[CentOS] Re: New to CentOS, and wondering about application availability

[Phil Schaffner]

On Thu, 2005-07-28 at 00:30 +0900, Dave Gutteridge wrote:
...
> I'm the "he" in question, and for me there was no "sticking" with FC3. I 
> only made the commitment to move from Windows to Linux a few weeks ago, 
> and FC4 is the only distribution they make available on Fedora's own 
> site, so I assumed it was the current one.
> 
> So, I started with FC4, thinking it was merely the most recent, not 
> realizing that it was actually a bleeding edge experimental version.

Well, Red Hat and many Fedora users would argue with that
characterization (the real serious bleeding is done in
development/rawhide and test releases), but FC4 certainly seems to be
causing more than the usual amount of blood-loss for a FC final release.
After being a Red Hat user for many years and running every FC1/2/3
release, including many of the test versions, I've yet to install FC4 on
anything but a VMware virtual machine, and am using CentOS4 for both
home and work.  It is a lot more stable without sacrificing much in the
way of features.

> On the Fedora Mailing list, someone recommended that I go with CentOS. 
> But now that I'm here, I'm starting to regret it a bit.

As one if those who led you here, I feel a bit of responsibility.  Looks
like you have gotten some good advice and I hope your regrets are not
too severe.  I think you will find this list has a higher signal/noise
ratio than fedora-list and it is generally a very good source of help,
despite the occasional pontification (perhaps risking that label
here :-) and flame-wars.  Moving from Windows to any *nix distribution
is going to involve some challenges and a bit of pain, but IMHO the
world of free software has so much more to offer (aside from the
attractive price/performance) that it will be worth it to get up the
learning curve.

> While Karanbir's 
> posting helps, some of the links I chased down and my attempts to set up 
> repositories have not worked so far and it's frustrating.
> 
> This is probably just frustration talking, but at this point, I'm 
> missing Windows. At least with Windows, there is far less confusion 
> about versions and compatibility. Ditto for Mac.

Well Mac OS-X is at least *nix-based, but a bit too pricey/proprietary
for many.  Might argue about Windows versions and compatibility with
some of the things that Redmond has broken with "security" and/or DRM
patches.  Admittedly, Windows tends to be less challenging for the non-
technical desktop user.  Mac is also apparently a good choice for many
people.  Both tend to lock you into your choice once you've made it more
so than anything in the free OS software world.

> I've been experimenting 
> with Linux for three weeks now, and I still have no idea which 
> distribution actually works, let alone which will suit my needs. I have 
> no idea what I gain or lose by choosing Debian builds over Red Hat 
> builds or vice versa... and I've read reviews and distro watch and all 
> that. I'm drowning in a sea of choices, and not in a good way.

Well, the debate over the "best" distro will not be resolved here, and
it will always be to a large extent a matter of choice and preference.
My $0.02 as a user of Unix since early Sun Microsystems days, and a
Linux user since 0.98-pl14, is pick a distribution and stick with it.
Any of the sea of choices in which you are drowning could be a
reasonable solution.  Each distro-family has a different approach and
"flavor" to system installation and administration, and all are more-or-
less equally viable.  For me, I picked Red Hat at about version 3 (RH
not RHEL) and have not regretted sticking with that choice over a number
of years.

If you value stability it's hard to beat RHEL and derivatives, including
WBEL, Tao, Scientific Linux, and CentOS.  It is also relatively easy to
switch among them as they are all very similar, being built on the same
Red Hat code base, and thus sharing a lot in system features and
philosophy.  Your choice of one of the family is not very limiting.
What you learn in any RH-based distro will be pretty directly applicable
to any of the others.  If you get your kicks from living on the edge,
helping debug new features, and always having the latest features, then
rawhide is the other end of the scale in the RH world.  The two are not
mutually exclusive.  I like to play around on the bleeding edge, but
also want/need to maintain a stable platform for productivity, both for
work and for things like playing around with multimedia.  FC is more in
the middle - pretty much a perpetual Beta and testbed for technologies
that may/may-not end up in RHEL.

There are similar choices in the Debian world and to some extent with
other distro-families.  From what I've seen in your pieces of the
threads here and on fedora-list, you value community and want a stable
platform.  Look at the reviews of the more stable distros, and look over
the associated list archives to get a feel for the community spirit.
Make a choice and dig in.  I doubt you will go back to Windows if you
give Linux a good chance and invest the effort to get up the learning
curve.

Welcome to the wonderful - but sometimes challenging - world of free
software.  Hope to see you around the lists.

Phil