distributions, but the second I start using extra libraries (like GTK+) I start running into compatability problems between distros.
/usr/lib and you'll be okay" either!
Distro A has the library, but it's a different filename since it's a newer version than the one in Distro B. Bah! The best tech that MS stole was COM objects. Just cram all the necessary versions into a single file, and let the runtime linker figure it out on the fly.
Well, I'm not trying to say that we need that sort of extra functionality/overhead, but I do want to say that Linux will take off like a shot at soon as developers have a steady target to aim for. The sooner all the major distros decide on a list of libraries that make up a standard linux distribution, the sooner I'll be able to start telling my friends and family that they should switch.
RPM, apt, deb, and even slack's TGZ all have the same problem. The application/library is compiled and packaged for a single version of a single distribution. Sometimes you can take them to another version or distro and it will work, but most often not. With a little fussing, you can usually put together some symlinks on a few libs that will at least get the app to run, but certain features won't work correctly, or the app will crash because a certain interface isn't exposed by this version of a lib. Even if it did run 100% correctly after you made the necessary symlinks, that still isn't good enough, since you had to manually manipulate the system in order to get the app to run. I don't tell my family to run regedit when they can't get an item out of the "Uninstall Application" menu (I fix it for them next time I'm over there), so I'm not going to tell them to "Just make a few symlinks in
Man this continual problem pisses me off...
It's so basic that I was sure that it would have been worked out by now. I've looked and looked and found nothing. The Linux Standard Base doesn't even come close to defining everything that is necessary for binary compatability between distros, and google hasn't given me any other good leads.
If I'm missing the big red neon sign that points to the solution, then please do share it with me. But if I simply haven't found it because it doesn't exist, then we should defenitely evaluate the value that this would add to Linux, and seriously consider its immediate implementation.
Car analogies are often flawed - remember that cars already ARE standardised in that they all are roughly the same width, height etc. They all have similar turning circles: basically they all work on our roads in the same way. In computers we have a situation where some cars can only go down some roads and it's a mess. Roll on LSB.
Anyone who has messed with Caldera, SuSE and Turbolinux knows that they do NOT produce a 100% redistributable version of their commercial offerings. In addition to now allow redistribution of their CDs, most either omit major packages, or limit usage to "personal." As of 8.0, SuSE has gotten even more restrictive no longer offering free downloads of many components. This alone has turned off this user from considering their software.
Conectiva, on the otherhand, has gained a lot of notariety in their efforts. The two biggest being the use of Apt for RPM, and one of their lead developers managing a Linux kernel branch alongside Alan Cox and only one other. I have not used their distro, and DistroWatch.COM does not differentiate between "free download" and "100% redistributable" so I cannot tell if they maintain the same GPL-anal approach as RedHat. For now, I'll assume so (please let me know if otherwise?).
So, for this strategy to work, assuming the rumor is true, I make the following 2 recommendations to the resulting conglomerate:
These vendors don't have to stop value-adding to their distros. In fact, this approach could still allow them to do so. But they really need to build some mindshare with those of us who like RedHat and Debian because of their 100% GPL-focus. Release a 100% Redistributable CD set which they all agree on. This has kept me from using Caldera, SuSE and Turbolinux over the years.
Then each can include their own CD #1 binary, "alternate," non-redistributable boot CD in their commercial, boxed sets so the value-added stuff can be installed (in addition to other, non-redistributable CDs). The idea is that the install packages should be the same for both the freely redistributable and commercial non-redistributable versions, even if the default/base freely redistributable ones are replaced by those in the commercial, non-redistributable CD(s). Simple, no?
This will get the masses to join them. If the new conglomerate can build a new, 3rd party software repository for Apt like Debian has for Deb, this would get me to use this new distro. And they would quickly find that a number of 3rd party free software / open source projects would make sure their packages are built for and distributed in this new RPM-Apt repository. God knows I'd be sold in a heartbeat, assuming the distro quality is as good as RedHat. With SuSE in the mix, I don't see this being an issue, since I have used their kernels before (and trust them as much as RedHat).
