[CentOS] two cents or not two cents

Michael R. Dilworth michael at dilworth.net
Thu Dec 16 23:20:33 UTC 2010


I'm sorry (I know don't feed the trolls), but recently 
there have been quite a few remarks resembling this. 
Also, I'm beginning to believe the remark made earlier
by ???, which roughly stated "Each time a new release 
is due, the flame wars erupt".

Just what part of "CentOS is a Mirror or Redhat OS" do 
you miss?

Now please, return to the rpm building and raid/lvm 
discussions, as I find them very interesting and
educational.

michael...
 

> -----Original Message-----
> From: centos-bounces at centos.org [mailto:centos-bounces at centos.org]On
> Behalf Of Sean
> Sent: Thursday, December 16, 2010 2:46 PM
> To: centos at centos.org
> Subject: [CentOS] two cents or not two cents
> 
> 
> Hello Producers
> 
> "Longevity of Support" is an attractive drawcard for CentOS if it means 
> the exact opposite of Fedora's "short support cycle" that does not 
> provide updating of infrastructural libraries for very long, libraries 
> which newer versions of applications (like Firefox, Thunderbird, Opera 
> etc) depend on and which wont install unless the libraries are also 
> newer versions? But is that what it means -- ie that those 
> infrastructural libraries (libpango, libcairo etc) are continuously 
> updateable to fairly recent versions?
> 
> If so, the problem is in reconciling that meaning with the reputation of 
> CentOS to only support older versions of applications (eg Firefox-1.5, 
> Thunderbird-1.0 etc). It does reconcile, of course, if  the implications 
> are merely that the CentOS user must compile and install the later 
> versions of such applications from source, rather than having the luxury 
> of pre-packaged binaries. It doesn't reconcile if there is some other 
> critical reason why newer such applications just wont install. But which?
> 
> I ask here because the profusion of vague mission statements and 
> 'target-enduser-profile' claims that litter the internet re '*nix 
> distros' seldom actually address those real issues. And hopefully 
> someone can enlighten. My complex production & developement desktop 
> takes months to fully port to a new OS (or OS-version), so OS updates to 
> get library updates (ala Fedora philosophy) becomes increasingly untenable.
> 
> Then there is a further question, I'm afraid. Since CentOS also does 
> specifically target the profile of a so-called 'enterprise/server-user' 
> what does that actually entail. Does it mean concrete security 
> strictures which bolt down non-'root' users or does it merely mean the 
> availability of SELinux (but which can be turned OFF)? For instance, 
> (with SELinux OFF), can a user still:
> (a) su root via Kterm anytime?
> (b) Access services-admin anytime via Menu+Pam to control printers, 
> modems, daemons etc?
> (c) compile
> (d) have 6 to 8 desktops running
> (e) call up 'konquerorsu.desktop' (root-konqueror with embedded root-Kterm)
> (f) have normal cron scheduling
> .......................................................... maybe more, 
> but that's a start.
> 
> Thanks for listening.
> 
> Sean
> 
> 
> 
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