Submitted by CentOS 5 has been released. This release contains many enhancements, including the integration of Xen, a new SELinux policy that allows for easier modification, AIGLX/compiz, and up to date versions of important opensource software.
CentOS 5 has been released. This release contains many enhancements, including the integration of Xen, a new SELinux policy that allows for easier modification, AIGLX/compiz, and up to date versions of important opensource software.
bets are open!
Debian’s repositories have a much better selection of software.
Indeedy
Debian’s repositories have a much better selection of software.
I do not intend to start a distro flamewar, but people may be interested in the additional repositories that are available for CentOS:
http://wiki.centos.org/Repositories
For instance, the RPMForge repository provides a lot of high-quality add-on packages. It can be used fairly safely in conjunction with the yum priorities plugin, which allows you to protect from CentOS packages being upgraded with packages third party repositories:
http://wiki.centos.org/PackageManagement/Yum/Priorities
Well the point is that I am very eager to try out CentOS 5.0, compare it to the brand new Debian 4.0 stable since they are both out almost simultaneously and they aim at providing competing solutions in the same, identical market. Never should the quantity of packages available for a GNU/Linux distribution be the sole and decisive factor for its quality. Neither “user – friendly” nor “feature – rich” should be above proper, overall software quality assessment in the solution provided.
It is better to have something that you know that always will work than something that will unreliably do your bidding.
Also note that if you are to deploy either in an “enterprise” level, then at some point you will be doing your own .deb and .rpm.
Just a clarification on the “indeedy”.
EDIT: quality assessment = > proper, overall software quality assessment
Edited 2007-04-12 23:24
Well the point is that I am very eager to try out CentOS 5.0, compare it to the brand new Debian 4.0 stable
Debian have indeed come up with a very, very good release with Etch, especially if you run a server environment. If you want something you can do anything with, Etch is your man (or woman). However, CentOS is a bit more focused on the software it uses, especially with the use of things like Xen and libvirt. Maybe that might be important to some people, especially when running servers.
Edited 2007-04-13 11:52
… But with EPEL [1], it’s RHEL/CentOS will reduce the gap considerably.
– Gilboa
[1] Extra Packages for Enterprise Linux is RHEL’s “port” of Fedora’s -extras.
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/EPEL/
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Debian’s repositories have a much better selection of software.
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True. And that’s a convenience if you need some really obscure packages.
On the other hand, CentOS5 has better administration tools, SELinux, Fortify_Source, Exec-Shield, Xen, a predictable release schedule of 18-24 months, and 7 years of support for every release.
For servers, there really is no comparison.
Edited 2007-04-13 10:00
CentOS, on the other hand, has the advantage of being a RedHat clone. A lot of our customers use Dell hardware who actively support RHEL.
Installing CentOS allows you to use Dell’s driver disks at install time, etc.
I’ve read / heard nothing but great things about debian. (But let’s not take this thread in some useless direction comparing the two.)
The point of the article is that there is a new major version release for CentOS. That’s excellent news.
I started using CentOS at 4.4 as a file + print server and have been very happy with it. More recently I worked with our dba to build an Oracle rac on CentOS. If you don’t have a RHEL budget and/or don’t require the support, it is very handy.
Keep up the good work.
I’m a developer and I run CentOS on vmware because many of my customers use RHEL.
However, CentOS/RHEL isn’t very good as a server distro. Here is a list of things that should be added:
– Bundle with real Java VM (not toy gcj). Not only Sun’s, but also BEA’s, which is specially optimized for server.
– Bundle with the full-stack JBoss app server instead of Tomcat.
– Provide a simple option to install without GUI and use web admin UI instead (webmin).
– Provide easy access/method to install commercial servers/dbs: Oracle, DB2, Sybase ASE, Sun’s web server, BEA WebLogic, Zend Platform etc.
– Add some PHP cache extensions such as xcache or zend optimizer. That’s a basic part for any LAMP env (and a flaw in php core)
Can’t say anything about debian. I lost interest on it years ago since it always comes with very old apps and has some license-related annoyances (i’m not crazy about foss…)
Edited 2007-04-15 16:32
I understand you good intentions aquila..but what you are asking would break all sorts of rules, as well as provide a support nightmare for RHEL/CentOS teams.
– Bundle with real Java VM (not toy gcj). Not only Sun’s, but also BEA’s, which is specially optimized for server.
(now that java is open, maybe one day you can get regular java..so this one is a maybe)
– Bundle with the full-stack JBoss app server instead of Tomcat.
(Redhat makes money off support and commercial apps, why give away something that most people don’t need. And the people who need it will want more than a quickie solution)
– Provide a simple option to install without GUI and use web admin UI instead (webmin).
(Just just dont check a desktop enviroment, or go with the minimal configuration which can install from one disc. CentOS is also good about releasing ServerCD which is a one disc install of only the server stuff)
– Provide easy access/method to install commercial servers/dbs: Oracle, DB2, Sybase ASE, Sun’s web server, BEA WebLogic, Zend Platform etc.
(Again this is the companies job not Red Hat’s. If they add it, they have to support it. It’s like asking Microsoft to include one click install buttons in the menu for Oracle..not gonna happen, and does’t make much sense)
– Add some PHP cache extensions such as xcache or zend optimizer. That’s a basic part for any LAMP env (and a flaw in php core)
(more commercial software)
You really are just asking them to add a but f commercial software , some from competing companies, to their distro which doesn’t make alot of sense on many levels.
I had finally settled on setting up a a dual boot of Vista and Ubuntu this weekend as the final setup for my PC after testing several distros, but now I have to test one more. Since I use Linux more for development than as an everyday desktop(that’s OS X’s job), CentOS is very appealing since the “upstream version” is virtually a standard in the enterprise market, and it is what my webserver is hosted on. The biggest reason CentOS has lost out so far was that CentOS 4 was getting long in the tooth, but it things turn out okay, it may be getting a second chance.
Great work, and good news to read!
http://shots.linuxquestions.org/?linux_distribution_sm=CentOS%2…
or?
A free (as in beer) version of RHEL. Aimed at the server market (as is RHEL) but also a decent desktop (so I’ve read).
A much more interesting release than yet another slightly-tweaked-deb/*buntu-distro.
Enterprise features and stable ABI makes this a very welcome release. The tests done with these releases are impressive with regards to high end hardware [sas/san/iscsi] and all patches endup in the vanilla kernel after a while. I will keep on buying subscriptions, whilst installing CentOS. Some website locations on *.redhat.com are hosted using … CentOS.
I’m all for choice, but with so many different distro’s of Linux around (and techies arguing amongst each other over which is the ‘best’) it’s no wonder the uninitiated feel intimidated by Linux.