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WBEL4 Preview Ready For Testing
linuxbeta writes "A preview of WBEL4 (White Box Enterprise Linux) is currently available via BitTorrent. White Box nicely fills the niche between Fedora and RHEL. WBEL Sreenshots. WBEL FAQ. With this latest White Box Enterprise Linux release, is it time to walk away from RHEL?" Not if you want support from Red Hat, it's not.
CentOS screenshots shots.osdir.com
Hmmm... how about Purple Moose?
CentOS also fills this niche, and I think has a stronger community base behind it. It's been a while since I've done a full comparison though.
Sorry for not reading all about it. I checked out the screenshots and read the basics. My question is, will this eventually be free, and what's the ETC (estimated time of completion) on this project?
Thanks.
I'm currently using CentOS 4.0, which works great.
What distinguishes Whitebox and Tao from CentOS? As far as I've been able to tell, they're all just blatant imitators of RHEL, but CentOS appears to have the largest community (and therefore, the greatest prospect of actually being around in five years).
So: why bother with Whitebox or Tao?
Did anyone else think of Star Trek II: The Wraith of Khan when they saw the font on the login screen that reads "White Box Enterprise Linux".
It is important to note that Red Hat eningeers have actually helped put White Box out. People here are going to yell and complain about how Red Hat made White Box remove any mention of Red Hat and they are probably also going to suggest that you dont need RHEL anymore. I'm just clarifying that Red Hat isn't out to crush White Box, but corporate customers really were confused. If you want or need support (as most companies and enterprises need) go with RHEL, if you don't need support then go with White Box, its pretty decent and some of the same engineers involved with RHEL have helped with White Box. Personally, Red Hat does a hell of alot for the community in everything from the kernel to the gui so $345 a year isn't bad if your company can afford it and you'll be supporting the community. The only place Red Hat has ever screwed up was due to a marketing mistake, so let's be nice...if that's the worst they ever do then we'll be pretty well off imho.
Regards,
Steve
There are also other flavors available...
CentOS at http://www.centos.org/ and probably TaoLinux at http://www.taolinux.org/ will also follow suit with a new release.
One interesting software release that takes advantage of North-American Linux Enterprise distribution, is Asterisk@home, which comes with a recent CentOS 3.4 build. Spin your own VoIP infrastrucutre from http://asteriskathome.sourceforge.net/
both seem OK, nothing great. Running Gnome 2.8 and some other old stuff (yea i consider 2.8 kinda old now). Now whats nice is ubuntu:) Rock stable debian distrobution with the newest packages and out-of-the-box working state.
WikiLessons JOIN NOW!
Does WBEL make a good substitute for RHEL when studying for the RHCE?
It would be nice to find a cheap solution to use for studying purposes.
Binary driver vendors only distribute binary drivers for certain kernel versions of certain distros, mostly redhat suse and mandrake. The nVidia drivers are an example, but they can also recompile for vanilla kernels, but what about say a binary driver compiled for the stock 2.4 kernel that comes with redhat 9 shrike? Will it work seamlessly with WBEL?
I'd imagine all kernels were recompiled, at least to remove the word 'redhat'. I know I could download RHES kernels from their installation floppies and use those... but is that required to run precompiled kernel modules?
"Give orange me give eat orange me eat orange give me eat orange give me you." -Nim Chimpsky
Their mission statement says it all. Centos retains complete compatibility. 'Enough Compabibility' means there will be a divergence between WhiteBox and RHEL while they hope "to support RHEL Erata releases" which is a complete contrediction. It's not good enough to be able to install RHEL erata fixes. It's nessecery to ensure that no other security or reliability problems are introduced by any divergence from the platform on which you depend for your security patches.
While I believe variety in Linux distributions in itself is a positive contribution to the platform's overall growth and appeal, The distributions should be distinct enough to offer a meaningful value-add as compared to others already established in the market (free - as in beer - as the market is).
Where Centos provides an unincumbered version of a supported (and thereby presumed superior) distribution, what is WhiteBox providing over either of these existing and established offerings?
