[clue-tech] Questions about CentOS/Fedora

[Collins Richey]

On Fri, 25 Feb 2005 15:34:27 -0800 (PST), William <bkimball1 at yahoo.com> wrote:

[ snips ]

> You asked if there were any CentOS users on this list, so I figured I'd toss in my 2 cents.  :) 

Welcome aboard.

I'm a new CentOS user this month (my introduction to it is documented
in the archives of
> this very mailing list for this month) -- been a Red Hat user for a while before-hand.  I am 
> very happy with it, so far.  Reading the remainder of your post inspired the following reply:
> * As you noted, CentOS is based on RHEL.  Thus, it's real target machine is a server, 
> not a workstation.
> 
> * If you're using FireFox on a GUI over CentOS, you're probably using the wrong OS for 
> that workstation.  I'm from the school of thought that servers don't run GUIs, and it 
> serves me well. 
> 
> * Servers don't generally come with sound cards and CD-Burners.  If using CentOS on a
> server, then the hardware problems you list are moot.
> 
> * The relatively slow turnout of updates for CentOS is deliberate, as compared to Fedora,
> and I believe you know why.  
> 

Yes, I'm aware of most of this. Inspite of the server origins of
CentOS, from a brief look at the forum and user list, a lot of people
are already using the "wrong OS" but encountering good results and, of
course, problems that are moot for a server.

What I'm looking for at this time is probably the following (some
needs are more important that others:

1. Probably an RH-centric free distro. Both in the commercial world
and in our group, there's a lot more folks using RedHat. Both Fedora
and CentOS and a few others qualify.

2. Stable and maintainable. 

Fedora FC3 would be ideal, if RH would only maintain this marvelous
setup long term, but that's not going to happen, since RH view Fedora
users as lab rats for development of future products. RH (long before
Fedora came along) have never subscribed to the "if it ain't broke,
don't fix it" mentality.

CentOS has a lot going for it, but there are a few wrinkles, and, as
you said, the emphasis is on the server environment.

3. Reasonably quick response to problems.

This doesn't mean vendor response, but the total audience. I'm used to
the Gentoo model where the response to problem enquiries can sometimes
be measured in nanoseconds! The last time I checked the Fedora
list(s), the list was such a firehose that you would need to dedicate
most of your day just to weeding out the deadwood. CentOS is the
reverse: realtively few developers/users exist, and problems languish.

4. Easy maintenance

The up2date/yum/apg-get approach is not too bad, but I've heard war stries.

So, the study goes on.

Does anyone have a recommendation for using Debian? I get confused by
all the paths: stable that is so ancient as to be worthless for
anything but a server environment, testing? Ubuntu is out there, but
my direct experience and my reading tells me that it's just too
squirrelly for present use. There are lots of nice non-free Debian
approaches, but those are not useful for the present project.

-- 
 Collins