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.

Comments

What about CentOS?

[Anonymous Coward]

CentOS screenshots shots.osdir.com

Re:What about CentOS?

[hughesjr]

CentOS-4 has final has been out for more than a month :)

(So that new release is now old ... but based on RHEL4)

"To Retain Enough Compatibility" - Not good enough

[hillct]

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

Red Hat's response?

[cimmer]

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?

Mod parent up

[Eric(b0mb)Dennis]

Why is it people look down on a project as soon as they ask for money?

Re:Mod parent up

[LnxAddct]

I think it is just the general slashdot mentality. Slashdot group think leads to alot of wierd assumptions. One being that money==bad, but money made linux mainstream and continues to foster more of it's development then any other means. Without distributions making money off of linux, it's development would slow down quite a bit. People don't realize all that companies like Red Hat do for the community, maybe if they grepd a few major projects they'd see. Anyway... I would never suggest that what slashdot's users think is actually how reality works and this applies to many things. One major area being with GUIs. Most notably, alot of slashdotters disagreed with Gnome's switch to the spatial model. The thing is, companies like Red Hat (probably Novell too) do HIG studies with actual users and implement what they find is needed or wanted. Developers don't realize that only about 5% of their needs overlap with regular users in GUIs. Everyone screams and shouts that they want linux to be mainstream and to have all this greatness, but then they scream and shout when money is involved and changes are made that benefit 95% of people rather then their 5% needs. Its just a wierd kind of paradox here, I've learned to live with it over the years.
Regards,
Steve

Re:Mod parent up

[Ed Avis]

I liked the Filer on RISC OS: it uses a spatial model but you can double-click with the right button instead of the left to open a folder while closing the old window at the same time.

I don't think anyone can fully explain _why_ they prefer spatial or browser model; it's just a matter of taste and what you're used to. I like the idea of two directories being physically different places and you can drag files from 'here' to 'there'. This doesn't mean that others are wrong to prefer a browser interface. The only objective comparison is to do a study of some ordinary users and find which interface is easier to learn and which gives a better understanding (that is, knowledge which you can then use to help you use other applications).

Re:I'm almost ready to dump XP

[Anonymous Coward]

Um...it's called OpenGl, and it's been around for a very long time.

Re:I'm almost ready to dump XP

[Anonymous Coward]

That's actually not a bad idea -- only DirectX is unbelievably complicated and rebuilding something that from the ground up that could serve as a substitute for DirectX in any given game would be an incredible feat. DirectX is as complicated as it is jealously protected legally.

However, there is an "Open X"! It's called OpenGL :)

OpenGL started out as a library for educational-oriented 3D applications and has since been extended to be used in some of the most popular games, such as Unreal Tournament and Quake. In fact, if you've ever played FarCry you actually had a choice of using either DirectX or OpenGL. Different video cards perform one or the other better...it really just depends on the card. On many nVidia-based video cards FarCry played substantially better using OpenGL than it did with DirectX.

It has been suggested that OpenGL is reaching the limits of it's usability. I'm no game developer, but I find this hard to believe. OpenGL is an efficient, robust graphics library and is implemented in many current and future high performing games (Quake 4!! yesss). The best part about OpenGL is that it's open source. This means that game developers don't have to fuck with Microsofts API -- instead they can directly view the source code of the library call they're implementing and go from there. If need be, a game developer could modify OpenGL and ship this modified version of OpenGL (you end up shipping the library anyways in your binary/executable files, except in the case of cleverly implemented DLLs, which suck btw).

Plus, the WINE project is making a lot of headway. If you're a real gaming addict you can get a piece of commercial software by Transgaming called Cedega which is engineered for gaming performance. WINE is not an emulator! WINE provides the libaries needed to execute Windows executables under Linux -- which essentially means it's a native process, only it has to access libaries that are not natively implemented in Linux. As a result, game performance in WINE has repeatedly equalled or exceeded that of running in native Windows because Linux is simply more efficient with it's memory and filesystem usage.

Hope you find this post useful...basically what I'm saying is install Gentoo or Slackware so you can really get dirty tinkering with the system and get good answers for your good questions. Get ahold of Cedega for games that haven't been ported and enjoy native games (note that Quake 4 will be ported to Linux...)!

Heh

[theantix]

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.

Re:YAD!

[natrius]

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.

A classic example of how NOT to support Linux

[DigiShaman]

"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.

Re:CentOS

[Total_Wimp]

Not that I'm against variety or anything, but doesn't it make sense for these two projects to merge? Is there some need each fills that the other doesn't?

I'm not trying to bash either one, I just don't understand why if they live next door, leave at the same time and work in the same office they might not want to ride-share?

TW

Re:CentOS

[halleluja]

RHEL have recommended CentOS in the mailing list if you need an enterpise system and you or your company can't afford $345 a year.

Darn. What company can't afford 345 bucks a year?? I mean, a new computer is even more expensive.

Re:CentOS

[traabil]

IANALE (I Am Not A Linux Expert), but how on earth could you possibly need an enterprise system if you cannot afford $345 a year?

Re:Looks like WBEL is being discontinued...

[Yonder Way]

whiteboxlinux.net used to be a community site for the WBEL distribution. The lead maintainer of the WBEL project, exhibiting the traits of some of the greatest people in FOSS, was a complete dickhead to work with and furthermore refused almost all offers of help. Said dickhead blasted the whiteboxlinux.net site, wrote it off as domain hijacking, and the site maintainer was lured away to work on CentOS which had a much stronger community behind it and very approachable project leadership.

WBEL was probably the first RHEL clone out with a 1.0 release but it's also a one man show. CentOS has a small army of people behind it so if one or two important people get hit by a bus, it will continue on without them.

Re:White Box? Red Hat?

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought is followed the retail box -> white box -> oem naming scheme.