This distribution of White Box Enterprise Linux 4 is free/Open Source Software
made available by Red Hat, but was not produced, maintained, or supported by
Red Hat. White Box is a distribution with enterprise strength power. It creates
a reliable and secure platform for commercial environments.
White Box Enterprise Linux. Enterprise strength, Penguin Power. White Box creates
a reliable, secure, high performance platform designed for today's commercial
environments--with capabilities that match or surpass those of proprietary operating
systems.
There may be remaining packaging problems and other odd bugs. These are solely
the responsibility of the White Box Linux effort and should not in any shape,
manner or form reflect on the quality of Red Hat's commercial product. In fact,
if you need a fully tested and supported OS you probably should go buy their
box set.
What is the goal for White Box Linux?
To provide an unencumbered RPM based Linux distribution that retains enough
compatibility with Red Hat Linux to allow easy upgrades and to retain compatibility
with their Errata srpms. Being based off of RHEL4 means that a machine should
be able to avoid the upgrade treadmill since RHEL promises Errata availability
for five years from date of initial release.
Or more briefly, to fill the gap between Fedora and RHEL.
Why was White Box Linux created?
White Box Linux's initial creation has been sponsored by the Beauregard Parish
Public Library in DeRidder, LA USA out of self interest. We have several servers
and over fifty workstations running Red Hat Linux and were left high and dry
by their recent shift in business plan. Our choices were a difficult migration
to another distribution or paying RedHat an annual fee greater than the amortized
value of our hardware. So we chose a third path, made possible by the power
of Open Source.... White Box Linux.
