[TriLUG] free RHEL alternative news

[Magnus Hedemark]

Jon Carnes wrote:

> Cool!  Anyone currently using the WH version?  I'm trying the new
> SuSE/Novell - it's very nice but I haven't put it under load on a server
> yet...  My clients are sure to like WH though - as it is a knock off of
> RH Enterprise.

I'm running White Box Enterprise Linux on my desktop at work right now 
as an eval.  I also have Fedora Core running as an eval.

Fedora Core 1 further blurs the lines between KDE & Gnome, and is a bit 
more assertive about pushing Gnome on you in that during install time 
you aren't even asked anymore whether you want Gnome or KDE to be the 
default GUI (it just ass-umes you want Gnome).  But it does appear to be 
an evolutionary step past Red Hat Linux 9 in most other ways.  They 
didn't seem to try hard to eliminate the Red Hat trademarks from Fedora 
Core 1.  If you have a shop that automates a lot of deployment and 
upgrades via Kickstart & Yum, you should have little to no problem 
upgrading to Fedora Core 1.

WBEL 3.0-RC1 is not ready for production use.  There are issues where 
the Red Hat supplied SRPMs don't actually build into the same binary 
RPM's that they distribute for RHEL 3.0.  Those kinks are being worked 
out.  I am bringing RC2 CD's with me to the office today to upgrade my 
box with.  RC1 was pretty darned close to the mark and an amazing first 
try for a project that hasn't yet built up much community support, and 
has the financial backing only of a public library.  I expect that this 
is the distro that many universities and small/medium businesses will be 
lending resources to in their efforts to migrate off of Red Hat Linux 9 
before support disappears.