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?

[Anonymous Coward]

CentOS URL

Re:What about CentOS?

[guacamole]

Yeah! I just saw those screenshots and they totally convinced me that CentOS is a much better OS than RHEL and WhiteBox Linux.

Re:What about CentOS?

[Anonymous Coward]

Mmm.. CentOS. The Freshmaker.

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)

White Box? Red Hat?

[Bananatree3]

Hmmm... how about Purple Moose?

CentOS

[barwin]

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.

Re:CentOS

[LnxAddct]

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. I guess that says alot about it. Some red hat engineers have even helped the CentOS project out.
Regards,
Steve

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:CentOS

[jallen02]

Its not about needing an enterprise system. If you want to use RedHat's more stable product offerings then you have to pay. While Fedora Core is a nice operating system it is referred to as a "Test Bed" by RedHat. "Test Bed" operating system and "Production Environment" don't go toghether in my mind. With the end of RH 9 there isn't a freely available OS from RH anymore. You have to pay. So if you are familiar with and or like RedHat you have to compile from source if you don't want to pay. This is especially interesting when you have software that only runs on one of the commercial operating systems and you have been using RH for years as it was one of the supported OSes. $345 / year * 10 boxes. That is not an insignificant cost. Across 5 years that is ~$20,000.

Jeremy

Re:CentOS

[darylb]

I've fount CentOS quite useful for testing, especially with Oracle. The production and final QA machines run RHEL. Unit and integration testing all runs with CentOS. The goal is to duplicate the production system as much as possible early in the cycle. CentOS is great for this.

Differences between Whitebox, CentOS, Tao?

[Anonymous Coward]

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?

Re:Differences between Whitebox, CentOS, Tao?

[bircho]

"You fail to understand the Tao. Go away."

Re:Will it be free?`

[CompotatoJ]

If it is availible from BitTorrent (legally), then it is free.

It is important to note...

[LnxAddct]

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

Re:It is important to note...

[LnxAddct]

Ugh... ignore the above post, it is accurate if you replace White Box with CentOS. It may still be accurate for White Box, but I only know for CentOS. It was my understanding that one project took over for the other (so White Box == CentOS or so I thought), but apparently they are still both up and running, go figure.
Regards,
Steve

Other flavors... CentOS & TaoLinux

[Erik_]

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/

What about kernel compatibility?

[mnmn]

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?

Re:What about kernel compatibility?

[barwin]

Had that problem with one of the early CentOS kernels because they had renamed it. Now they keep the name exactly the same so any 3rd party drivers that rely on kernel versions are 100% compatible with CentOS. I can only assume WBEL is doing the same (or will when complaints come flooding in).

"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?

Re:Will it be free?`

[gtoomey]

Its been available and free for years. Its Red Hat Enterprise Linux minus the Red Hat name released under thet GPL. This is a new release.

Support

[Cruithne]

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?

img-timeline

[buddha42]

just fyi to anyone actually interested in a free RHEL rebuild, look into CentOS. When RHEL rebuilding first became a need, there were half a dozen different rebuild projects, of which Whitebox was the first/most-popular. However since then tao is all but dead, scientific is looking to merge with centos, and wbel went weeks and sometimes months between when redhat would release a security update and when he would get around to repackaging it. CentOS has emerged as "the" RHEL rebuild because it doesnt try to do its own thing at all, just rebuild RHEL, and because there is usually a less than 24 hour lag behind official RHEL packages.

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.

YALD

[Anonymous Coward]

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

Looks like WBEL is being discontinued...

[sasha328]

I went to the WBEL website, got re-directed to Whiteboxlinux.net and this is what I saw:
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?faq id=19

I am confused now. Who's who?

Re:Looks like WBEL is being discontinued...

[nonce tomar]

A former user of Whitebox Linux and a semi infrequent poster to the user's list decided that whiteboxlinux.org didn't provide enough info and started this unrelated website. Subsequently he/they decided that Whitebox linux didn't meet his/their needs and put up that crappy statement. A shame as it confuses new users and spreads bogus information. I wish he/they would just take it down.

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.

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:Mod parent up

[Tim C]

I like the idea of two directories being physically different places and you can drag files from 'here' to 'there'.

