[CentOS] two cents or not two cents

Thu Dec 16 22:45:36 UTC 2010
Sean <soso at orcon.net.nz>

Hello Producers

"Longevity of Support" is an attractive drawcard for CentOS if it means 
the exact opposite of Fedora's "short support cycle" that does not 
provide updating of infrastructural libraries for very long, libraries 
which newer versions of applications (like Firefox, Thunderbird, Opera 
etc) depend on and which wont install unless the libraries are also 
newer versions? But is that what it means -- ie that those 
infrastructural libraries (libpango, libcairo etc) are continuously 
updateable to fairly recent versions?

If so, the problem is in reconciling that meaning with the reputation of 
CentOS to only support older versions of applications (eg Firefox-1.5, 
Thunderbird-1.0 etc). It does reconcile, of course, if  the implications 
are merely that the CentOS user must compile and install the later 
versions of such applications from source, rather than having the luxury 
of pre-packaged binaries. It doesn't reconcile if there is some other 
critical reason why newer such applications just wont install. But which?

I ask here because the profusion of vague mission statements and 
'target-enduser-profile' claims that litter the internet re '*nix 
distros' seldom actually address those real issues. And hopefully 
someone can enlighten. My complex production & developement desktop 
takes months to fully port to a new OS (or OS-version), so OS updates to 
get library updates (ala Fedora philosophy) becomes increasingly untenable.

Then there is a further question, I'm afraid. Since CentOS also does 
specifically target the profile of a so-called 'enterprise/server-user' 
what does that actually entail. Does it mean concrete security 
strictures which bolt down non-'root' users or does it merely mean the 
availability of SELinux (but which can be turned OFF)? For instance, 
(with SELinux OFF), can a user still:
(a) su root via Kterm anytime?
(b) Access services-admin anytime via Menu+Pam to control printers, 
modems, daemons etc?
(c) compile
(d) have 6 to 8 desktops running
(e) call up 'konquerorsu.desktop' (root-konqueror with embedded root-Kterm)
(f) have normal cron scheduling
.......................................................... maybe more, 
but that's a start.

Thanks for listening.

Sean