I'm trying to come to a decision between CentOS 4.2 and Fedora Core 4 for use on a server. One of the things the server will be serving is X desktops so there are some advantages to Fedora.
However, one thing I can't help but notice is that the patch volume for FC4 from Oct 11 2005 thru the present compared to CentOS 4.2 for the same period is about 5 times greater. In fact, since June, there are 899 RPMs in the FC4 updates directory for FC4 which seems absolutely insane.
CentOS is a smaller distro, but not that much smaller. Also, I understand that CentOS's parent distro (from a prominent North American Linux Distributor) is supposed to be better tested before release than Fedora. But still, there must be some other factor to explain the disparity. Like CentOS only releasing a patch for security problems and not bug fixes or something like that.
Could someone enlighten me?
Thanks, Steve Bergman
Steve Bergman wrote:
I'm trying to come to a decision between CentOS 4.2 and Fedora Core 4 for use on a server. One of the things the server will be serving is X desktops so there are some advantages to Fedora.
However, one thing I can't help but notice is that the patch volume for FC4 from Oct 11 2005 thru the present compared to CentOS 4.2 for the same period is about 5 times greater. In fact, since June, there are 899 RPMs in the FC4 updates directory for FC4 which seems absolutely insane.
CentOS is a smaller distro, but not that much smaller. Also, I understand that CentOS's parent distro (from a prominent North American Linux Distributor) is supposed to be better tested before release than Fedora. But still, there must be some other factor to explain the disparity. Like CentOS only releasing a patch for security problems and not bug fixes or something like that.
Could someone enlighten me?
Thanks, Steve Bergman
CentOS is server class stable although conservative. Fedora is bleeding edge and acts as a testbed for what sometimes winds up in CentOS. If you bleed a lot.. you need to get patched up a lot. I think what you have just researched proves why many of us run CentOS instead of Fedora... reliability.. and not getting burned or cut by the latest release of a package which has not been tested in a real world environment.
Best, John Hinton
On Fri, 2006-01-27 at 02:18 -0600, Steve Bergman wrote:
I'm trying to come to a decision between CentOS 4.2 and Fedora Core 4 for use on a server. One of the things the server will be serving is X desktops so there are some advantages to Fedora.
However, one thing I can't help but notice is that the patch volume for FC4 from Oct 11 2005 thru the present compared to CentOS 4.2 for the same period is about 5 times greater. In fact, since June, there are 899 RPMs in the FC4 updates directory for FC4 which seems absolutely insane.
CentOS is a smaller distro, but not that much smaller. Also, I understand that CentOS's parent distro (from a prominent North American Linux Distributor) is supposed to be better tested before release than Fedora. But still, there must be some other factor to explain the disparity. Like CentOS only releasing a patch for security problems and not bug fixes or something like that.
Could someone enlighten me?
RHEL only gets security updates between update releases. Since RHEL update releases correspond to CentOS minor versions, non-security-related updates usually only occur once every 3 months and in one fell swoop, not piece-by-piece as in Fedora.
Ignacio Vazquez-Abrams wrote:
RHEL only gets security updates between update releases. Since RHEL update releases correspond to CentOS minor versions, non-security-related updates usually only occur once every 3 months and in one fell swoop, not piece-by-piece as in Fedora.
Thank you. So, am I correct in saying that every 3 months, the packages in the updates repo get moved to the new main repo, replacing the old versions, plus bug fix releases get added to the main repo at the same time. Then the updates repo starts off empty again and new packages are issued to it for security reasons only?
-Steve
On Fri, 2006-01-27 at 05:00 -0600, Steve Bergman wrote:
Ignacio Vazquez-Abrams wrote:
RHEL only gets security updates between update releases. Since RHEL update releases correspond to CentOS minor versions, non-security-related updates usually only occur once every 3 months and in one fell swoop, not piece-by-piece as in Fedora.
