The base number of packages for BU Linux is over 1200, the number that are specifically modified for the BU environment is over 500. (Note: this number includes packages requested by users ported from Fedora distributions.)  Each major update contains about 300 updated packages from CentOS and of these, about 50 need to be updated for BU modifications.

BU Linux 5 (Monde) is based on the CentOS 5 distribution (which is itself based on Red Hat Linux Enterprise Edition 5 (RHEL 5)).  About every six months, Red Hat releases on major update to RHEL 5 which includes security and bug fixes along with some new features.  CentOS takes the Red Hat source code and compiles it as the basis for a similar CentOS 5 update.  When this is released, we take that and port any BU modified packages to the distribution, and release an upgraded BU Linux version to the BU community via AFS and FTP.