You mean like you can do with a single window and a dir tree to one side? (Genuine question, I've not used Nautilus at all in years)

Re:Mod parent up

[drew]

I wouldn't say that people look down on redhat for asking for money, so much as they like having an alternative when the money isn't necessary.

for example, i worked with a company who was looking to deploy their servers on a new platform. The initial development was done on FreeBSD, but we were looking at using Red Hat Enterprise Linux when the time finally came for full scale deployment. We had no problem with paying for the Red Hat Enterprise subscription on our production servers, but we wanted to be able to test the software on Red Hat before committing to the subscription. We set up a testing server with White Box Linux to verify compatibility before making the subscription commitment. Our development systems and backup servers continued to run White Box Linux after the deployment as well, as we did not see the value of paying a RedHat Subscription on those machines.

Also, a lot of people have criticixed Red Hat for not having a reasonable licensing structure for educational institutions, cluster setups, etc. After all, White Box Linux was written for a library when it was determined that the cost of an enterprise subscription for all of their servers would have been greater than the value of their hardware.

Sloppy editing strikes again

[goon america]

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."

Re:Sloppy editing strikes again

[hdparm]

I'm not a native english speaker but I must tell you that you should be ashamed if you are.

I'm almost ready to dump XP

[DigiShaman]

...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.

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...)!

Re:I'm almost ready to dump XP

[dougmc]

Why can't the community get togeather and create an open API like Microsofts Direct-X?

You mean like OpenGL? (Ok, yes, I know, DirectX does more than just graphics ...)

In any event, you don't usually play games on enterprise Linux distributions. So your post is rather out of place here.

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.

Since we're talking about enterprise Linux distibutions, what enterprise Linux really needs is native application support from vendors. You know, vendors like Oracle, IBM, BEA, etc. That's what it needs before it can become a viable alternative to running the sorts of products that enterprises seem to like running outside of Solaris, AIX or Windows (or a few others.)

(And if your sarcasm detector needs some calibration, click on some of the links I gave before you post a comment based on my comment ...)

Re:Both are OK

[LnxAddct]

Enterprise systems need to meet a certain criteria. Not many distributions meet this criteria except for Red Hat and Novell. This is based off of the common criteria I've seen set forth by most Fortune 500 companies. In the end it is really up to the admin but Ubuntu is not enterprise ready, nor are a slew of others. Debian used to be and still might meet the criteria, but in all honesty their stable version is getting too far behind and with the recent political issues in the project, its future is too uncertain for a business. I tested debian testing and unstable about 3 months ago because alot claim that those are good enough and are stable, I set up a cron job to install all updates daily (I have a similar set up on red hat) and within a month and one week both debian installations broke more then once (even if it was minor a few times, it wasn't acceptable). Don't get me wrong, other distros are nice for small businesses and home use, but certainly not enterprise.
Regards,
Steve

Software?

[Masq666]

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?

whitebox torrent...

[torrents]

mirror here: whitebox torrent

in case it goes down (little slow) hopefully tracker doesn't go with it...

Re:ST Font?

[ABeowulfCluster]

Khaaaaaaaaaaaaaannnnoppix!

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.

WBEL vs Fedora vs CentOS

[diamondsw]

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.

Re:WBEL vs Fedora vs CentOS

[HuguesT]

To answer your queries:

I don't know the difference between WBEL/CentOS, they are very much alike. CentOS seems to have a larger community behind it, perhaps.

Redhat will EOL FC3 in about 9 months. After that you'll get some sort of community support for a while. The community will have to fix everything by hand. Since a new version of FC happens every 6 months or so and each version will require a new team to look after it I wouldn't assume this would go on for too long

RH will EOL RHEL4 in about 5 years. WBEL/CentOS are just recompiled version of RHEL with the trademarked stuff removed. Support will consist of recompiling the RH official fixes, which is much more likely to happen.

If you are running some kind of server where desktop prettiness is not that important, where stability is paramount but can't afford RHEL because it's in your basement, go for WBEL/CentOS. If you want to keep getting the newest stuff on your desktop and don't mind upgrading fairly frequently (every 6 months to a year) then go for FC.

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.

Satellite and Proxy

[Miniluv]

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.