CentOS anyone?

[deangreen4]

I see. so for a speed increase you give up ease of use. I will keep that in mind. Thanks.

Why is that giving up ease of use?

[belfast]

I've used ubuntu as a desktop and debian as a server distro for years. I'd say debian although easier to use because of their superior apt repos lack support from many of the hardware manufacturers such as dell and ibm. For years dell perc raid controllers worked well under RedHat based system yet caused problems under debian. Dell and IBM also released server management only on redhat and not on debian, getting these to work on debian is a ball ache.

CentOS is a community-supported, distro based on Red Hat Enterprise Linux. It exists to provide a free enterprise class computing platform and strives to maintain 100% binary compatibility with its upstream distribution (RedHat).

it's horses for courses really ubuntu has better driver support and more multimedia applications for desktops. Redhat and CentOS might be a bit harder to master but if you want to run servers in the future they are probably the best bet.

It's also worth remembering there are no recognized professional qualifications for debian but there is a plethora for RedHat.

[haggis_supper]

I've been a linux guy since 1997, I've even have code in the kernel.

Over the last couple of years I've been using Centos.
1. It is a recompile of Redhat and keeps pretty much in sync
2. VERY stable, don't think i've had an issue yet

I'm running a 33 node computation cluster with it along with various 64-bit servers at work.
I also run it on a dual core atom at home along with other systems.

I would say this is really an O.S. for servers. If you want to run a nice desktop environment go for UBUNTU or one of the free distributions you get with magazines.

[madman_lxl]

CentOS is great for DEV but i've always perferred the saftey of having a company backing the product thats why home and DEV i use CentOS or Debian/Ubuntu but i always use RHEL in Production. i mean for $700 a SL for a box (in most cases) its a good investment. OH and hardware Manufactors offically support it.

[haggis_supper]

So basically, if you like RedHat and want it for free, pull over Centos. Basically where it says Redhat they have swapped it for Centos.

[TheGodfather]

I have used CentOS for years in the hosting industry for all sorts including running virtualisation with OpenVZ and Xen, and also web/mail/dns servers.

Hand on heart i can say it has been the best Distro i have used for web servers, there is also lots of support which can easily be obtained via google as usual

[prestomadcat]

I use CentOS for both my servers, once you get used to it, it's brill nix distro very fast and reliable, i used to use Fedora for the servers but once i put CentOS on, server load increased tenfold . i have recently installed cPanel on one of the servers but i'm currently writing my own control panel, once its finished i'll make it open source

[hackhain]

cPanel/WHM is proprietary software and licence costs start from $425 per year. Hosting companies have got bulk deduction in that price. In the other hand, you may look GPL ones.

[cpjackso]

CentOS works really well, but as everyone else has said - it's really a server OS rather than desktop.

[noserwis]

Grate version for home server. I use it for 2 years

[ihoti2001]

I've been using ubuntu for over a year and never tried anything else. I have read that CentOS is really fast for servers. I was wondering if anyone had any personal experience with CentOS?

CentOS is the OS of choice for almost every WebHosting compaby out there these days. You might have seen cPanel (if you every had and webhosting account for you website or your clients) and almost all of them run on CentOS. It is free and it comes with GUI. Ubuntu Server 10 LTS has just come out, but no GUI, you would have to do a "sodu apt-get install Webmin" to have a GUI of sorts for managing the server (Webmin has been around for many years and its an excellent tool). Then you can log on to the Webmin gui form any other machine on the same Network by the said server ip address:#### and whatever the open port number is. You need to do a bit of reading but not much. Highly recommended. I hope this has helped.

Ilir(long live Linux)

[charliebrown]

CentOS is the OS of choice for almost every WebHosting compaby out there these days. You might have seen cPanel (if you every had and webhosting account for you website or your clients) and almost all of them run on CentOS. It is free and it comes with GUI. Ubuntu Server 10 LTS has just come out, but no GUI, you would have to do a "sodu apt-get install Webmin" to have a GUI of sorts for managing the server (Webmin has been around for many years and its an excellent tool). Then you can log on to the Webmin gui form any other machine on the same Network by the said server ip address:#### and whatever the open port number is. You need to do a bit of reading but not much. Highly recommended. I hope this has helped.

Ilir(long live Linux)

Perhaps, I wouldn't recommend Centos for home users because like the distro its based on RHEL, updates dont make it out as quick as other "desktop" distro's

[juetsing]

CentOS is a cheaper clone of Redhat.
Use almost the same rpm package way.
But diff from Debian's deb.

[charliebrown]

CentOS is a cheaper clone of Redhat.
Use almost the same rpm package way.
But diff from Debian's deb.

centos is not cheaper, its free. and is 100% compatible with rhel as its essentially the same.

[jwr3]

CentOS is (as others have pointed out) RedHat sources that have been un-branded and recompiled, so you don't get (or pay for) support.

That being said, it is 100% RHEL binary compatible, to the point of accepting pre-compiled binary [kernel] drivers that were made for RHEL.

About the ONLY skullduggery I have ever needed to resort to is editing the /etc/redhat-release file on a Proliant Server; you simply replace the contents with the appropriate contents for the version of RedHat your CentOS is based upon, and you are good to go--the vendor's drivers for RHEL (ALL of them; SAS RAID, Server Management, Event Logging, Remote Console, etc) will then install without a hitch.

I prefer RHEL/CentOS to SuSE for one reason: Mono. SuSE has a bad case of it.

I use Ubuntu for desktops, but for REAL server stuff, RHEL/CentOS is tough to beat, especially for stability; there are servers out in DMZ's that are RHEL based with uptimes measured in years (since the last reboot).

For desktop use, depending upon whether you like Gnome of KDE 4 more, you would be looking at Ubuntu or Kubuntu (You can "change" between them by loading and unloading some packages...). If you have an older laptop you want to put it on, look at Xubuntu, which is based upon a window manager that is less demanding [than KDE and/or Gnome] (called Xfce).

If you are looking for something (by way of Linux) to hand to a wee one, look at "Sugar".

But that's just my two cents' worth...