CentOS or Fedora?
- Thread starter Craig321
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In the beginning (well, almost) there was redhat, redhat was used for both desktop and servers.
Redhat started making an 'Enterprise Linux' aimed at servers, this became 'Red Hat Enterprise Linux' (RHEL)...
Eventually, Redhat stopped developing plain old 'redhat' (In favour of the costly RHEL) and passed it on to the open source community, who kept the development effort alive and renamed it to Fedora.
In the meantime, some clever people realized that because RHEL was based on GPL'ed software, there was nothing to stop them taking each RHEL release (and update package), stripping out all the copyright logos and brands related to redhat (so renaming any instance of the word 'redhat' anywhere in the code) and handing out this 'new linux' for free....This is called CentOS.
And so basically, centos IS redhat enterprise linux without the cost of licensing and support packages.
So given that information... I will let you decide which is more server worthy
(This is my opinion only, I don't want to start a 'best linux' flamewar, i'm a gentoo, ubuntu and solaris man myself... so there we go)
Redhat started making an 'Enterprise Linux' aimed at servers, this became 'Red Hat Enterprise Linux' (RHEL)...
Eventually, Redhat stopped developing plain old 'redhat' (In favour of the costly RHEL) and passed it on to the open source community, who kept the development effort alive and renamed it to Fedora.
In the meantime, some clever people realized that because RHEL was based on GPL'ed software, there was nothing to stop them taking each RHEL release (and update package), stripping out all the copyright logos and brands related to redhat (so renaming any instance of the word 'redhat' anywhere in the code) and handing out this 'new linux' for free....This is called CentOS.
And so basically, centos IS redhat enterprise linux without the cost of licensing and support packages.
So given that information... I will let you decide which is more server worthy
(This is my opinion only, I don't want to start a 'best linux' flamewar, i'm a gentoo, ubuntu and solaris man myself... so there we go)
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Personally I would root for CentOS rather then Fedora as CentOS is Red Hat Enterprise and so has a longer support life.
You typically get a new Fedora every 6 months. You get an update to CentOS after Red Hat have done all of the testing to make sure that the Red Hat update works, they take that and then strip the reference to Red Hat.
The people on the CentOS forums however can be a bit funny if you don't know linux, and aren't that helpful to newcomers. If you know Linux then they are quite good.
You typically get a new Fedora every 6 months. You get an update to CentOS after Red Hat have done all of the testing to make sure that the Red Hat update works, they take that and then strip the reference to Red Hat.
The people on the CentOS forums however can be a bit funny if you don't know linux, and aren't that helpful to newcomers. If you know Linux then they are quite good.
Thanks for the replies guys, I will be downloading and installing CentOS 
Should be good for me to learn Linux as well, I have only really had experience with Ubuntu which is a lot easier than CentOS I would have thought as Ubuntu is aimed at the desktop users rather than a server OS.
Craig.
Should be good for me to learn Linux as well, I have only really had experience with Ubuntu which is a lot easier than CentOS I would have thought as Ubuntu is aimed at the desktop users rather than a server OS.
Craig.
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CentOS is supposed to be stable. This means that it includes a lot of older packages. Fedora is supposed to be cutting-edge so as to test things for future RHEL releases (which will then become CentOS releases). If CentOS doesn't have some features you want/need Fedora would be a more bleeding-edge option.
You might also want to think about Debian on the server. It'll have the package management to which you're accustomed with an extremely stable and long-supported base.
You might also want to think about Debian on the server. It'll have the package management to which you're accustomed with an extremely stable and long-supported base.
I'd like to learn how to install stuff myself on Linux properly (e.g. Lighttpd, MySQL, PHP, FTP, SSH etc. without too much package management) as I'm sure that'd give me a good in-sight into real Linux rather than Ubuntu-style Linux.
Bleeding edge stuff doesn't really bother me for this server, I just was stability and speed.
I'm sure I'd be able to install aptitude on CentOS if I really needed it?
Thanks,
Craig.
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CentOS uses yum which can work in a similar way that apt does. To put apt on a Redhat-style system would be waaaaaay more hassle than it's worth IMO.
I think the Debian guys wouldn't be happy with you saying that isn't "real."
If you really want to get you hands dirty and do manual installations with manual dependency resolution, try out Slackware. It's stable as all heck too. Just don't use packman or slackbuilds since they'd be cheating!
I think the Debian guys wouldn't be happy with you saying that isn't "real."
If you really want to get you hands dirty and do manual installations with manual dependency resolution, try out Slackware. It's stable as all heck too. Just don't use packman or slackbuilds since they'd be cheating!
Think yourself lucky you don't live in a world where you have to do manual deps resolution, you can focus yourself on learning much more interesting linux stuff.
If you had time (and a spare box to break/fix.. or even a VM) try Gentoo... It has package management, but it builds all the packages from source.. Do a manual install (not the new auto installer) there are excellent guides on Gentoo's web pages, and by the time you have a working system you will understand a lot more about what goes into linux.
If you had time (and a spare box to break/fix.. or even a VM) try Gentoo... It has package management, but it builds all the packages from source.. Do a manual install (not the new auto installer) there are excellent guides on Gentoo's web pages, and by the time you have a working system you will understand a lot more about what goes into linux.
