WBEL4 Preview Ready For Testing 265
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.
What about CentOS? (Score:5, Insightful)
"To Retain Enough Compatibility" - Not good enough (Score:5, Insightful)
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? (Score:3, Insightful)
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 (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Mod parent up (Score:5, Insightful)
Regards,
Steve
Re:I'm almost ready to dump XP (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:I'm almost ready to dump XP (Score:2, Insightful)
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 (Score:5, Insightful)
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! (Score:3, Insightful)
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. [ubuntu.com] 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, [ubuntulinux.org] 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. [foresightlinux.com] 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.
Comment removed (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:CentOS (Score:4, Insightful)
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 (Score:3, Insightful)
Darn. What company can't afford 345 bucks a year?? I mean, a new computer is even more expensive.
Re:CentOS (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Mod parent up (Score:2, Insightful)
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:Looks like WBEL is being discontinued... (Score:4, Insightful)
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:What about CentOS? (Score:2, Insightful)
(So that new release is now old
Re:White Box? Red Hat? (Score:1, Insightful)