 | | | what is your opinion on White Box linux??? | what is your opinion on White Box linux??? 2005-03-14 - By Schott, Erik J Mr ANOSC/FCBS
Back
-- --Original Message-- --
From: Ed Wilts [mailto:ewilts@(protected)]
Sent: Monday, March 14, 2005 9:29 AM
To: arjanv@(protected); Discussion of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3 (Taroon)
Subject: Re: what is your opinion on White Box linux???
On Mon, Mar 14, 2005 at 02:20:19PM +0100, Arjan van de Ven wrote:
> On Mon, 2005-03-14 at 21:02 +0800, mcclnx mcc wrote:
> > I heard White Box is "clone" of Redhat AS software.
> > My company plan to switch from Redhat AS to White Box
> > to save cost. What is opinion on White Box?
> >
> > Does it stable enough? how about upgrade and third
> > party driver support (e.g. Qlogic card, EMC powerpath,
> > ..) ?
>
> technical issues aside, you need to be aware that most ISVs (EMC, Oracle
> and the like) do not support/certify White Box Linux. So if you require
> a certified environment (if you have a SAN you most likely do) then WB
> might not be the best choice for you.
Further to this point, it should be noted that inot only will the ISVs
not certify on the rebuild, I have seen software that explicitely checks
to see if you're running RHEL or a rebuild and will fail to install on a
rebuild. It could be said that this is poor programming (e.g. parsing
the output of /etc/redhat-release or /etc/issue or looking for a .EL
kernel version) but it's something you need to be aware of. The
rebuilds are NOT RHEL - they don't claim to be and they're not. They're
not simply RHEL without support - they're technically different. White
Box Linux is not a clone of RHEL - it's a slight fork of the product.
It's very likely that if you need EMC Powerpath that you'll need to
purchase a RHEL subscription. Having dealt with EMC in the past,
there's absolutely no way they'll support White Box Linux - you can
certainly ask EMC for their opinion on this. One may also wonder how
you can afford the money for EMC hardware but not a RHEL subscription...
If you really need RHEL, then you need a subscription. In an EMC SAN
environment, I personally wouldn't rely on White Box Linux or any other
rebuild/fork.
.../Ed
--
Ed Wilts, RHCE
Mounds View, MN, USA
mailto:ewilts@(protected)
Member #1, Red Hat Community Ambassador Program
--
Taroon-list mailing list
Taroon-list@(protected)
http://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/taroon-list
I have to agree with Ed on this in particular...if you run into a problem
while installing your EMC software (or other propietary software), tech
support will eventually ask you which OS and version you are using. If it
is an "unsupported configuration", which most knock-off releases are, you
are very likely to find yourself out of luck with regard to tech support.
Agreed, RHEL is not inexpensive and I want to save a buck or euro or rupee
as much as the next person, but the expense of a 500 lb. paperweight (that
EMC software you can't install because of your "unsupported configuration")
is not worth the savings of using some flavour of the software other than
the original.
My personal opinions only.
Erik
--
Taroon-list mailing list
Taroon-list@(protected)
http://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/taroon-list
Earn $52 per hosting referral at Lunarpages.
|
|
|