[CentOS] two cents or not two cents

Sean soso at orcon.net.nz
Fri Dec 17 18:54:27 UTC 2010


Ah, a reminder that it is always dangerous to unveil the vague? Sorry 
... I should have pre-read 6000 pages from Redhat ... (but maybe I did!).
Sean

Michael R. Dilworth wrote:
> 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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>>     
>
>   



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