Why CentOS based?

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Just want to know why NS is based on CentOS not, say, Ubuntu?

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A lot of reasons, this thread could be a FAQ.

  1. Stability
  2. Long term support
  3. Red Hat
  4. Former experience of most of the developers
  5. … (add more here)

You could also google around for more opinions.

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  1. CentOS is far from stable)
  2. Other distros (Ubuntu-based) are also LTS
  3. And what? Do they sponsor NS or what?
  4. Who develops NS?
  5. List them
4

Hi

  1. In my opinion, RedHat / Centos based Distris are very stable, NethServer included.
    If not, maybe the playing around with testing, not cleaning up and experience - or lack thereof - could also produce stability issues in almost any OS.
  2. LTS - Sure, so does MS, XP was around for more than 10 years… :wink:
    It’s a matter of choice, of those who started this project…
  3. Compatibility with Server stuff is quite good with RedHat. Oracle, SAP and other stuff I don’t need, but others do…
  4. A lot in the forum…
  5. …

My 2 cents
Andy

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Also, CentOS has more… “shiny effect” than UbuntuServer for stability and enterprise diffusion. I mean, maybe Debian should be much more interesting than Ubuntu as alternative base-distro, therefore Debian Community has not the same distance from corporate and business corporation practice than RedHat, their customer and supporters has.

But as Debian, CentOS is GPL. And it’s quite easy to virtualize… maybe into any kind of container hosted by a Debian-based server. :wink:

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My troll-o-meter is in overload…

BTW, centos is historically stable because of its approach… The same used by its “parent”, RH
You can find certified hw for rh/centos (and for Debian too, but only since few years)
NS comes from SME server which is rh/centos based since 14 years and it’s known to be rock solid
All the core (the e-smith layer) is quite hard to be moved to other distro.
Now, you may argue that there is not support for bleeding edge hw or sw and this is undoubtedly true, but thinking in a enterprise perspective this is only a good thing.

Any valid argumentation to move away from centos? I repeat, valid.
TIA

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I agree with you. But sometimes nasty trolls can find only common sense and tech thinking.
I mean… For magnetic disks, i am a WD fan, no fear to admit that. I prefer them instead of Toshiba, Seagate and all the small producers.
If someone yells to me “Seagate rocks, WD su…”… what i should do? Seagate is a quite good product, most tech people already knows. If this person want to make some noise… why I should do the same thing? :wink:

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CentOS is very stable actually, more so than anything debian based. Ubuntu is fantastic for a person just getting into linux, but beyond that its by no means a serious server os. CentOS/Redhat is pretty much a standard in the industry…though I will say debian is trying hard. And its not “Ubuntu-based” its all based on “Debian”. I think at the end of the day it comes down to personal preference, one could argue either way, but generally debian is used by beginners and redhat (both commercial and non) is less form and more function. I have some security issues with ubuntu server as well, that ive encountered that centos does not have. In my opinion, as a last point, the fewer updates/rpm vs deb also make it more stable, everything is tested.

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Ill add that bleeding edge is never what you want for a stable server, Ill agree with you there. You can have 50 zillion packages and a shiny GUI but if it hasn’t been tested thoroughly, its not enterprise. Look at Zentyal (a debian based server os). Its a complete joke. Debian helped me when I first got into linux, the gui was nice, it was a nice transition from windows, and it will always hold a small place in my heart, but as far as stability/something I would want running 24/7 in my servers Id steer clear. Just my 2c.

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Please man, you received your answers.
Now I ask you to make the discussion useful for everyone, otherwise moderators have to act consequently.

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It seems i just heard the “clack” of a shotgun loaded…

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…actually, IIRC, for at least 18 years–I was running an early version of e-smith (which, as you know, became SME, which was forked to Neth) in late '99-early 2000. And I think that, along with the effort it would take to move to a different distro base, are probably the best short answer to @cloudenv’s question (assuming it was a serious question in the first place).

