enterprise distribution

[blu at vl.com (Tom Metro)]

Matt Shields wrote:
> I can tell you from experience and from being involved with the CentOS
> group that it is a very good distro.  It is a direct recompile of RH. 
> So anything that runs on RH will run on CentOS.  They support numerous
> architectures and updates come out within 24 to 48 hours of them being
> released from RH.

Is the cloning process automated or a collection of operations done by hand?

How are the updates distributed? A collection of mirrors that are 
accessible via Yum?


> Also stay away from Lineox, they have licensing issues and it costs to
> purchase updates.

Selling updates is their main business model. If you buy their argument 
that they're in a better position to deliver timely updates, then that 
seems like a reasonable service to charge for. (I also see they make 
updates available for free after a month delay, which could be 
acceptable for a development machine already behind a firewall.)

As for licensing, the impression I got was that the fees or limits were 
tied to the services (ISO downloads and updates) they provided. The only 
mention of a license I could find was here:
http://www.lineox.net/supportlicense.php
and it contains the key sentence, "Customer may not use one subscription 
for Services for more than one Installed System," which is their way of 
getting around the fact that Lineox doesn't hold the copyright of the 
software itself (which they also admit to in the agreement, saying, 
"Most of the Linux Programs are licensed pursuant to a Linux EULA that 
permits you to copy, modify, and redistribute the software, in both 
source code and binary code forms.").

I'd be curious to hear from anyone who has actually worked with Lineox 
and has a feel for its quality, compatibility, and the company itself.


> Scientific Linux/Fermilab is also a good choice, but I find they are
> more geared toward the scientific community...

That was the impression I got as well, and thus didn't include them in 
my survey. Though I see I overlooked them on the DistroWatch popularity 
chart. They come in at 47, a few steps below White Box.


> Also, if you are partial to a RH environment and looking to use this
> in your own appliance, you could also build your own clone from the RH
> sources.

True, though the point to using an existing distribution is to offload 
the burden of maintaining the distribution. Mirroring updates (and 
probably certifying them for the appliance) from CentOS or Lineox is one 
thing, but having to create the updates is just added work without any 
value add.

The appliance idea is more of a long term consideration, and my thought 
was that using a distro that is RH compatible would make it easy to 
install RH (at an additional expense) in cases where the customer 
required it. For typical use, a clone should be adequate.

  -Tom