Thank you. So, am I correct in saying that every 3 months, the packages in the updates repo get moved to the new main repo, replacing the old versions, plus bug fix releases get added to the main repo at the same time. Then the updates repo starts off empty again and new packages are issued to it for security reasons only?
---- yes that is a good understanding of it.
The other responses also provide good explanations but I would like to add the important distinction from a 'users' standpoint.
The most used 'desktop' applications are typically much newer in Fedora than in CentOS. For example, openoffice is version 2.0 on Fedora-4 where it is 1.12 on CentOS-4. This is significant as there are more features in 2.0 version but it is a bit more bloated because of it. Thus the Fedora-4 installation will probably use more memory in exchange for more features.
I get the impression that you might have caught that from your original post where you stated "One of the things the server will be serving is X desktops so there are some advantages to Fedora." I don't know if you were planning on using the LTSP system and if so, you might want to preface the same question to their list.
Craig
Steve Bergman wrote:
I'm trying to come to a decision between CentOS 4.2 and Fedora Core 4 for use on a server. One of the things the server will be serving is X desktops so there are some advantages to Fedora.
However, one thing I can't help but notice is that the patch volume for FC4 from Oct 11 2005 thru the present compared to CentOS 4.2 for the same period is about 5 times greater. In fact, since June, there are 899 RPMs in the FC4 updates directory for FC4 which seems absolutely insane.
CentOS is a smaller distro, but not that much smaller. Also, I understand that CentOS's parent distro (from a prominent North American Linux Distributor) is supposed to be better tested before release than Fedora. But still, there must be some other factor to explain the disparity. Like CentOS only releasing a patch for security problems and not bug fixes or something like that.
Could someone enlighten me?
CentOS is effectively (whether the maintainers are allowed to say it or not) Red Hat Enterprise Linux. It's *supposed* to be rock solid and patches are only applied when necessary to fix security or serious usability issues. FC4 is a development distro that is designed to flesh things out before (drumroll please) they are considered to be applied to the more stable RHEL source tree. So there are supposed to be more patches to FC4. It's by design. That said, if I was going to use a server for real work in a production environment, there is no way I'd use FC4 and I'd stick to something a bit more "boring/stable" like CentOS or RHEL.
Cheers,
Steve Bergman spake the following on 1/27/2006 12:18 AM:
I'm trying to come to a decision between CentOS 4.2 and Fedora Core 4 for use on a server. One of the things the server will be serving is X desktops so there are some advantages to Fedora.
However, one thing I can't help but notice is that the patch volume for FC4 from Oct 11 2005 thru the present compared to CentOS 4.2 for the same period is about 5 times greater. In fact, since June, there are 899 RPMs in the FC4 updates directory for FC4 which seems absolutely insane.
CentOS is a smaller distro, but not that much smaller. Also, I understand that CentOS's parent distro (from a prominent North American Linux Distributor) is supposed to be better tested before release than Fedora. But still, there must be some other factor to explain the disparity. Like CentOS only releasing a patch for security problems and not bug fixes or something like that.
Could someone enlighten me?
Thanks, Steve Bergman
Think of Fedora as a giant public beta test, and the Enterprise versions as the result.
On Fri, 2006-01-27 at 09:19 -0800, Scott Silva wrote:
Steve Bergman spake the following on 1/27/2006 12:18 AM:
I'm trying to come to a decision between CentOS 4.2 and Fedora Core 4 for use on a server. One of the things the server will be serving is X desktops so there are some advantages to Fedora.
However, one thing I can't help but notice is that the patch volume for FC4 from Oct 11 2005 thru the present compared to CentOS 4.2 for the same period is about 5 times greater. In fact, since June, there are 899 RPMs in the FC4 updates directory for FC4 which seems absolutely insane.
CentOS is a smaller distro, but not that much smaller. Also, I understand that CentOS's parent distro (from a prominent North American Linux Distributor) is supposed to be better tested before release than Fedora. But still, there must be some other factor to explain the disparity. Like CentOS only releasing a patch for security problems and not bug fixes or something like that.
Could someone enlighten me?