--CTH
--Got Lists? | Top 95 Star Wars Line
I think this is pretty interesting. I have to admit my ignorance of the WBEL intiative before tonight, but I am now looking at all the Redhat Enterprise licenses I was about to go buy and am wondering if this isn't a better alternative.
Most of the Enterprise licenses I've purchased have been acquired to avoid the upgrade dance. I know linux well enough to troubleshoot just about anything that comes up outside of obscure kernel and driver issues. In my two years using Redhat Enterprise, I've had to use their tech support once to resolve a hardware issue. I wonder how many other corporate IT depts are in a similiar situation and how this will ultimately affect Redhat revenue?
Even though I am a die hard Slacker, I still think this is too cool. As a kid, I visited the library that Whitebox was spawned from, and coming from a somewhat small city makes it pretty nifty. Great work.
Not if you want support from Red Hat, it's not.
That to me sums it up. The *only* reason i can think of to go with Red Hat is if you need the support. Other than that.. what are the benefits?
hehe, funny how the trolls are linking to a dead domain... honestly the quality of trolling is going way down..
In fact, this very article announced whitebox finnaly got RHEL4 rebuilt, yet the CentOS team had it finished over a month ago, and I'll be putting my first live instance of it in production on monday.
Maybe I havent paid enough attention, but is there something worth seeing in the screenshots? I mean if I was to look at say SUSE enterprise I know I would be interested in the config screens, the services gui, the users and admin guis, the folder and networking guis etc. This is all stuff that suse has done that is interesting to look at. It doesnt have to be graphical, suse just happens to be. Did I not visit the right screen shots or am I right about nothing to see here?
yet another linux distribution
imagine if everyone collaborated on say 5 distributions, fixed the bugs, polished the GUI's instead of the thousands of distros that are more-or-less the same thing.
MS would of been toast years ago
all the time there are these clones of each other they just dilute the brand and waste valuable manpower, these distros dont add anything significant to the table, its as if Linux innovation has stalled and now people are just resorting to changing wallpaper and icons , sticking a different logo on it and call it YALD
focus is a word that needs to be kept in mind, MS has been so successful because its a known quantity, i cant imagine the nightmares support/service companies will have in the future trying to support all these variations,
thats why Red Hat/Suse are successful
because they have a plan and are sticking to it, companies love consistancy and YALD is the complete opposite
I went to the WBEL website, got re-directed to Whiteboxlinux.net and this is what I saw:q id=19
I've been actively involved in the CentOS community for the past several months. As most of you know I've become disinterested in WBEL. CentOS is nearly the same as WBEL with a few minor exceptions: updates occur in a timely fashion (usually 24 hours), the developers are accessible (even if via IRC), and there is an active community (again in IRC atm).
CentOS has launched a new dedicated site at http://www.centos.org
I have prepared a migration page for moving from wbel to CentOS. http://www.centos.org/modules/smartfaq/faq.php?fa
I am confused now. Who's who?
Why is it people look down on a project as soon as they ask for money?
Excuse me, I don't mean to impose, but I am the ocean
Can you spot the subtle misspelling in this statement?
"Not if you want support from Red Hat, it's not."
Answer:
There is a iterative fragment missing from this statement. I've bolded it below.
"Not if you want support from Red Hat until the whim strikes them to EOL your product, it's not."
i know someone is going to mod this as flamebait, then so be it. but it doesn't take away the fact that os design on linux (as well as longhorn and to an extan mac os) has been going backwards.
To make up for a lack of design, these OS designers have been adding more and more bars to the screen, in essence creating a lot of clutter. The top of the screen has an applications drop down list, quick launch toolbar, and date/time. the bottom of the screen has another button in the bottom left hand corner, a window selection bar, and a desktop selection bar. that's not it, then we have a menu bar that also stretches horizontally across the screen.
3 horizontal bars for 1 application. THAT is poor design. THAT is just adding more and more because no one is going to the trouble of doing a little research into designing something superior.
and please, don't give me the whole arguement about how the user can remove bars and whatnot. this is just a mask for poor design and complaining about changing from the default doesn't fix these problems.
oh, and for the other people who are going to say "why don't you do something about it". I think I will after I take my MCATs in a couple weeks.
