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

[Timothy]

On Monday 22 August 2005 07:05 am, Dave Gutteridge wrote:
I've been using centos3 and centos4 with transcode, k3b, xine, mplayer and yes 
even dvd::rip for a long time without any issues.  Shoot me a line off list 
and I'll help you get this stuff working.  Like has been mentioned before on 
this list centos is really geared toward the server market (stability) and 
when you load all these multimedia apps you give up some of that because of 
the bleeding edge technology put into all the encoding/decoding apps.

Tim
> (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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