[CentOS] Getting ready for CentOS 5.4

Christopher Chan christopher.chan at bradbury.edu.hk
Mon Mar 30 05:33:27 UTC 2009


>> Functional deficiencies here we come:
>>
>> 1) No equivalent to kickstart:
>>     By that I mean, zero support for automated lvm on raid kind of disk 
>> partitioning in the debian-installer
>>     
>
> This is a huge issue with SLES.  AutoYaST makes me very angry. :-)  I
> can generalize my kickstart files to automate *some* parts of an
> install, but leave things, say partitioning, to install time and it'll
> prompt the installer for how they want to set things up.
>
> No way to do that with AutoYaST.. it's either all or nothing. :(
>
>   
Heh, that cuts Suse out of the race too then. Although I wonder if fai 
will get around the debian-installer deficiency...
>> 2) No equivalent to 'rpm -Va' or any 'rpm -V'. No checksumming done on 
>> packages and their contents.
>>
>> ....
>> ....
>> hmm....
>>
>> the rest are all learn how to add automatic iptables on boot sort of 
>> stuff I guess.
>>
>> If you move to ubuntu, be prepared for a lot more than just apt-get / 
>> apt-cache. There is no inittab. You do get to use 'service whatever 
>> start/stop' though from Intrepid onwards I believe. There is no root 
>> account by default. You must be prepared for a very different way to the 
>> Redhat way of doing things.
>>     
>
> Didn't Ubuntu switch to something like Solaris' SMF?  I actually like
> SMF quite a bit and I imagine RHEL/Fedora will move in this direction
> eventually....
>
>   
Yes. Something like that I suppose. I have not had an opportunity to dig 
into the details of what they use now. I also like SMF...except for its 
awfully detailed xml files.
>> Christopher - who did the leap from Centos to Ubuntu and is now stuck in 
>> the Windows quagmire.
>>     
>
> And if you had to do it over again would you stick with Cent? :)
>
>   

I cannot stick with Cent. The jump was for desktops. I had Centos 5 on 
them originally...if we could have not have any Windows compatibility 
then I would still have to jump to get ActivInspire support from 
Promethean. Then there is the get automation in installing Nvidia/ATI 
binary drivers...


Too bad the Ubuntu and the Debian chums did not see a need to fully 
automate installations on hundreds of desktops. I have finally got the 
ear of an Ubuntu developer so maybe things will change. But that will 
still leave the checksum on package contents left to deal with.


Centos (who cares about RHEL) needs a bit more extra work to make it 
more useful for desktops. I had to build me own kiosktool rpm for example.



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