...but it must be able to support my PC games. Why can't the community get togeather and create an open API like Microsofts Direct-X? Why not call the Linux version "Open-X" and start writing/porting games for this. Hell, if it becomes popular enough, then all W32 users have to do is download and install said "Open X".
PC hardware is based on a defacto standard and is interchangeable for the most part. An OS should also be the same. I would say Linux is that OS. But it really needs support from the entertainment gaming industry to push is public support to the masses.
Life is not for the lazy.
Has red hat been bugging whitebox yo remove any mention of "redhat" from there website like they have with centos?
I did'nt find a list over what versions of KDE, GNOME, etc it includes. where do i find it? And have anyone here tested this distro, what are the pros and cons compared to Suse or Mandrake for example?
Bits of News Giving you the latest bits.
mirror here: whitebox torrent
in case it goes down (little slow) hopefully tracker doesn't go with it...
Get your torrents...
Kernel modules compiled for RHEL3 work on WBEL3 -- I've used WBEL at the office for test servers we didn't want to buy licenses for. (Presently, it's a moot point -- we're switching to SLES).
It would appear that your crude attempt at ascii art is incorrectly formatted. You fail it harshly, in a story about some stupid linux thing nobody cares about-that means linux has kicked your ass.
Don't for get the one for idiots...
With so many flavours these days... uhhg... What ever happened to the tried and true vanilla??
You're almost ready to give up XP, but insist that software designed to run only on XP will run on Linux. Get over it -- if software makers wanted to support Linux there are many ways for them to do this -- and some of them do write crossplatform games that run just fine of Linux, but they are the minority. If you want to make the leap to Linux, you'll have to get it through your head that you're giving up many applications and hardware devices that are closed and designed to solely work with Windows.
In certain popular cases people will create workarounds in WINE/Cedega/CrossoverOffice and enthusiasts have created drivers for some of even the most closed off and niche hardware devices -- but you cannot count on them to be easy to install or to work wonderfully. So really, you have to realize that not all software and hardware will work on Linux. What I don't get is that people are perfectly willing to accept that Windows-only hardware/software won't work on the Mac, but they can't accept that it won't work on Linux.
When you buy a playstation2, you do so knowing you won't be able to play Paper Mario or other exclusive Nintendo titles. When you buy a iPod, you do so knowing you can only use iTMS for legal music purchases. And when you use Linux you must realize that certain software and hardware publishers are hostile to Linux and you can't just blindly use anything that expects Windows to be running. If you mistakenly think that one day it'll all be perfect and linux will be 100% software and hardware compatible... I'll just hope you aren't holding your breath until then.
501 Not Implemented
I think this is one case where a marketplace of ideas really does work. Distributions which don't deliver for users fade away. Others take their place. And if one distribution really suits the needs of a small number of users, then they can work on that project. It's one of the things about linux that has been most beneficial. The decision that Linux is a just a kernel and that many different groups could build many different operating environments around it was brilliant.
Sure, an enterprise system needs stable versions of kernel, libc, apache, J2EE and PHP. But an antique GNOME version? I don't think so! Either an administrator will use command line/web/automated tools and UI doesn't come into play or, if he actually uses an interactive login, an occasional crash and restart won't impact important services or otherwise matter more than it does for an ordinary user.
Given that patches for stable kernel, libc and so on are freely available under GPL and Redhat support doesn't actually login to your box and use gdb to diagnose your problem, RHEL only sells because big corporations have tons of money and can survive even wasting $$$ when they could have just hired a student to install Gentoo.
Those days are waning. It has come time for linux to become respectable - for coders to focus on rounding out the OS and the tools that support it. For years we have been talking about linux on the desktop, and each year we get just a tiny little bit closer. But it just aint going to happen with 100+ distros creating noise. Talk to any business developer - do a few things *very* well. 100 distros aint a few things.
