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New Debian-based Enterprise Linux?
arkanoid.dk writes "Sources close to Progeny, Mandriva and Turbolinux report that a new Enterprise Linux distribution is on its way. Apparently, the distribution will be based on Debian 3.1 Sarge and will form the foundation of the next server distributions from the three companies. The three companies hope that the new distribution will enable them to compete with the market leaders Red Hat and Novell Inc's server distributions. An interesting part is that the new system should support both DEB (Debian package) and RPM (Red Hat Package Management) to enable better cross-compatibility with other Linux flavours. The vendor said: 'It will have a nice, Web-based front end for service management, which Sarge lacks. It's basically oriented toward edge-of-the-network type applications, such as ISP software.'"
I've always considered stock Debian stable to be "Enterprise Grade" for a Linux distribution. Between a huge number of architectures, excellent package management, and great security team, it's my first choice for a server distribution.
Also, Debian has had "RPM compatibility" in the form of Alien for quite some time.
I'm more interested to find out what kind of administrative tools they would bring to the table. Debian has had RPM support for a while.
It disappoints me that distributions that are forked off of Debian often fall short of it by not preserving some of Debians greatest assets, like being the NetBSD of Linux dsitributions so I can run Debian on my x86 desktops, and my PPC Mac Mini. I tried Xandros, which is based off of Debian a while back (not for myself, I was running Slackware back then) and it was okay for x86, but required alot of mucking around just to change the window manager to one that the user preferred. Also, it is x86 only, which is too bad (I know about Ubuntu, but I want one distribution for all desktops if possible, but I don't mind different iteraitons of *BSD on server/router) Lets hope this one will at least support both PPC Macs and x86 PCs.
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The reason my employer is spending big bucks on enterprise Linux (well, not quite so big now that we switched to SLES9) is simple: Oracle (the company, not the product) supports RHEL or SLES, and nothing else. Sure, we could run our databases on Gentoo if we wanted -- it works fine in practice -- but Oracle's terms prohibit that in a production environment, and we'd rather like to continue being able to use the expensive support we're paying for.
If these folks get Oracle certification, I'll be thrilled to have them in the marketplace. Otherwise, as far as my employer and I are concerned, they're "enterprise" in name alone.
(Oh -- and if you're considering Oracle, count the extra cost of a certified OS in as part of what you'll be paying for it. That, and the hair loss and headaches).
If their focus was really for a consumer desktop, they'd knock off the bullshit with Java, Flash, and other desktop must-haves. They have alot of stuff in their wiki that describes the painful steps you have to take to get things working right.
Oh and I hope you don't plan on using dvd::rip or other dvd creation tools that require mplayer. Mplayer segfaults all over the place due to an audio bug and the ubuntu devs have done nothing to fix it.
The kings of the linux desktop will remain Suse, Mandrake and maybe even Fedora until the Ubuntu devs take their distro more seriously. I like it and run it but it's definitely got alot of weirdness they need to work out.
It will have a nice, Web-based front end for service management, which Sarge lacks.
So the distribution will install Webmin and a range of the modules by _default_? Yipee! I've been waiting for that innovation. NOW I'll be able to use linux!
> And even if they were, is it really such a chore
> to upgrade every 12 months, when it's Free?
Yes it is. When they have critical systems that work, they don't want to break it under any circumstance. They don't care about what's new and hip (like geeks, consumers, and programmers like you and me). They just want to get work done and they don't want any surprises.
Most enterprises prefer a 3-5 year upgrade cycle.Some don't want to upgrade 20 old COBOL code, because it works and an upgrade would mean that you have to restart your QA from ground zero. All software has bugs and limitations, but with new software, you have a new set of bugs and a new of limitations (like new memory requirements or dropping old hardware devices). The key difference is that with the old OS, the limitations and bugs are known and workarounds are documented, while in the new OS they aren't. That's why the Linux 2.0 kernel is *still* being patched with security fixes, even though it was first released in 1997 and is really stale. That's why Windows *2000* is still quite popular in enterprise even though everyone knows that move to XP/2003/Longhorn is inevitable, and why some enterprise software still requires Windows NT.
If it works and security patches (without new features/bugs) are kept up to date, why should you have to "fix" it? The only thing Debian needs to be enterprise grade is a predictable 3-5 year release cycle (or the willingness to support all versions of Debian for this long.) so that enterprises can plan their upgrades and burn in verification in an orderly fashion. That appears to be what the new Debian president is promising.
The new "United Linux" group just adds a bit more credibility to that promise.
The article seems to make it sound as if these companies are bringing a lot to Debian, but as many others have pointed out, all these touted enhancements already exist. So really, what the article should emphasize is that these companies are acknowledging they need the support of the Debian world behind them, in order to compete against the strong de-facto corporate standards being set out there by RHEL and SLES. Apparently the LSB alone wasn't strong enough. Whether these companies have anything worthwhile to contribute back to Debian waits to be seen, however. Hopefully they'll be willing to donate resources in the form of either funding or developer time to the foundation if their new distros are successful.
random underscore blankspace at ya know hoo dot comedy.
Not only have they been providing commercial support for Debian for years (and providing employment for many Debian developers), but apparently they're doing well enough at it that some fairly decent-sized companies (neither Mandriva nor Turbo is exactly tiny) are interested in teaming up with them.