14 DAY TRIAL // Pie Box Enterprise Linux 4 AS U6, a UK-based commercial distribution, was released today. It is built from the source RPM packages for Red Hat Enterprise Linux. A small number of installation related packages were modified to replace logos that could infringe trademarks.
The new version comes with new kernel features, including the ability to disable out of memory killer. Drivers such as aacraid, adp94xx, bonding, qla2xxx, etc. are now updated and new ones were added (arcmsr, cxgb3, netxen, etc). Samba was upgraded from version 3.0.10 to 3.0.25.
Just like Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4.6, Pie Box has some technology previews, including frysk, gcc4, systemtap, autofs5 and evolution 28. Pie Box Enterprise Linux 4 AS 6 comes with the Linux 2.6 kernel, GNOME 2.8, SELinux, Logical Volume Manager 2, PCI Express support and more. If you need a stable operating system with a long lifespan, but don't want an expensive bundled contract, then Pie Box is for you. If you have a 64-bit computer, you should know that Pie Box Enterprise Linux 4 works on it, but sometimes it may cause problems because it's 32-bit software running on a 64-bit architecture.
The repository for this version of Pie Box will be active until February 2012, while the one for 3 AS will be closed in August 2010. The updates and repository are similar to the up2date service from Red Hat, Inc. This is a subscription-based service, where errata are distributed, compiled from source RPMs released by Red Hat. After you purchase a subscription key, it will be sent to you by mail, which must be placed in /etc/yum.key file. The user has to edit this file as root and add the text "key= " followed by the subscription key received by e-mail. Afterwards, you'll have to check for updates. This will also verify if your key is valid.
You can download Pie Box Enterprise Linux 4 AS U6 right now from Softpedia.