I dont want to squash tinkering - playing and pushing the boundaries is what linux is all about, but how about pushing the boundaries while still using {debian,mandrake,rhel} rather than creating a whole new distro.
Just think - when all these distros disappear (and bar a few, they will), we will lose all the great ideas and cool innovations with them. Linux is here for the long haul, and we need to modify our approach to support that.
If we are going to become a real alternative to MS on the desktop, its going to take a coordination that just isn't there right now.
I agree that there some justification to put this out, but do we *really* need yet another distro?
Yes. If you don't like the distro, don't use it. Distro proliferation only causes two problems: package compatablility and information overload for newbies. The first problem is a very small one if you're using an open, community based distribution. Normal users have all their needs met in the repositories for that distro, and users who need special software either ask someone to package it for them, use alien on a provided package, or compile it themselves. The second problem can be solved by simply asking someone for a distro recommendation. Most people recommend Ubuntu or Mandrake for newbies these days, so it's not really that big of a deal.
So what happens if you declare a moratorium on distribution proliferation? Well, if you did that six months ago, we wouldn't have Ubuntu, which is fairly popular after being out for a short period of time. New distributions bring different ideas to the table, and if it works well, people will use the distro, or other distros will assimlate the ideas. Who knew that you could take Debian unstable's wide array of packages, stabilize them for a month or so, and combine them with simple configuration tools and a community that is friendly by mandate, and end up with what many people were apparently waiting for?
There are many distros out there that build upon a good existing distro and try to make it better. Some try out new packaging systems. I disagree that eliminating all these would be better for Linux as a whole. The benefits from their existence far outweigh the pitfalls, if any.
Okay, someone please help me out here. Why would I choose WBEL/CentOS over Fedora Core? How do they relate, say, to Fedora Core 3, which has very similar specs (kernel version, Gnome version, etc).
And if there's a good reason to choose them over Fedora, should I look at WBEL or CentOS? I'm very confused by the conflicting statements on this site and those on this site. To my reading, the second site is trying to make it sound like WBEL is dead, and the CentOS FAQ "confirms" it, but that doesn't jive at all with the "official" WBEL site.
I don't know what kind of crack I was on, but I suspect it was decaf.
"Why doesn't someone tell this whiny little whore to wipe his own ass?"
And it's attutudes like this that is EXACTLY why Linux will never succeed or appeal to the masses. Basically what your telling me is "Figure it all out and code your own solutions, or STFU".
You wanna know something? I don't program, but I am willing to look into an alternative. Microsoft maybe a monopoly, but at least I can be guaranteed some form of support for XYZ funtion of windows if I'm not able to fix it myself. Thought it might cost me, but I would rather go down that road then having to deal with condescending fuck-tards such as yourself.
I really hope you don't represent the majority of *nix users out there. Because if you do, then fuck open source.
For the record, I'm rather optimistic about the OS community. But you fit the classic example of how NOT to be of any help to a newbe in the world of Linux.
Life is not for the lazy.
WBEL and RHEL will probably have their own slot.
There is still a lot of innovation in the distibution arena. And just because a distribution disappears doesn't mean that its innovations are lost. This is open-source. I would hope that distributions would not take a not-by-us attitude.
Will Redhat persecute SBL now?
Here's the scoop: Redhat hates CentOS because their salesmen keep telling them "we are getting caned in large data centres - they think we are expensive and are all grabbing CentOS instead." True conversation from the inside.
Redhats response: be like Microsoft. Try to crush the competition by using lawyers. Redhat is threatening CentOS by saying that they cannot even mention 'Redhat' on the site. Not only is this a deliberately bad reading of trademark law (fair use, comparative advertising yada yada.) but its pointless; everyone knows about RHEL clones. This article and the comments will point people to WBL & CentOS.
Redhat: you should start trying to compete rather than abuse the letter of the law and the spirit of Free software. Stop being a bully.
-he who laughs last, is a bit slow.
journal
I suppose with VMWare/bochs/qemu/UML it could...