Right now I mix a custom distro (usually installed via NFS so I don't have to build CDs that are outdated quickly) use RedHat with Ximian and FreshRPMS added. Ximian is Ximian, and I don't forsee not using their Gnome set (this new "standard" distro will make it easy for them to support). FreshRPMS is RedHat-focused and uses RPM-Apt, but it is far from "comprehensive" with only about 50 packages or so. This is a far cry from Debian's 10,000+ Going to RPMfind or the older contribs is just not viable, and I don't bother much anymore. But I don't have nearly the package selection as Debian with RedHat and this frustrates me since I will not use Debian for other reasons (I'm not going to expand on them here, just note I said *I* will not use Debian -- not that Debian is "bad," not at all).
-- Bryan "TheBS" Smith
Independent Author, Consultant and Trainer
No doubt these guys have technical expertise comparable to Red Hat's. Product, even combined one, is also similar, based on the same components. And that's it. Not enough for a big game - can't be won on technical merrits alone.
Red Hat is different. They (well, Bob Young may be more accurate) figured this long time ago and have been building the brand name, portfolio of products and services and awesome team of people. Red Hat now has all that. Their product kicks ass from Wall St. all the way down to my laptop, they've got name recognized all over the world, second ranked Linux authority and many more of the finest developers work for them, Red Hat's support is top of the shelf, their training program is ranked 1st in the world, their cash account is very healthy and they are still one of the greatest OSS contributors.
Oh yes, almost forgot - they're some 7 years ahead.
Hats down to them.
The other aspect of Red Hat (and, perhaps, all significant distributions) is the work that goes into developing a stable combination of packages. kernel-2.4.18-4.src.rpm is a long way from the generic 2.4.18 kernel: it has over 100 patches, including a 20 MB whopper from Alan Cox. GCC 2.96 is the most visible fork, but hardly the only one.
It's all free software, the majority of which makes it back to the original project, but Red Hat is the first to take advantage of its own hard work. That's an advantage.
Here's a slightly different perspective: I am still relatively new to Linux (>2 years), and I'm just a rank beginner when it comes to programming. I sit in front of a Windows box all day at work because I have to, and I have a Windows box at home, too, mostly for (in)convenience.
Why do I use Red Hat? Why do I use Linux at all? Well, frankly, the more I use Windows, the more I like Linux. It's stable, powerful, non-stupid, (don't even get me started about Stupid Automagical Windoze Tricks) and it does exactly what I need in a way that works well for me. Also, I think the interfaces are fascinating, so I'm writing a paper about them (for the arts/social sciences community) now.
On the other hand, I neither have the skills nor the inclination (yet) to spend hours tweaking and reprogramming config files so that I can get something up and running. I like that it works. I like that I can do what I want with it, and I don't have to tinker with it incessantly.
Sorry if that sounds kind of anti-hackerish (it's not meant so), but I'm still trying to master the basics, and I wouldn't try to drive a Formula 1 racer while on my learner's permit, either.
I'm not a geek, I'm just a clever script.
I use Red Hat Linux for my servers. I'd not dream of anything else at the moment. Why?
1) Excellent support - whatever software I want to install, I can be quite sure that there's a RH version - often in RPM form. This reduces the cost of maintanence dramatically.
2) The RED HAT NETWORK is fantastic! I simply type "up2date -u" and 10 minutes later, I have all the relevant security patches installed! Just $5 per month, and their download servers are FAST. (I routinely see 15-20 Mbit connections - 10x-15x FASTER than an unfettered T1!)
3) Reliability. My Red Hat systems are stable. They work today, tomorrow and next year.
4) Stability of the distro. Red Hat has been around. They are profitable, or at least not burning capital very fast. I can feel good knowing that I'm investing my considerable time, money, and energy into a platform that will be there in the future, too.
