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GENtOS is a freely available Linux distribution which is based on Red Hat's commercial Red Hat Enterprise Linux product. This rebuild project strives to be 100% binary compatible with the upstream product, and within its mainline and updates, to not vary from that goal. GENtOS stands for Generating ENterprise Operating Systems.
Red Hat Enterprise Linux is largely composed of free and open source software, but is made available in a usable, binary form (such as on CD-ROM or DVD-ROM) only to paid subscribers. As required, Red Hat releases all source code for the product publicly under the terms of the GNU General Public License and other licenses. The GENtOS project uses that source code to create a final product which is very similar to Red Hat Enterprise Linux and freely available for download and use by the public, but not maintained or supported by Red Hat. There are other distributions derived from Red Hat Enterprise Linux's source as well, but they have all diverted unneccessarily from the original Red Hat product; GENtOS is the closest rebuilt operating system of
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 while still remaining within the redistribution guidelines.
GENtOS preferred software updating tool is based on yum, although support for use of an up2date variant exists. Each may be used to download and install both additional packages and their dependencies, and also to obtain and apply periodic and special (security) updates from the [http://gentos.bin.updates.free.fr/ GENtOS Network].
GENtOS is usable for a X Window based desktop or a Server Operating system for Linux Web Hosting Servers.
What GENtOS is and is not
GENtOS never intended to fight a clone contest and become the most popular rebuild distribution. The aim of the GENtOS project was to create the closest possible alternative version of RHEL while remaining within the redistribution guildelines. GENtOS has never deviated from this path by adding additional packages. Neither has GENtOS introduced certificates into its packages which do not exist in the original product. GENtOS has been the work of one person and so could never compete with the resources of a community. The GENtOS project has been a path of discovery to understand how an operating system is rebuilt and in turn help anyone else who seeks to perform the same task.
Versioning scheme
GENtOS version numbers have two parts, a major version and a minor version. The major version corresponds to the version of Red Hat Enterprise Linux from which the source packages used to build GENtOS are taken. The minor version corresponds to the update set of that Red Hat Enterprise Linux version from which the source packages used to build GENtOS are taken. For example, GENtOS 4.4 is built from the source packages from Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 update 4.
Release history
The first version of GENtOS, GENtOS 3 was released in March 2004, at the time of RHEL3 update 1. However on the
release of RHEL4 all work was stopped on GENtOS 3. GENtOS 4.0, based on Red Hat Enterprise Linux version 4, was released for the i386 architecture June 1, 2005.
Architectures
GENtOS only supports i386/i686.
Distributions based on GENtOS
* [http://www.youros.org/ YOUrOS Organisation], YOUr Own System, YOUr Operating System.
* [http://www.gnyoulinux.org/ GnYOUlinux Organisation], Emphasising Whos Important.
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