[CentOS] Why shouldn't I expect more of CentOS/Linux?

Dave Gutteridge dave at tokyocomedy.com
Mon Aug 22 12:05:18 UTC 2005


(Thread moved over from "Has anyone got dvd::rip to work in CentOS?")

>Items designed for Windows 95 don't always work on Windows XP or Windows
>2003 server.
>  
>
Yes, but I'm not sure that analogy really represents the situation I'm 
speaking of with Linux. Items designed in the past may not work with 
current technologies. That's not a hard concept to grasp, the same way I 
don't expect my CD player to play casette tapes.

I'm not talking about diffeences in release times. I'm not surprised, 
nor bothered, that perhaps some software written for Linux kernel 2.4 
doesn't work on 2.6.

But assuming two different distros have the 2.6 kernel, then why 
shouldn't they both be capable of running the same software?

I must admit that partly I'm questioning this because I'm a little 
annoyed. The first Linux distro I tried was Fedora, and only afterwards 
was it clearly explained that it's a sort of "permanent beta", where 
stability was not guarunteed. I'm sorry, but I read the Fedora web site 
carefully, and it does not explain clearly what it is. I thought it was 
a reasonable candidate for consumer use.

But then someone recomended CentOS, because it's more stable. No one 
said "... but it's really designed more for being a server.". Nothing 
was said along those lines.

Now, after spending weeks getting things like Japanese support, my Palm 
Pilot to work, Gnome configured, and many other trials and errors, 
*now*, when I want to get a DVD writing program, people are saying "Oh, 
well, really CentOS is not really all that good for those kinds of 
purposes". Where was this advice before?

In fact, I'm looking at the CentOS web site now, and in it's "Goals" 
section it says, among other things:
*  easy maintenance
* friendly environment for users and package maintainers
Noticibly lacking is anything saying "a server oriented OS", or "not 
really intended to run consumer level software". Where was I supposed to 
come to understand that CentOS was not only a "stable enterprise class 
OS" but also limited in exactly how many applications it would be able 
to accomodate?

So I'm sorry if I'm sounding like a whiner at this point, but if I have 
to change to another distro and again go through all the growing pains 
of learning how to use it as well I think I might run back to Windows 
world. I mean, I've come to really like Linux for a lot of reasons, but 
I'm getting a little tired of the "this Linux for that, that Linux for 
this" confusion that only hardened Linux gurus can sort out.

Dave



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