Hi Folks,
I would like to hear your feelings on a couple of issues:
To start off I've been using FC1 on serveral servers since it's initial release and have had little or no problems, only rebooting for kernel upgrades, etc. Before a flame war starts, I agree that for critical production servers you should be running RHEL. My problem is this:
Several customers are SOHO with less than 15 users and simply cannot justify the cost of RHEL or they might as well be running MS SBS, (Some of them actually believe the MS propaganda!)
I've been playing round with a couple of ideas: Create a single CD Fedora installation with only core apps required for business use, eg. postfix, squid, samba etc Better inital setup, like a wizard after the install to add domain entries to automatically configure postfix, samba and the likes, so after the initial reboot you'll have a fully functional server. Aditional testing of updates, maybe a separate yum mirror, so nightly updates install only critical updates.
*important* What I don't want is to reinvent the wheel, the Fedora community is doing great work and we don't need to fork into yet another distro. This should be something between the latest and greatest, FC2, and a stable production environment - RHEL. (maybe if this all works, we can plough some of it back into FC3?)
I'm not very fond of fixed release schedules, if it's broken, fix it and release a new ISO, this will save us answering the same questions on the list time after time.
By stripping down the initial install we can fokus on making Fedora better and we can actually implement some of the suggestions on this list. Being based on Fedora it should be easy to add additional components as required, something like a minimal install and add what you need.
Your thoughts... Roland
------------------------------------------------- Linux Wizards - www.linwiz.com Security Wizards - www.secwiz.com -------------------------------------------------
On Sat, 26 Jun 2004, Roland Venter wrote:
Hi Folks,
I would like to hear your feelings on a couple of issues:
To start off I've been using FC1 on serveral servers since it's initial release and have had little or no problems, only rebooting for kernel upgrades, etc. Before a flame war starts, I agree that for critical production servers you should be running RHEL. My problem is this:
Several customers are SOHO with less than 15 users and simply cannot justify the cost of RHEL or they might as well be running MS SBS, (Some of them actually believe the MS propaganda!)
From this problem description - it appears you want a RHEL clone:
CentOS/WBEL/TaoLinux
http://www.centos.org/ http://www.whiteboxlinux.org/ http://taolinux.org/
I've been playing round with a couple of ideas: Create a single CD Fedora installation with only core apps required for business use, eg. postfix, squid, samba etc Better inital setup, like a wizard after the install to add domain entries to automatically configure postfix, samba and the likes, so after the initial reboot you'll have a fully functional server. Aditional testing of updates, maybe a separate yum mirror, so nightly updates install only critical updates.
there were some discussions in fedora-devel-list about having fedora support various installation modes - which could include some of the minimal installs for specific purposes like this. Don't know what decisions were made there.
Satish
Roland Venter wrote:
Hi Folks,
I would like to hear your feelings on a couple of issues:
To start off I've been using FC1 on serveral servers since it's initial release and have had little or no problems, only rebooting for kernel upgrades, etc. Before a flame war starts, I agree that for critical production servers you should be running RHEL. My problem is this:
Several customers are SOHO with less than 15 users and simply cannot justify the cost of RHEL or they might as well be running MS SBS, (Some of them actually believe the MS propaganda!)
I've been playing round with a couple of ideas: Create a single CD Fedora installation with only core apps required for business use, eg. postfix, squid, samba etc Better inital setup, like a wizard after the install to add domain entries to automatically configure postfix, samba and the likes, so after the initial reboot you'll have a fully functional server. Aditional testing of updates, maybe a separate yum mirror, so nightly updates install only critical updates.
*important* What I don't want is to reinvent the wheel, the Fedora community is doing great work and we don't need to fork into yet another distro. This should be something between the latest and greatest, FC2, and a stable production environment - RHEL. (maybe if this all works, we can plough some of it back into FC3?)
I'm not very fond of fixed release schedules, if it's broken, fix it and release a new ISO, this will save us answering the same questions on the list time after time.
By stripping down the initial install we can fokus on making Fedora better and we can actually implement some of the suggestions on this list. Being based on Fedora it should be easy to add additional components as required, something like a minimal install and add what you need.
