[CentOS] CentOS-6 Status updates

[Ljubomir Ljubojevic]

Craig White wrote:
> I actually use Fedora for my Desktop. It dual boots to Ubuntu but I
> don't often use it. The only reason that I ever saw people using Fedora
> for production was because the RHEL/CentOS software packages were so
> completely out-of-date.
> 
Time from CentOS 5.0 to 6.0 was marked with popularity explosion of 
Linux. Many people converted from Windows, and a lot of developers join 
in the Linux ranks, and hugely increased number of users ant bug 
reporters helped immensely. Win XP was released 9-10 years ago and some 
people still prefer it over Win 7.

I would even compare rise of the Linux users with rise of the usefulness 
of the PC computers in general.

In June 2000, middle to high end PC where powered by 600-800 MHz CPU's 
with 256-512MB of RAM. It was barely able to run newer DivX movies, or 
shell we say that DivX encoders were tuned to allow us to be able to 
watch them. Win XP was bloated an very slow for any cheaper PC.

In 2004, when CentOS 4.0 was released, high end CPU was around Athlon 64 
3000+. Cheap PC's were still arround Athlon 2000+ / Sempron 2500+.
Memory in cheper PC's was still ~256-512MB with 256MB taken for Win XP 
Pro it self.

In 2007, when CentOS 5.0 was released, High end CPU's were around Athlon 
II X2 and Core 2 Duo 3.00GHz. Cheap PC's started to have 64-bit CPU's 
and 512MB-1GB of memmory. Fedora reached version 7 and Ununtu reached 
7.04 Feisty Fawn. People started to get interest in pretty mature 
Desktop Linuxes.

It is the end of 2006 and begining of 2007 that Ubuntu became a hit 
among Linux noobs and that is the time when things heated up and many 
projects started to develop much faster. But RHEL 5.0 was already in the 
works, and freezing of the packages meant just that.

Today, RHEL 6.0 can easily be used for any desktop (with third repos) 
and it's stability will do wanders for much more mature view of the 
Linux Desktop by newcomers or struggling noobs having to deal with 
thousands of bugs. In April 2009, Ubuntu had 20,000 new bugs, and 48,000 
bug open with 41,000 bugs unassigned. Fedora is not much better. So 
CentOS 6.x will provide modern but stable environment for years to come. 
I do not see that Linux software will in next 3-4 years evolve so much 
compeering to last 3-4 years.

Ljubomir