There are some nice screenshots of Gnome in the article. The article's about Gnome, right? It's not? I see.
Well at least Gnome works.
Don't agree with you. This coordination is taking place, named freedesktop.org, and have been extremely successful, so far, because both big desktop projects - GNOME and KDE - "buys" it and small ones simply follow that trend. Lot of freedesktop.org standards are already here, lot of distributions follow them, so I guess it is very good way of coordinate things.
:)), then they should do that. I will stick with Debian and Gentoo and will translate GNOME gui, documentation, etc. - and lot of people on other distros will have that.
OSDL, afaik, also has some kind of sub-comitee which will deal with desktop things. Lot of good desktop hackers and companies are already there.
For many distributions thing - well, if people see the reason to do that (and I guess that reason is somehow valid, because otherwise nothing could be done, because...well, people are extremely lazy these days
I see distributions like big big experimental laboratory, where lot of students trying to make something useful. They share ideas, formulas, etc.
And in the end, when someone succeeds, everyone gains something from that.
That is open source, babe. [tm]
user@ubuntubox:~$ stfu This server is going down for shutdown NOW!
Lineox and CentOS had similar releases (RC1) over 6 weeks ago and Lineox released final over 5 weeks ago, CentOS a little later.
WBEL is also very late with updates and it has just given a bad rep for clones. Just forget it.
Even though you can't call someone to get a problem fixed, or ask questions, you still can put in a bugzilla.
I have, and have had a better experience putting in a bugzilla rather than a RHEL ticket.
There is no SLA with bugzilla, but the techs do want to get the problems solved.
v4sw6PU$hw6ln6pr4F$ck 4/6$ma3+6u7LNS$w2m4l7U$i2e4+7en6a2X h
The parent poster said, in his/her next post, made only 7 minutes later, "ignore the above post, it is accurate if you replace White Box with CentOS." Yet you modded parent to the max, and his/her correction is still at 1.
I find it annoying when every presumes that companies NEED to pay red hat for support. I run a company and we have never needed support for linux from red hat. I mean what sort of support issues can possibly come up that you can't sort out by googling??
OK there are only 10 of us in the company, but I'm guessing a lot of small to medium sized companies really do not need support from red hat. We switched to CentOS when we got a new server and it really is much better than forking out over 2 grand for something that you really don't need.
where do I sign up? :-)
available here.
I am one of many. My idea is not unique, nor do I expect my voice alone to sway you. I speak in a chorus of opinion.
It took them long enough. CentOS4 was out within 2 weeks of RHEL4 being released.
http://shots.osdir.com/slideshows/slideshow.php?re lease=272&slide=30
I don't pay Red Hat to help the community. I pay them because they have the best support out there with RHN.
Why would I pay companies that are for profit just for helping the community? Paying Red Hat should be based on their ability to deliver a good product.
.. Nothing to see, so please move along.
Debian.
Also known as:
WTFNAB? - Who The Fuck Needs A Box?
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
Holy crap, where did you learn to spell? Were you asleep during that part of your grade school education? Do us all a favor and use a dictionary next time!
unincumbered
Compabibility
contrediction
erata
nessecery
Beyond even vanilla RHN is the option for Satellite and Proxy servers, which can really be a boon for medium to large enterprise networks.
We're doing a Satellite deployment here, which allows us to do one click provisioning of servers with known package profiles, including our own in house developed packages. It means that instead of relying on people passing command lines around within the organisation to do production upgrades (since each project within our engineering dept packages slightly differently), now it will all go through one interface.
When we build out a DR site in a different data center, we'll probably put an RHN proxy server there to help ease bandwidth usage across a WAN link for updating servers. It'll allow us to continue to manage everything centrally, but only have to push updates across the WAN once.
Redhat support is also not insignificant. When I have wonky issues with boxes, now I have someplace I can call and get support from people who can actually fix bugs and get me updated packages. Moreover I have SLA commitments on those updates.
Why would you judge a Linux dist. based on a pretty GUI? Linux isn't about a GUI!!! They all use the same Window Managers and Desktop Environments anyway! Show me some benefits of using the distribution itself--not how pretty it is.