Your thoughts... Roland
Well since Fedora is released under the GPL you are perfectly allowed to repackage the distribution and send it out under a different name. The only requirement I believe is to remove all reference to the Fedora name from the system. I am pretty sure when I read the Fedora license agreement and it mentioned that everything was under the GPL except the name Fedora and some of the jpeg's used for branding in the distro. So as long as you strip out the Fedora name and any reference to Fedora you should be able to customize your own version of the distro.
Heck you can even get around the name thing and just use an abbreviation. Call it BCF - Linux (Business Class based on Fedora). The only thing is that you are going to have to set up a mirror for all the patches. Since you have to support your own distro without using the Fedora name you will have to download the source for the patches and recompile them and make sure references to Fedora are removed.
I guess this comes back to the whole forking issue.
You can customize your own distro install by using Anaconda and customizing the install and the available packages. In this scenario the update process is the same as Fedora because you aren't changing the name of the OS or the update mirrors. The only issue with doing it this way is that any knowledgeable user can just log in as root and use yum to grab the extra packages you left off the distro.
Since the whole distro is open source you can pretty much do whatever you want, the only restriction is on the Fedora name, and the amount of work that you are willing to do.
Sincerely, Gerald Thompson
Gerald Thompson said: [snip]
Well since Fedora is released under the GPL you are perfectly allowed to repackage the distribution and send it out under a different name. The only requirement I believe is to remove all reference to the Fedora name from the system. I am pretty sure when I read the Fedora license agreement and it mentioned that everything was under the GPL
Then you need to read it again, because everything is definitely not under the GPL.
That said all the programs in Fedora are under freely distributable licenses.
On Fri, 2004-06-25 at 15:18, Roland Venter wrote:
Hi Folks,
I would like to hear your feelings on a couple of issues:
To start off I've been using FC1 on serveral servers since it's initial release and have had little or no problems, only rebooting for kernel upgrades, etc. Before a flame war starts, I agree that for critical production servers you should be running RHEL. My problem is this:
Several customers are SOHO with less than 15 users and simply cannot justify the cost of RHEL or they might as well be running MS SBS, (Some of them actually believe the MS propaganda!)
I've been playing round with a couple of ideas: Create a single CD Fedora installation with only core apps required for business use, eg. postfix, squid, samba etc Better inital setup, like a wizard after the install to add domain entries to automatically configure postfix, samba and the likes, so after the initial reboot you'll have a fully functional server. Aditional testing of updates, maybe a separate yum mirror, so nightly updates install only critical updates.
*important* What I don't want is to reinvent the wheel, the Fedora community is doing great work and we don't need to fork into yet another distro. This should be something between the latest and greatest, FC2, and a stable production environment - RHEL. (maybe if this all works, we can plough some of it back into FC3?)
I'm not very fond of fixed release schedules, if it's broken, fix it and release a new ISO, this will save us answering the same questions on the list time after time.
By stripping down the initial install we can fokus on making Fedora better and we can actually implement some of the suggestions on this list. Being based on Fedora it should be easy to add additional components as required, something like a minimal install and add what you need.
---- your fondness or lack thereof of edge / release scheduled distributions is noted but not of interest to fedora. Production servers really should be on 'stable' which is what you want. White Box is what you want...RHEL for free. I would encourage them to use RHEL but if they want stable for free...this is the ticket.
Craig
Craig White wrote:
Production servers really should be on 'stable' which is what you want. White Box is what you want...RHEL for free. I would encourage them to use RHEL but if they want stable for free...this is the ticket.
What about Tao and Centos Linux that are also based on RHEL? Anyone have any experience comparing them?
Also, RH9 or FC1 seem to be better for people who want to avoid bugs, since FC1 contains so many first or early releases of software (Gnome 2.6.0, Xorg, and Linux Kernel 2.6.5 (on the install CD).
That said, I'm still using FC2, and am testing it for a Mail server.
Mike
Roland Venter wrote:
Hi Folks,
I would like to hear your feelings on a couple of issues:
To start off I've been using FC1 on several servers since it's initial release and have had little or no problems, only rebooting for kernel upgrades, etc. Before a flame war starts, I agree that for critical production servers you should be running RHEL. My problem is this:
Stable means Stable. If FC1 is stable in the configuration you set up , then it simply is stable and fits the "production" server criteria. I personally don't agree that RHEL is for the "real" businesses and anything else is just used for hobbyist.
