[CentOS] Recommendation for a Linux alternative to Centos - ATH9K disaster

Tue Jan 25 19:45:44 UTC 2011
m.roth at 5-cent.us <m.roth at 5-cent.us>

Always Learning wrote:
> Mark Roth wrote:
>
>> You do understand the relationship of CentOS to RHEL, right?
>
> Right :-)
>
> Once upon a time Red Hat was free. Then they decided to exist purely on

Actually, you were supposed to buy the CDs, which I did (I really suppose
I can get rid of my 5.2, 6, 7, 7.1, 7.2, and 7.3 CDs.... <g>). They
weren't expensive. However, after 9 (shrike), they'd already become the
distro of choice for business use in the US (it was SuSE in Europe), and
they rebranded their main branch "Red Hat Enterprise Linux", to make PHB's
feel warm and fuzzy.

> support fees. Meanwhile a bunch of supporters invented a downstream
> variant called Centos. They worked very hard to remove all the Red Hat
> branding and recompile (is that the correct Linux term?) the software.

Yes, you compile *real* software <g>. My description is they file off the
serial numbers (and remove the proprietary stuff), then rebuild the whole
shebang.

> There was so ugly goings on which were publicised but eventually
> resolved. The other downstream variant is called Scientific Linux and
> that is a joint collaboration between Europe's CERN and it's USA
> equivalent Fermilab.

No, Fermilab and ->its<-* equivalent, CERN.
>
> Then one day a big bad wolf called Oracle of very expensive Oracle SQL
> fame swallowed Red Hat, like they swallowed MySQL, Solaris, Open Office
> and Visual Box.  The long term future for these is uncertain.

Um, no, not sure where you got that. Oracle bought a license, or
something, from RH, and rebranded it, with changes as a VAR, Oracle
Unbreakable Linux. RH is still its* company, not owned by Oracle in any
way.
>
> Pure Centos is identical to Red Hat. However various repositories offer
> extras and variants which make the installed Centos slightly different
> from Red Hat. One can sometimes install some Fedora items into Centos.

Yup on the latter, but mostly older fedora, which is bleeding edge.
<snip>
        mark

* These notes brought to you in behalf of the Professional Organization of
English Majors, who want to remind you that it's == it is, and is not the
possessive whatchamacallit, "its", as in it's got a shoe on its foot.