Thanks, Steve Bergman
Think of Fedora as a giant public beta test, and the Enterprise versions as the result.
---- that's a bit simplistic. In some cases, that is true, in many cases, it is not true. Fedora is a much richer Desktop experience which may be what is desired.
I use Fedora for desktop and RHEL/CentOS for server.
There are different need/expectations.
Craig
Craig White wrote:
On Fri, 2006-01-27 at 09:19 -0800, Scott Silva wrote:
Think of Fedora as a giant public beta test, and the Enterprise versions as the result.
that's a bit simplistic. In some cases, that is true, in many cases, it is not true. Fedora is a much richer Desktop experience which may be what is desired.
If you'll read the original post, you'll notice his query was for "server" usage.
Cheers,
On Fri, 2006-01-27 at 13:15 -0500, Chris Mauritz wrote:
Craig White wrote:
On Fri, 2006-01-27 at 09:19 -0800, Scott Silva wrote:
Think of Fedora as a giant public beta test, and the Enterprise versions as the result.
that's a bit simplistic. In some cases, that is true, in many cases, it is not true. Fedora is a much richer Desktop experience which may be what is desired.
If you'll read the original post, you'll notice his query was for "server" usage.
---- If I'll read the original post? Do you mean this one? http://lists.centos.org/pipermail/centos/2006-January/018774.html
Where he says that it's a server for X desktops?
The reason I am responding is that I didn't much appreciate the inference that I wasn't completely aware of the original post and wonder why you felt it necessary to make that inference.
If you want to attack my opinion, by all means have at it.
If you want to suggest that I didn't follow the thread, you are clearly wrong. I shouldn't have to defend myself from this type of insinuation.
Craig
Craig White wrote:
On Fri, 2006-01-27 at 13:15 -0500, Chris Mauritz wrote:
Craig White wrote:
On Fri, 2006-01-27 at 09:19 -0800, Scott Silva wrote:
Think of Fedora as a giant public beta test, and the Enterprise versions as the result.
that's a bit simplistic. In some cases, that is true, in many cases, it is not true. Fedora is a much richer Desktop experience which may be what is desired.
If you'll read the original post, you'll notice his query was for "server" usage.
If I'll read the original post? Do you mean this one? http://lists.centos.org/pipermail/centos/2006-January/018774.html
Where he says that it's a server for X desktops?
The reason I am responding is that I didn't much appreciate the inference that I wasn't completely aware of the original post and wonder why you felt it necessary to make that inference.
If you want to attack my opinion, by all means have at it.
If you want to suggest that I didn't follow the thread, you are clearly wrong. I shouldn't have to defend myself from this type of insinuation.
What on earth did I do to deserve that missive? I simply thought you missed the original post. You're reading criticism into my post that simply wasn't there. Jeez.
<Steve Martin>
Excuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuse me!
</Steve Martin>
8-)
Cheers,
Chris Mauritz wrote:
What on earth did I do to deserve that missive? I simply thought you missed the original post. You're reading criticism into my post that simply wasn't there. Jeez.
Well, for my part, I appreciate all the answers I have received. Actually, you both are right. There is only one server at this site, and several Centos 4.2 workstations with a modified installation so that they just boot up into an XDMCP gdm login sscreen from the server. The users are doing all their email, web browsing, office applications, in remote X sessions. However, it is also running two accounting applications: a legacy application running under FilePro and its soon to be replacement, Appgen MyBooksPro 6.2. Plus it will be doing LDAP, DHCPD, probably acting as an intranet server, and file serving for a windows desktop.
As it happens, this server, which I *thought* was still RH9, turned out actually to be FC4 already. So, for now, I'm leaving it that way. In September or so, the owner and I are going to discuss the possiblility of doing a fresh install of Centos 5.0 to eliminate the cruft that has resulted from its RH8->RH9->FC4 history.
-Steve
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Chris Mauritz -
Craig White -
Ignacio Vazquez-Abrams -
John Hinton -
Scott Silva -
Steve Bergman