Try installing SUN on a SATA MB and see well that works. Does this mean SUN isn't a production OS? Its all about hardware and your hardware setup seems to agree with FC1.
rcr
At 04:18 PM 6/25/2004, Roland Venter wrote:
I've been playing round with a couple of ideas: Create a single CD Fedora installation with only core apps required for business use, eg. postfix, squid, samba etc Better inital setup, like a wizard after the install to add domain entries to automatically configure postfix, samba and the likes, so after the initial reboot you'll have a fully functional server.
Kickstart!
Aditional testing of updates, maybe a separate yum mirror, so nightly updates install only critical updates.
Beyond the scope, objectives, and interest of Fedora to do "additional testing" for the hope of slightly increased stability. Besides, not all that necessary. If you're installing only the stuff you need, then by all means keep everything up to date!
I'm not very fond of fixed release schedules, if it's broken, fix it and release a new ISO, this will save us answering the same questions on the list time after time.
Fedora's purpose in moving forward quickly and pushing the developers to work harder is going to work against you here. While you or anyone could release a new/additional/different ISO, the Fedora Project isn't likely to do so.
By stripping down the initial install we can fokus on making Fedora better and we can actually implement some of the suggestions on this list.
Aw, come on... inconsistent logic here. Let's say that today you are not involved in improving Fedora in any way. Let's say that you are going to start investing time/effort/money/whatever to improve Fedora. You can always choose where (i.e. in what packages, features, or concepts) to invest that time; the size of the distro or the size of the default (note default) installs do not affect you at all.
Cheers,
On Fri, Jun 25, 2004 at 06:20:10PM -0700, Craig White wrote: ....
By stripping down the initial install we can fokus on making Fedora better and we can actually implement some of the suggestions on this list. Being based on Fedora it should be easy to add additional components as required, something like a minimal install and add what you need.
your fondness or lack thereof of edge / release scheduled distributions is noted but not of interest to fedora. Production servers really should be on 'stable' which is what you want. White Box is what you want...RHEL for free. I would encourage them to use RHEL but if they want stable for free...this is the ticket.
whiteboxlinux, Tao and Centos Linux...
Think clearly about using a parasitic distribution that takes the source of a supported product and deprives the primary support organization of it's beer money.
If you cannot afford RHEL at the list price call and beg. Then do what has to be done.
If you like the added value and twiddle that the secondary packaging folks add then sure.
And yes "parasitic distribution" is a bit loaded. If you can operate in a symbiotic way to the "community" on a secondary distribution have at it (IMO).
In many ways that is what RH is doing. They are symbiotic in this GPL, opensource, GNU, Linux world we are in.
Free as in speech not as in beer, an interesting concept.
On Tue, Jun 29, 2004 at 10:50:37PM -0700, T. Nifty Hat Mitchell wrote:
On Fri, Jun 25, 2004 at 06:20:10PM -0700, Craig White wrote: ....
By stripping down the initial install we can fokus on making Fedora better and we can actually implement some of the suggestions on this list. Being based on Fedora it should be easy to add additional components as required, something like a minimal install and add what you need.
your fondness or lack thereof of edge / release scheduled distributions is noted but not of interest to fedora. Production servers really should be on 'stable' which is what you want. White Box is what you want...RHEL for free. I would encourage them to use RHEL but if they want stable for free...this is the ticket.
whiteboxlinux, Tao and Centos Linux...
Think clearly about using a parasitic distribution that takes the source of a supported product and deprives the primary support organization of it's beer money.
ftp://ftp.redhat.com/pub/redhat/linux/enterprise/3/en/os/i386/SRPMS ftp://ftp.redhat.com/pub/redhat/linux/updates/enterprise/3AS/en/os/SRPMS
RedHat allows this, so it must feel that either it gains on doing this, or it isn't losing much (it decided against RH Linux and moved to Fedora for *some* reasons).
WhiteBox compiles and packages a distribution that is worthwhile to the community, for nothing. How is it being parasitic?
If you cannot afford RHEL at the list price call and beg. Then do what has to be done.
I paid for RHN in RHL 9 days, when I had a part time job. Now, I can't afford RHEL at any price, as my money isn't mine to spend on how I choose. If I'm intelligent enough to support some linux systems by my own, and I'm only interested in security updates, freely available from redhat, how can I justify such expense?