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Nitpicking ahead:
Both Gentoo and Slackware have package management, they just don't have package managment with automatic dependency resolution. There's a difference between the two. Slack does indeed have a package manager, it's called pkgtool and it's really nice. It doesn't do automatic dep res though because the devs, Pat in particular, think that it is too risky. In his eyes dep res is a great thing when it works well, but when it doesn't it pretty much hoses your system.
That said, I would never subject myself to a distro that doesn't do that sort of nastiness for me.
EDIT: Though I suppose that it's a bit different for distros that have an extremely long release cycle like Slackware does. You do most of your installations when the system is fresh and new. Once you settle down to work you do much less of that sort of thing.
Both Gentoo and Slackware have package management, they just don't have package managment with automatic dependency resolution. There's a difference between the two. Slack does indeed have a package manager, it's called pkgtool and it's really nice. It doesn't do automatic dep res though because the devs, Pat in particular, think that it is too risky. In his eyes dep res is a great thing when it works well, but when it doesn't it pretty much hoses your system.
That said, I would never subject myself to a distro that doesn't do that sort of nastiness for me.
EDIT: Though I suppose that it's a bit different for distros that have an extremely long release cycle like Slackware does. You do most of your installations when the system is fresh and new. Once you settle down to work you do much less of that sort of thing.
Nitpicking it is - Gentoo's package management has one of the best automatic dependency resolutions ever created. Not only it will emerge all dependencies on the way, but can also be tailored to the finest detail system wide, so for example you can exclude X and all wm's from your headless server forever, and installing simple text editor won't result in gigabytes of X, gnome and kde packages like it does in rpm based systems.
IMHO you either want a server, or you want to play. For desktops/playing out of your shortlist I'd be looking at Fedora 8. Nice desktop, well specced, has lighttpd/apache2/sql etc all in the repos and you can get your hands as dirty as you like while you learn. You also have gui tools to fall back on for if (when) you get stuck.
Forget wanting to escape package management, it's there for a reason. Who wants their server going down because the latest release of apache didn't compile right from source and you can't chase down the problem because you're only learning? Use a package manager, and do your learning on the real stuff (server side admin, config etc) before you start messing around outside of package managers imho.
Ubuntu has a server distro - "Ubuntu Server" lol It's lean, fast and has no GUI - just a command line. You'll learn quick enough doing stuff that way and at least have the stability and reliability of apt to fall back on while you learn. Install takes about 10 mins for the base system, then you can ssh in and start setting it up
Debian is another great distro for the server, and can be as lean and fast as you want it to - with or without a GUI/DM. Debian also release security patches daily, which is useful when an exploit comes out.
CentOS is great, but is also rpm based and slower than Debian/Ubuntu. Don't get me wrong, although I run Debian at home my main box is Fedora (i.e. rpm based) so I'm not starting a flame war - just pointing out the obvious
As was said above, while CentOS is basically rebranded RHEL and therefore a great distro and also handy for learning the system (for work), their forum members can be really snobby/elitist and if you aren't already a sysadmin, all round Linux guru and can't post in binary they seem to ignore and/or flame you LOL It's a real shame, because it has the potential to be a great distro and community.
Hopefully you've got some new info to think about, personally I'd go with Fedora for a powerful, configurable desktop/server distro with good support. However if it's server only, I'd stick to Debian or Ubuntu server personally. JMHO
Forget wanting to escape package management, it's there for a reason. Who wants their server going down because the latest release of apache didn't compile right from source and you can't chase down the problem because you're only learning?
Use a package manager, and do your learning on the real stuff (server side admin, config etc) before you start messing around outside of package managers imho. Ubuntu has a server distro - "Ubuntu Server" lol It's lean, fast and has no GUI - just a command line. You'll learn quick enough doing stuff that way and at least have the stability and reliability of apt to fall back on while you learn. Install takes about 10 mins for the base system, then you can ssh in and start setting it up
Debian is another great distro for the server, and can be as lean and fast as you want it to - with or without a GUI/DM. Debian also release security patches daily, which is useful when an exploit comes out.
CentOS is great, but is also rpm based and slower than Debian/Ubuntu. Don't get me wrong, although I run Debian at home my main box is Fedora (i.e. rpm based) so I'm not starting a flame war - just pointing out the obvious
As was said above, while CentOS is basically rebranded RHEL and therefore a great distro and also handy for learning the system (for work), their forum members can be really snobby/elitist and if you aren't already a sysadmin, all round Linux guru and can't post in binary they seem to ignore and/or flame you LOL It's a real shame, because it has the potential to be a great distro and community.Hopefully you've got some new info to think about, personally I'd go with Fedora for a powerful, configurable desktop/server distro with good support. However if it's server only, I'd stick to Debian or Ubuntu server personally. JMHO
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Ignore Fedora if its for a server, just don't touch it! The general play of thing is that you get ditched once a new Fedora release is out, i.e; they tend to not really care about people on older versions anymore (in terms of patching etc).
CentOS is definately the way to go if you want a well documented, long-term support server distro. It'll be solid as a rock
CentOS is definately the way to go if you want a well documented, long-term support server distro. It'll be solid as a rock