[CentOS] Redhat vs centos vs ubuntu

[Scott Robbins]

On Thu, Nov 10, 2011 at 09:18:43AM -0500, m.roth at 5-cent.us wrote:
> Bob Hoffman wrote:


> > This is  a continuation of the thread about redhat vs centos and the
> > thought of moving from centos due to redhats new business model.
> > Forgive the length, but I had to share.
> >
> Thank you, very much, for the details (not that I was planning on going to
> ubuntu...)
> 
I want to add my thanks as well--we have a few, non-firewalled, Ubuntu
servers that we're working with--the people who do the stuff these
servers do are more experienced with it, and we left it to them.



> Two things:
> <snip>
> > 2- uses a really lame 1980 DOS version of a text installer. It does not
> > and will not use a basic vid driver install
> > which means your setting up of lvms and such during the install is
> > really fun.
> 
> What's wrong with text mode? I certainly prefer it. Oh, and those menus
> came along 2-3 years later.... <g>

Yeah, all kidding aside, I think the whole crippling of the RH text
installer was a step in the wrong direction.  A text installer is
smaller, faster, and doesn't suddenly, as has happened to me with
various video card monitor combos, stop working or have the buttons off
the screen and no way to reach them save to tab, enter, and hope you're
on the right one. 


> <snip>
> > 6- uses upstart and init, mixed up a bit. Upstart, BY DESIGN AND
> > ACCORDING TO DOCUMENTATION is new and
> > still being built so they do not want to put any documentation out on it
> > yet. This makes chkconfig and things like
> > that useless. Hence, if you want to know what is running, set to run,
> > etc, you need to dig in multiple folders and
> > read the scripts. There is no other way. What a horror.

Well, Fedora is going to systemd, which seems more designed for
desktop/laptop users, where speed of a boot seems to be the most
important goal, so I suspect RH will get there too.  


> Yes. Just like the grub ubuntu uses, that is a bloody script, and a .d
> directory *full* of files, rather than the clean, simple menu with
> RHEL/CentOS.
> <snip>
> 
Enjoy it while you can.  (Sorry, not being funny here, everyone is going
to grub2 with its 200 plus files in the /boot/grub2 directory.)


> I don't want to have to read scripts to find out how to configure
> something, or make it do something. A README, at the very least, should
> have that (not "here's the license, go figure out everything else).

Sorry, but this sounds like RH to me.   I came to CentOS from the BSDs,
where if there was a service running, you could type man <name> and get
an idea of what it was doing.  My first day on this job, I'd type man
<some extra service that RH thought I should have> and no clue what it
did only to find, eventually, that there was nothing but a document
telling me it's free software in /usr/share/doc.  (Granted, this is my
memory speaking, and like an old flame one hasn't seen in many years,
the difference between BSD and RH docs probably aren't as drastic as I
remember, but shucks, complaining is FUN!). 

> 
> >>From what I've been reading on /., along with gnome 3 and "unity", that
> wing of the F/OSS movement, presumably in an effort to go head-to-head
> with M$ and Apple, are going the same way they are: here's how you do it,
> don't try to do it any other way, and we'll make it *REALLY* hard to do it
> any other way.

Yes, and I greatly fear that RH will follow Fedora along much of that
path. 

-- 
Scott Robbins
PGP keyID EB3467D6
( 1B48 077D 66F6 9DB0 FDC2 A409 FA54 EB34 67D6 )
gpg --keyserver pgp.mit.edu --recv-keys EB3467D6

Buffy: Look, I know this new guy's a dork,
but... Well, I have nothing to follow that. He's 
pretty much just a dork.