[wplug] White Box Linux

[Vanco, Don]

Carl B. [cbenedic at pittsburghtechs.com] wrote:
> http://www.beau.org/~jmorris/linux/whitebox/index.html
> 
> I saw this recently and I am considering trying it out.  Has
> anyone else
> heard of it / about it / or even used it?  It is based on
> RHEL3.  I am a
> fan of RH, although there are 3 things I dislike:  (1) RPM is ok, but
> pkgtool is better! :) 
rpm + yum + apt will rule the world.
	RPM (and up2date) work very well on the distro they were designed
for.  RPM manages packages incredibly well, and up2date and RHN manage dep
resolution equally well.  If you're itching to build an unstable distro than
RHEL (or any clone) is not for you.  It's an entirely different philosophy.

> (2) EVERY package is compiled for i386.  
	If that's an issue then simply do what the WB folks have done - pull
the source and compile your own distro.  Frankly, I'm puzzled by this move -
perhaps it was too hard for them to compile with the "arch=" option :)  
	You could go even one better - build a DVD installer rather than the
traditional CDs.  I have a link to this is anyone is interested....

> (3) The
> new changes involving RH's future bite.  
	In what way?  They're an Enterprise Linux company, and what they're
doing reflect that very well.  We sell _a lot_.  Not a personal attack here,
but it's _really_ tiring to hear all the desktop users whining about RHEL
when RHEL is no longer aimed at them.  Want free/flexible/unstable?  Look at
Fedora (which, BTW, kicks @$$) or stick with Debian.

> As far as #3, White Box says
> they believe they will be supported due to being based on RHEL3 (more
> info on the above URL). 
	That is one HUGE leap of faith.  Seriously.  I cannot foresee Oracle
(as a ferinstance) _ever_ taking the time (or the risk in jeopardizing the
RH relationship) in supporting this distro.  No one with a true business
critical app will ever run this distro in order to save $2500/year - it's a
really bad idea(tm).  Look at enterprise class application vendors - they
barely support SuSE and Red Hat (and occasionally United Linux) as it is....
I would expect to see Debian support before White Box Linux.

	As a "casual user" it's got merits, and it's free - but I never see
it going beyond the casual user.  If it were compiled for 686 I could see
some traction in Beowulf clusters - but here again, any serious users have
already pulled the source and compiled as needed.  That's one thing that
rpm(build) has going for it - ease of duplication/regeneration.

My $.02
Don