With the above, I can fulfill my support contracts easily and cheaply, and focus on the delvery of service rather than simple maintanence.
Is Red Hat perfect? No. But it satisifies the above, and they are what I need to found my business upon.
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
Let us not hate Red Hat just for finally being able to do what we have all wanted to do for years: turn OSS into a viable marketable tool.
We all know that competition is good. It encourages innovation, progress and new directions. One of the reasons why there has been so little real innovation in the closed-source world has been the lack of competition to Microsoft's products (other than Windows Servers - which are seriously challenged by Linux).
;-)
Over the years, Suse, Caldera et al have offered little serious competition to RedHat when it comes to *marketing* themselves (technically, RedHat is no way superior to any of these distributions).
A "UnitedLinux" would actually be a good idea. It will encourage (spelled f-o-r-c-e) RedHat to improve their product (I am an RHL user, but I'll be the first to admit that RHL is about as exciting as a glass of water these days).
At the same time this will give the players of UL a chance at a bigger market, which in the end is good for Linux and OpenSource.
However, just like Linux chewed up the Unix market before it started spreading its wings, it is very likely that the initial gains UL would achieve would be at the cost of RedHat's share. There will probably be a bit of seesawing before things stabilize.
And *that's* where the fun really begins.
You aren't remembered for doing what is expected of you
Funny, because SuSE has certification programs, books, courses and everything else.
You are correct, but only for proprietary standards. Open standards are generally gladly welcomed by the Linux community.
The Linux Standard Base is becoming more and more popular with distributions, since following the guidelines means that a package created for one distribution should install and work smoothly on all compliant distros. All Linux distributions will eventually have to follow the LSB recommendations, or risk not being compatible with commonly released packages, and losing their user base.
I think the LSB's work is a Good Thing all round both for the distributors and for end users and developers.
The obvious solution is standardization in combination with version management that's how regular distributions pull it off.
... 3.0.1 came out more than a month after 3.0, so while I want the latest bug fixes and enhancements, I'm running an overnight compile of KDE at most once every 5 or 6 weeks. This is hardly a great burden, and the trouble saved by having packages compiled against the proper librarys, and the resultant stability, more than makes up for whatever time is spent starting the compile before going to bed (or leaving work for the day).
... I have Gentoo installed on an old Intel MMX 233, which did take 3 days (!!) to install, but as I've said before, I probably spent a total of an hour sitting in front of that box, and the rest of the time ignoring it while it churned away), in which case binary distros, with all their many faults, may be exactly what you want. Even with a slow processor, though, I suspect you would find the incremental time savings of having a more responsive and quick system well worth the initial investment of time ... my slower boxes benefit even more in some cases from the kinds of optimizations Gentoo and Source Mage provide than some of the quicker boxes.
Yes, of course, but there is a heavy price to be paid for that "standardization", namely the inability to have current software on your system, and the subsequent slowdown in providing timely feedback and bug reports to authors.
Debian, as an example (and as my favorite binary only distribution), had one of its developers respond to a question by a curious user as to when XFree 4.2 would be included in debian with the curt answer: "Leave me alone. It will be months." Source Mage ("Sorcery" at the time) had X 4.2 available within a day, Gentoo very shortly thereafter. Those of us who needed the bug fixes and additional hardware support didn't have to wait "months" for its inclusion into a binary distro, or alternatively have to compile it ourselves (by hand) and then watch as various distribution-provided binaries start to break because of X 4.2's differences from X 4.1.
On the contrary, we had clean, solid, good support from day one, which meant we got the bug fixes in a much more timely manner, and were able to deploy configurations not even possible with other distriutions. And we didn't have to sacrifice stability in order to do it.