But I'm trying to get the university department to get a subscription, at least for the Linux Investigation Group here (http://gil.di.uminho.pt/). But money is running low around here.
And I'm talking about the education subscription, imagine AS at full price for a couple of machines.
If you like the added value and twiddle that the secondary packaging folks add then sure.
And yes "parasitic distribution" is a bit loaded. If you can operate in a symbiotic way to the "community" on a secondary distribution have at it (IMO).
In many ways that is what RH is doing. They are symbiotic in this GPL, opensource, GNU, Linux world we are in.
Free as in speech not as in beer, an interesting concept.
But still free to resell or give away.
Regards, Luciano Rocha
On Wed, 2004-06-30 at 00:39, Luciano Miguel Ferreira Rocha wrote:
On Tue, Jun 29, 2004 at 10:50:37PM -0700, T. Nifty Hat Mitchell wrote:
On Fri, Jun 25, 2004 at 06:20:10PM -0700, Craig White wrote: ....
By stripping down the initial install we can fokus on making Fedora better and we can actually implement some of the suggestions on this list. Being based on Fedora it should be easy to add additional components as required, something like a minimal install and add what you need.
your fondness or lack thereof of edge / release scheduled distributions is noted but not of interest to fedora. Production servers really should be on 'stable' which is what you want. White Box is what you want...RHEL for free. I would encourage them to use RHEL but if they want stable for free...this is the ticket.
whiteboxlinux, Tao and Centos Linux...
Think clearly about using a parasitic distribution that takes the source of a supported product and deprives the primary support organization of it's beer money.
ftp://ftp.redhat.com/pub/redhat/linux/enterprise/3/en/os/i386/SRPMS ftp://ftp.redhat.com/pub/redhat/linux/updates/enterprise/3AS/en/os/SRPMS
RedHat allows this, so it must feel that either it gains on doing this, or it isn't losing much (it decided against RH Linux and moved to Fedora for *some* reasons).
WhiteBox compiles and packages a distribution that is worthwhile to the community, for nothing. How is it being parasitic?
---- from dictionary.com "parasite"
1. Biology. An organism that grows, feeds, and is sheltered on or in a different organism while contributing nothing to the survival of its host. 2. a. One who habitually takes advantage of the generosity of others without making any useful return. b. One who lives off and flatters the rich; a sycophant. 3. A professional dinner guest, especially in ancient Greece.
Probably a fair statement that it is parasitic. The problem lies that people attach a negative connotation to the term. Parasites are sometimes beneficial to the hosts though the above suggests that this is not the case...nature is full of contradictions.
By virtue of GPL and other various licenses, Red Hat must make source available for their RHEL but not necessarily in this form. But considering that the largesse and certainly the most valuable code in RHEL is derived from others efforts, this seems to be a fair enough proposition.
The problems with an RHEL clone are more to the tune of the fact that you are uncertain of how many eyes are auditing it, that bug reports don't get back to the providers (Red Hat) and of course, there is no accountability (i.e. support).
It's an option, nothing more, nothing less.
Craig
On Thu, 2004-07-01 at 09:20 -0700, Craig White wrote:
The problems with an RHEL clone are more to the tune of the fact that you are uncertain of how many eyes are auditing it, that bug reports
At least one more than Red Hat :)
don't get back to the providers (Red Hat) and of course, there is no accountability (i.e. support).
The only thing I ever wanted was not having the trouble to maintain software updates, and just bother with system administration, updating software, etc...
So, for fetching N rpms RHEL subscription plans way too expensive. An yearly subscription to give me access to update download would be nice, but no... Red Hat preffered to give way too much more than what I need on a very expensive plan, and keeps disregarding a small market that would come by addition.
Pay 1800 EUR/year for getting updates, we would accept. Pay N*1800 EUR/year for much more than the updates (that we don't need) for N machines we don't accept.
Of course... the instructions on WBEL's site have been very useful...
Rui
On Thu, 2004-07-01 at 17:24 +0100, Rui Miguel Seabra wrote:
So, for fetching N rpms RHEL subscription plans way too expensive.
(...)
Pay N*1800 EUR/year for much more than the updates (that we don't need) for N machines we don't accept.
Just to make my self clear, the first N is different from the other two, who are the same.
