[CentOS] Getting ready for CentOS 5.4

[Ray Van Dolson]

On Tue, Mar 31, 2009 at 01:42:48AM +0200, Rainer Duffner wrote:
> 
> Am 31.03.2009 um 01:12 schrieb Ross Walker:
> 
> >
> > I would love something like Nexenta, but with a CentOS userland.
> >
> 
> 
> What exactly are you missing from Solaris userland that does exist in  
> Linux, BTW?
> Maybe except for all the horrible cat some_arcane_value > /proc/foo  
> or /sys/baz to coax the kernel into doing something.
> But I'm not missing that.
> 
> And I'm not missing Nexenta. Last time I looked, the "free" version  
> did almost nothing compared to the commercial version.
> Which is no surprise, really, and brings us back to square one....
> 
> 
> > Imagine an unencumbered kernel with the stability of CentOS userland
> > tools.
> >
> > You get ZFS/ARC, dtrace, smf, fma, plus the Solaris IP stack which is
> > quite robust, with all the command line tools you are use to.
> >
> > Think SELinux could be ported to the Solaris kernel?
> 
> 
> Hm. Seems like this is happening, more or less:
> http://www.press.redhat.com/2008/04/09/red-hat-welcomes-opensolaris-and-ubuntu-to-the-world-of-type-enforcement/
> 
> I'm sometimes amused how people want "this" with "that", though.
> 
> Don't you people sometimes think that Linux is the way it is exactly  
> because of too many people thinking that way and actually getting what  
> they wanted?
> Linux is everything and the kitchen sink (in terms of features), but  
> few are completely implemented or actually wrapped into an API/ 
> userland tools. Everything is constantly in flux, most stuff get's  
> thrown over every other year (except for the places that would really  
> need it, seemingly) and hardly anybody documents (try to find a man- 
> page for a hw-driver...)
> Now, they're chasing ZFS with this butter-fs crap. Hello? How about  
> allowing growing partitions without using LVM first?
> Sure, btrfs will solve all the problems, really - but while it  
> matures, it will introduce lot's of others that you only get to know  
> about once you want to use it...
> 
> Don't get me wrong - some things in Linux actually work quite well and  
> it's quick to get up- and running (once you run a cobbler server) -  
> but I know its limits and I don't try to push it beyond those.
> I use Solaris or FreeBSD when they fit the bill (which is also not  
> always the case). But I don't think a system that does all and  
> everything these three do individually would actually be better or a  
> joy to use...
> 
> "Less is more"

Hey, I for one am glad for the competition ZFS' entrance to the market
has provided.  btrfs is a ways off from being a serious competitor, but
it *will* get there.

The whole "do it all" with the filesystem for me is.. meh.  I don't
mind using LVM in tandem with it.  Whichever way they decide to go will
be fine with me.

I really like a lot of things about Solaris.  I dislike a lot of things
about it too.. namely, automated installs are annoying (even with
JumpStart), and rpm+yum is far superior from a user standpoint than
Sun's package -> patchid + 8000 different patch management tools.  pca
is the closest thing out there to a simple way to see what should be
applied to your system, but just not quite the same.

Ray