If I wanted an OS based on how cute it was, I'd go use OS X. Newbies.
Why not just run Solaris 10?
Install it on as many systems as you want, you just have to register each one to get an entitlement (free - as in no monetary cost).
Plus you get free security updates for the entire time it's supported...
My company's moving to Solaris 10 because it runs everything we need (Apache 2, Oracle (soon to be PostGres), etc.)...
This is a question: The screenshots, though fuzzy from compression and scaling, show a nice-looking, minimalistic theme with a really clean font -- not, I'm pretty sure, the default GNOME font. Can anyone here identify this theme and font?
For example, can the market support N Debian derivatives? I doubt it, I suspect Ubuntu will kill off Mepis. Can the market support N "do it all yourself" distros? No, Gentoo will kill off Arch at some point. Can the market support N "total support for the newbie" distros? No, Linspire or Xandors will survive, but not both.
Note that many distros have already reached the "curiousity" level...I don't consider Slack to be in competition with Fedora at this point.
"Red Hat Support" is an oxymoron and not worth much more than the ability to say you pay for support on a system.
From the WBEL website "Welcome Slashdot viewers. After the smoke settles, check the mailing list archives, etc. Just don't expect replies to mail until next week because I'm on my honeymoon right now."
Posting during his honeymoon...somehow I think he'll have more time on his hands in the future to work on WBEL...
Even if the distros adopted autopackage, they would save an immense amount of time wasted repackaging the same code for their local "we are sure this is the ultimate packaging system".
And who says Linux isnt ready for the enterprise?
Sorry to post in response to my own post, but I noticed an ambiguity:
WhiteBox and CentOS are such proofs. Probably the community only needs one of them, but it does no harm to have a backup. (You don't object to having a backup of your data, do you?)
Proof means test. WhiteBox and CentOS are such tests. Their viability demonstrates that the process is working. (N.B.: Their lack of viability would not demonstrate that the process wasn't working, as there are many reasons for a process to fail. But it *would* be a worrying sign.)
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
A big problem we have with RedHat is confusing contracts and pricing.
do you think it really shows?
> Centos retains complete compatibility.
No they don't. We both have to make certain changes to remove/replace trademarks, etc. While we both try to ensure compatibility, neither of us can make any warranty to that effect. The difference is I admit that up front.
> what is WhiteBox providing over either of these existing and
> established offerings?
The better question is What is Centos offering since WBEL first appeared months ahead of em. But it misses the point. They exist because they want to, same as me. I enjoy the challenge and have learned a lot. Eventually it might make sense to merge somehow, but I am in no particular hurry because each is aiming a little differenty.
Whitebox aims to be a 100% free rebuild of RHEL. The key word being rebuild. It aims to be easy to rebuild by being self hosting. This means even if I drop off the face of the earth you can probably rebuild errata yourself. I only support i386 and x86_64 because I believe i386 is the present and x86_64 is the future, the other ports are too niche and/or don't NEED a free clone. Jeeze people, if you can afford an IBM mainframe can't ya throw RH a bone?
Tao aims at being as close of a clone of RHEL as possible. Especially for their rebuild of RHEL3 that means some packages built on RHL9, some on RHEL, etc. because many packages in RHEL3 were bit for bit the same packages from RHL9.
Centos seems to want to have all of the ports, not really sure of their build philosophy. They are asking for money already though.
Scientific/Fermi Linux are big into making it easy to roll a site specific version. Very handy.
Lineox? Cheaper per seat licenses without much of a support organization to show for it. Or maybe I just haven't seen their 'value proposition.'
Democrat delenda est
CentOS is now and will always be free. CentOS is now and has a stated goal to be self hosting. CentOS has 10 Mirrors that we manage and a website that we pay for. We ask for donations of either equipment or money for operating costs (as the user sees fit) ... donations are, of course, not required. {Since we manage our own main mirrors, it doesn't take 2 weeks to clear up a md5sum issue on them :) ... but it does cost a little money}
We have