RUi
On Thu, Jul 01, 2004 at 09:20:32AM -0700, Craig White wrote:
On Wed, 2004-06-30 at 00:39, Luciano Miguel Ferreira Rocha wrote:
On Tue, Jun 29, 2004 at 10:50:37PM -0700, T. Nifty Hat Mitchell wrote:
On Fri, Jun 25, 2004 at 06:20:10PM -0700, Craig White wrote: ....
By stripping down the initial install we can fokus on making Fedora better and we can actually implement some of the suggestions on this list. Being based on Fedora it should be easy to add additional components as required, something like a minimal install and add what you need.
your fondness or lack thereof of edge / release scheduled distributions is noted but not of interest to fedora. Production servers really should be on 'stable' which is what you want. White Box is what you want...RHEL for free. I would encourage them to use RHEL but if they want stable for free...this is the ticket.
whiteboxlinux, Tao and Centos Linux...
Think clearly about using a parasitic distribution that takes the source of a supported product and deprives the primary support organization of it's beer money.
ftp://ftp.redhat.com/pub/redhat/linux/enterprise/3/en/os/i386/SRPMS ftp://ftp.redhat.com/pub/redhat/linux/updates/enterprise/3AS/en/os/SRPMS
RedHat allows this, so it must feel that either it gains on doing this, or it isn't losing much (it decided against RH Linux and moved to Fedora for *some* reasons).
WhiteBox compiles and packages a distribution that is worthwhile to the community, for nothing. How is it being parasitic?
from dictionary.com "parasite"
- Biology. An organism that grows, feeds, and is sheltered on or in a different organism while contributing nothing to the survival of its host.
- a. One who habitually takes advantage of the generosity of others without making any useful return. b. One who lives off and flatters the rich; a sycophant.
- A professional dinner guest, especially in ancient Greece.
Well, those imply taking something away from the host, and thus my reluctance to accept such term.
Probably a fair statement that it is parasitic. The problem lies that people attach a negative connotation to the term. Parasites are sometimes beneficial to the hosts though the above suggests that this is not the case...nature is full of contradictions.
Those are more often called symbiotes. :)
By virtue of GPL and other various licenses, Red Hat must make source available for their RHEL but not necessarily in this form.
And not to everybody, but they chose so.
But considering that the largesse and certainly the most valuable code in RHEL is derived from others efforts, this seems to be a fair enough proposition.
The problems with an RHEL clone are more to the tune of the fact that you are uncertain of how many eyes are auditing it, that bug reports don't get back to the providers (Red Hat) and of course, there is no accountability (i.e. support).
It's an option, nothing more, nothing less.
Yes, and people will have to decide for themselfs what's best for them. But to call WB as "parasitic" and 'depriving the primary support organization of it's beer money' seems not 'a bit loaded' but an insult to the whitebox people and a failure to realize that it is providing something valuable to the community and, IMO, to RedHat.
And yes, maybe I overreacted and should had just ignored the message.
Regards, Luciano Rocha
On Thu, 2004-07-01 at 09:24, Rui Miguel Seabra wrote:
On Thu, 2004-07-01 at 09:20 -0700, Craig White wrote:
The problems with an RHEL clone are more to the tune of the fact that you are uncertain of how many eyes are auditing it, that bug reports
At least one more than Red Hat :)
---- of course that assumes that the binaries are the same or virtually the same. ----
don't get back to the providers (Red Hat) and of course, there is no accountability (i.e. support).
The only thing I ever wanted was not having the trouble to maintain software updates, and just bother with system administration, updating software, etc...
So, for fetching N rpms RHEL subscription plans way too expensive. An yearly subscription to give me access to update download would be nice, but no... Red Hat preffered to give way too much more than what I need on a very expensive plan, and keeps disregarding a small market that would come by addition.
Pay 1800 EUR/year for getting updates, we would accept. Pay N*1800 EUR/year for much more than the updates (that we don't need) for N machines we don't accept.
Of course... the instructions on WBEL's site have been very useful...
---- clearly a viable option for you and many others. I may use it myself on my own server (now running RH 8)
Craig
-
Craig White -
Gerald Thompson -
Luciano Miguel Ferreira Rocha -
Mike Fedyk -
Randy Ramsdell -
Rodolfo J. Paiz -
Roland Venter -
Rui Miguel Silva Seabra -
Satish Balay -
Tom Mitchell -
William Hooper