Topic: Help comparing CENTOS with Ubuntu, particularly yum vs apt

[jptechnical]

I have been using ubuntu for a number of years, and in general have been very happy with it. I like that when I need to do anything, I just search 'how to do xyz ubuntu' and I will find an answer that is either current or from an older version that pretty much works. Also, I find 'apt-cache search' is generally sufficient to find any program I want to install, and only if tabbing to completion doesn't do the trick. Otherwise, I can almost always find a repo to add, or a .deb file.

What I am hoping to find here is the equivalent in CentOS. Is there a 'partner' repo like Canonical provides for the kitchen sink of most everything out there? How can you tell if an rpm will work on centos if it works with RHEL(version)? How does CentOS versions follow RHEL? i.e. Ubuntu has much more releases than Debian proper, is it similar with Centos?

I have looked around the centos site and some others, but I am just not finding the things that give me the warm and fuzzies that Ubuntu has. And I know that I have been culling this info for 4-5 years... so I am obviously not going to find it all in one place.

What can you tell me as a CentOS advocate to draw me to your camp? In the end, I want reliability and sustainability.

Thanks.

[Stefano]

shortly: centos X.Y is redhat X.Y, nothing more, nothing less.

[janet]

jptechnical

Please read the available articles on contribs.org websites & wiki
See links at top of forums to all good things.

See particularly
http://wiki.contribs.org/Adding_Software
and
http://wiki.contribs.org/Category:Yum_Repository

which took me about 30 seconds to locate

[jptechnical]

shortly: centos X.Y is redhat X.Y, nothing more, nothing less.

wow... that was easy, Thanks Stefano!

[jptechnical]

jptechnical

Please read the available articles on contribs.org websites & wiki
See links at top of forums to all good things.

See particularly
http://wiki.contribs.org/Adding_Software
and
http://wiki.contribs.org/Category:Yum_Repository

which took me about 30 seconds to locate

Are these repos SME specific or more CentoS generic? I am not concerned with finding sme stuff, this forum and the contribs have thus far provided everything I need. I am more interested in non-sme servers... like hosting apache/subversion, samba boxes, rsnapshot boxes and the like.

I will read those articles shortly, I just skimmed them before I have to head out to a service call. Thanks Mary.

[Stefano]

jptechnical:

SME uses its own repos and, for the base (O.S.), the CEntOS ones..

as specified in wiki, you can add any repo you prefer (as, for example, Dag's one)

before starting installing software, consider that if you don't know what you are doing, you are probably breaking your server..

last suggestion: use preferably the constribs and the howto you find in the wiki

and, of course, if you install something not in wiki, please take the time to create the fragments for the conf. and to write an howto

thank you

[jptechnical]

Oh, don't worry, I have no intention of ending up with a non-standard SME server... not worth it.

I did some reading from FAQs, reviews and wikis on CEntOS and am liking what I am seeing. Seems like the Dag repo is the closest thing to what I am used to in Ubuntu land. And now that I understand the naming convention and what rpms will work with what, I am more confident.

One final question... if you were starting over again, would you go with CEntOS 4 or 5? I have kept with Ubuntu lts versions since it has a longer support cycle and haven't regretted it. Again, I would be using it for non-mission critical systems, but production systems nonetheless. I would probably start out with using it for my own file server.

Thanks a bunch!

[cactus]

One final question... if you were starting over again, would you go with CEntOS 4 or 5?

Was it really so hard to find this: http://wiki.centos.org/FAQ/General#head-fe8a0be91ee3e7dea812e8694491e1dde5b75e6d

Why go for 4 if you have 5 as well?

[jptechnical]

Was it really so hard to find this: http://wiki.centos.org/FAQ/General#head-fe8a0be91ee3e7dea812e8694491e1dde5b75e6d

Why go for 4 if you have 5 as well?

I found the support cycles, that wasn't my question... in your opinion is 5 in fact stable? I am looking for opinion/anecdote more so than links and specs. For instance, the latest LTS for Ubuntu will be released shortly, but I don't plan on upgrading my servers anytime soon, because 8.04 works and I like to let others test the 'bleeding edge', there is no compelling reason for me at this point to upgrade. Is there a compelling reason to use 5 over 4 other than another 2 years of support?

My own servers I use in my own shop very rarely last more than 2 years without some kind of big rebuild... I have a large turnover of used servers and I have not bought myself a new server, ever... so I get a good used system and use it till it is obsolete and rebuild it. I actually kind of enjoy that. That is why I use VMs for anything production, and I don't intend on changing them to another OS for the sake of doing so. However, the vmhost that is running it is usually something new I haven't tried.

[del]

Is there a compelling reason to use 5 over 4 other than another 2 years of support?

I'd go with 5, I've had great difficulty locating new hardware that is supported by 4, specifically a mini itx motherboard with dual LAN for my SAIL/Asterisk box. Even ASUS and Gigabyte now use the same Realtek chip on their boards and they aren't exactly unpopular board manufacturers  Just my 2 cents.