June, 2004 CCS News: Lab Evaluating Linux Options

June, 2004

Lab Evaluating Linux Options

When Red Hat announced last year that it was discontinuing support for its free version of Linux software, the Lab was able to negotiate and purchase the new Red Hat Enterprise Linux at a deeply discounted price for the majority of the Lab's Linux systems. However, these licenses expire later this year and the cost of renewal is expected to increase.

Gary Jung of the UNIX Services Group in ITSD is leading an effort to evaluate the current Red Hat arrangement and to explore other alternatives. As part of this effort, ITSD is working with representatives of the Lab's scientific divisions to get their input before making a decision.

At the June meeting of CSAC, the Computing and Communications Services Advisory Committee, Jung said the following options are being considered:

A consortium of national labs is negotiating for affordable pricing from Red Hat that would make it attractive for the LBNL to continue with Red Hat Enterprise Linux as the Lab standard.
Novell, for which the Lab already has a software site license, recently bought SuSE, a German firm which produces a Linux package in competition with Red Hat. Under the Lab's current license, SuSE's Linux is currently available at no additional cost. Switching to SuSE, however, could require a great deal of effort and could raise compatibility problems with the other research sites using Red Hat.
A third consideration would be to go with a generic version of Red Hat's Enterprise Linux which is free to download and is fully featured, but does not include technical support.

Watch Computing and Communications Services News for updates.