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Moderators were forced to block him because of his posts (not just this) against our rules.

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Eventually a server system needs stability and assurance for couple things but CentOS by itself is not assuring anything, it’s almost exclusively relies on RedHat GPL related patches from the development angle.
Stability can be measured compared to a specific criterion.
For example a company that started to develop it’s product based on some version of php 5 might end up using it for more then 10 years.

Debian and Ubuntu are also very stable…
In the sense of business Ubuntu or Debian or any other distribution would fit for a specific use case and will also depends on the budget.
If a System Engineer is requested to supply a specific functionality I believe that the second a specific system\OS will be proved as budget worthy(hiring developers is an option) in the long or short term it will be used.
This in mind stability can be measured also based on the existence of specific bugs so they would be known enough to have a protective measure for them. It’s far more easy to defend a system when you have enough developers and engineers that understand the nature of the bug and the system.
And to my opinion it’s much easier to rely on the existence of engineers, admins and developers which can handle a “standard” system compared to a very dynamic one.

If any system would force the maintainers to verify an update\upgrade every Sunday I think that many systems would not exist.

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I cannot agree with you, saying Debian was a beginner thing because of it’s GUI, it is very awkward, Redhat has always had a GUI too, I installed my 1st Debian in 95 I think, It was thru ncurses :wink: I think the software was aptitude, a horrible interface.

All distros had GUIs when it was available , take gnome, it was the “de facto” DE with the GTK toolkit … and matter o’fact, a year later I installed a RH 6.2 for a customer, It was all GTK with Gnome :wink:

Also, If you want to really talk about software quality, you must have seen that Debian has at least 2 or 3 layers that packages go thru to end up as Stable in the hands of a regular user,
non impatients users have “stable” Debian, which is so “stable” that many complain about having software “out of date” … then you have unstable and testing …, there are more Devs that Serve packages to Debian then to RH, I think it is for a reason, RH and CentOS are very poor in that subject unless you activate EPEL … and even then …Debian will still have more packages,
I agree that in many scenarios related to the corporate world, “RH” is good because many companies that serve some critical closed source software , support only RH, so this an artificial situation, it is not natural, and remembrer that RH is a US based company, hence those companies prefer to work with them … :wink: also RH is a company not an organisation.

also remember that CentOS, was created to have a “free” (independent from RH Co.) version of RH, no more no less, It was never created because RH is super-duper-awesome distro. every Linux “good” user will tell you that dpkg is better than rpm .

So CentOS was born because of a “need” not some kind of “prophecy” :slight_smile:

And this situation makes, as said by our friend, CentOS an intellectual slave of RH …

but I will never spit on RH! they do contribute ALOT in the Linux world with hardware drivers for example …

Voila my 2 cents analyse … :slight_smile:

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…and yet you still can’t do apt install https://blah.

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:slight_smile: Yes it is not that command line by it self,
It is not “doable” by default because it is a security issue .
You can install packages by URL in Debian, you have apt, dpkg and aptitude :slight_smile:
I’ll let you google it, because I consider it as a very bad practice.

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… three instructions instead of one… Adding a PPA, update repositories, install package.
Useless into RPM: you can install either repository or package.

By my perspective, only a way of thinking package management … differently.
You enjoy more .deb? Fine by me… :slight_smile:

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:slight_smile:
We say in french “Les goûts et couleurs ne se discutent pas”

Debian doesn’t use ppa, debian is not ubuntu, ubuntu is a distribution based on debian … why ?
Why such a very popular distro has chosen to come out of debian ? :stuck_out_tongue:
I am not a fan of ubuntu/canonical, but their success needs to be acknowledge what ever are your beliefs …

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This is a 3 year old topic. It already was a rant topic. If constructive discussion is needed, please open a new topic.
Warning: holy wars will not be tolerated. If you have an opinion, only post it with valid arguments.
closed.

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