[CS-FSLUG] Quick Review: CentOS 4.1

[Jerry VanBrimmer]

On Sat, Sep 10, 2005 at 09:25:43PM -0700, Jerry VanBrimmer wrote:
> 
> As most of you know I have been a committed Slackware fan for the last
> couple of years. Recently I gave a friend an Ubuntu CD. He installed it
> on his laptop and demonstrated it to me. I was so impressed I decided to
> install it on a spare partition on my machine. I have to say, I am
> totally bored with it. Everything just works, there's nothing to tweak
> or troubleshoot. I plug in my SanDisk Cruzer mini usb stick and the
> kernel mounts it and opens up a copy of Nautilus with all of it's
> contents pefectly displayed right before my eyes. Yes, I did have to
> create a mount point for it and add a line in fstab for it, but that was
> all. 
> 
> If there are security updates a red icon appears on the panel at the top
> of the screen. Click once on the icon, enter your password, one more
> click on INSTALL, and all updates are downloaded and installed right
> befor your eyes. 
> 
> If I want more than the standard Ubuntu packages I can add any debian
> repository url to the sources.list file and the whole debian world opens
> up to me. 
> 
> It's just too perfect, it's boring. Please pray for me, I'm afraid I
> might have to back to Wxxdblows just to have something to do.

Aha! I found something that needed tweaked! I needed to edit the mailcap
file so I could open *cough* .doc files from mutt with OpenOffice. Ahem,
job done in five minutes. So boring.

> 
> Ahem, what's a contented man to do with his spare time?
> 
> !!! I just might get some real prayer/work/ministry done for a change!!!
> 
> 
> On Sat, Sep 10, 2005 at 12:45:03PM -0500, Ed Hurst wrote:
> > My wife finally managed to save up and buy a cheap clone system from
> > Sam's Club, an Everex. She gave me her old HP Pavilion 542x. This is
> > more machine than I've used before. Having been a little disappointed
> > with how my old favorite SUSE behaved on some of that older hardware, I
> > gave CentOS a try. Version numbers essentially track those of RHEL, and
> > the whole thing is built from freely accessible source RPMs RedHat release.
> > 
> > Except for the external modem, CentOS did a superior job of hardware
> > detection and setup. Most of the software is a little behind the curve
> > of SUSE's cutting edge, but that is consistent with RHEL's commitment to
> > stability. It is sold as a mostly server OS. Sadly, that's too true. By
> > emphasizing the server aspect, the desktop user loses a little. CentOS
> > has absolutely no simple dialup application that I could find. For KDE
> > users, KPPP is crippled in several ways at once, and it seems
> > intentional. The usual efforts working through the PAM module, SUID
> > root, using sudo, etc., all failed. Of course, that's a RedHat thing.
> > 
> > But without the famous RP3 dialer to replace it, there is only an admin
> > tool (requiring root password) to "activate" interfaces. All the
> > Internet apps are tweaked to work through this application, including
> > the firewall. Even plain old wvdial is denied access to the modem for
> > actual dialup (oddly, not for setup). I've already mentioned the problem
> > with the external modem. Most applications couldn't find it. During
> > installation, the hardware detection missed it entirely, concentrating
> > on the onboard ethernet port.
> > 
> > Another naughty issue with installation is hiding package options. That
> > is, when you take the advanced option to select individual packages,
> > some of those on the CDs are not listed at all in the installer. I
> > manually mounted them and checked, finding several things I wanted, but
> > stuff known to be de-emphasized by RedHat. An example is KDE games. The
> > installer offered *only* GNOME games. Yet I found the package on the
> > CDs. On the other hand, automated selections demanded I accept the
> > kernel sources for SMP kernels when I only wanted a standard set of
> > development tools for compiling a few apps not part of the distro.
> > 
> > Aside from that, just about everything else is functional and usable, as
> > long as you keep in mind it's a server OS. It's probably perfect for a
> > business IT department where restricting user choices is a virtue, but
> > for the SOHO, it's probably not a good desktop choice.
> > 
> > I also tried SUSE 9.3, but no combination of options could prevent the
> > installer from crashing out entirely. On a whim, I tried SUSE 9.2, and
> > managed a text-based installation. I suppose the onboard Intel graphics
> > chipset is not SUSE's favorite. Oddly, the 3D acceleration works. At any
> > rate, the system is now working fine. The Celeron 1.8 Ghz CPU seems to
> > make the shortage of RAM (256MB) less of an issue, because most things
> > open rather quickly and work well. I managed to save the rebuilt
> > Freetype2 RPMs with bytecode hinting turned on, and the fonts display
> > clean and sharp on the Pavilion mx70 monitor. This is a very intelligent
> > 17" monitor, and required absolutely no manual adjustment. At 1280x1024,
> > things are quite sharp and bright for my aging eyes.
> > 
> > -- 
> > Ed Hurst
> > -----------
> > Applied Bible -- http://users.tconline.net/~softedges/
> > Plain & Simple Computer Help -- http://ed.asisaid.com/
> > Plain Package blog -- http://ed.asisaid.com/blog/
> > 
> > 

-- 
Godspeed,
Jerry
The KING is coming!..................Rev. 1:7
The bottom line......................John 3:3-7
Linux User #153217..................http://counter.li.org