As for Mozilla, it may have nightly cvs builds, but Gentoo and Source Mage both reference release builds (e.g Mozilla RC2, RC3, etc.), not nightly builds as a rule. So while those wishing to have the very latest may find themselves compiling mozilla once every two or three weeks, it certainly isn't a nightly affair. Ditto for KDE
It also makes keeping up with security fixes much, much easier than with Red Hat, Mandrake, Suse, and Debian (stable excepted, but debian stable makes the Jurassic appear contemporary).
You may be personally allergic to compiling large packages (or have a processor that is painfully slow to do so
In any event, for those of us working with this stuff every day, who have reasonably modern CPUs and who are required to troubleshoot live systems whenever anything goes wrong, having quick and painless access to the current bug fixes and features is an invaluable asset. In short, for many people (I would venture to say most), once they've tried a source-based distro, binary distros feel klunky by comparison and a person will never want to go back. The benefits are simply too great, naysayers notwithstanding.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
It's nice to see Linux evolving into a healthy competitive ecosystem. An ecosystem of true competition vying for customers by offering better products at better prices.
Contrast with Microsoft's vision of an ecosystem where they are the big predator and everyone kow-tows to them and their whims. Nothing really happens in this ecosystem without Microsoft doing it first.
So far from being a disturbing development in Linux's history, I consider this a good sign that, contrary to Bill's opinion, the Marketplace works!
The bitter lessons of a veteran coder: http://bitterprogrammer.blogspot.com
I'd love a Linux distro laid out like Solaris, with all the same things working as expected, and all the other things NOT working (also as expected!).
Imagine a Linux distro with a functioning, but lamely configured SysV init, complete with run level changes that do NOTHING. Imagine a Linux distro with a SysV package system that makes it super easy to locate what file belongs to what package - so long as you are willing to write that tool (3 lines in awk, I swear!). Imagine a Linux distro with a syslogd configured out of the box to log all critical messages to the console, instead of some out-of-the-way log file. Imagine a Linux distro which included a completely broken BSD compatibility API, and plenty of warnings not to use it throughout 10 years' worth of OS documentation. Imagine a Linux distro every bit as half-assed as the one YOU would put together yourself, but with a Big Important Company's logo stuck to the box.
Sign me up!
Edith Keeler Must Die
There seems to be a lot of meta-creepy groupthink going on around here - seems some people think that "Slashdot" is some unified, collective entity and not an aggregation of individuals, many of whom do *not* have the view that "____ is evil" where ____ is any entity or concept.
Well, it isn't.
Also, many individuals who might call Microsoft "evil" do not base this evaluation on Microsoft's profitability, or its large market share, or the fact that it is based in North America, or because they believe that capitalism is evil. Rather, some people believe that Microsoft's predatory behavior within the capitalist system adversely impacts things that said individuals might value - e.g., the benefits of improved products at lower prices that have traditionally result from competitive markets.
I personally believe that where a market is not competitive, and as a result, the products are not getting cheaper (consider the static absolute cost of Windows) or are increasing in price (consider the cost of Windows relative to the cost of a computer today, vs. even 2 years ago), then either the structure or operation of the market is flawed (e.g. lax or non-existent antitrust enforcement), not that the monopolist is "evil."
Of course, this belief is predicated on the concept of Adam Smith's "invisible hand" - i.e. markets should be structured and regulated such that participating entities (producers and consumers) operating in a totally avaricious way will advance a given end. The question is, ultimately, "is the given end good or bad," not "is Microsoft good or evil." (The question of who gets to chose the given end is a good one - I believe some recent attempts to regulate the system of legalized bribery known as our current campaign finance system are germane to this issue.)
If our society believes that an appropriate social policy goal is that Bill Gates should get richer, then we have a system today that works well. If others believe, as I do, that the benefits of competition (e.g. lower costs and improved products) should accrue to consumers (not necessarily end users, though end users would ultimately benefit), then the market for desktop operating systems is not optimally structured or regulated.
This has nothing to do with whether Microsoft is good or evil, or the question as to whether Red Hat would behave as Microsoft does, were it in a similar position (IMO - Red Hat management would be rational to do so).