CentOS 5 Released

jonesy16 writes "Only a few weeks behind the release of Red Hat Enterprise 5, CentOS announced today the immediate release of version 5 of the free derivative of RHEL 5. Torrents are available for both i386 and x86_64. New features include compiz and AIGLX support as well as better virtualization and thin-client support. Package updates include Apache-2.2, kernel-2.6.18, Gnome-2.16, and KDE-3.5."

Re:Does anyone even use this OS?

[guacamole]

Given the traffic on the mailing lists, I would say yes, a whole lot of people are using it. In my organization, all desktops and secondary servers run CentOS. We keep RHEL on a few critical servers just for the sake of our (sysadmin) jobs.

Re:Does anyone even use this OS?

[aarmenaa]

We use Cent where I work. There's a special "Server" CD that strips out pretty much everything that's not a major requirement. I think they're taking the same path that Microsoft has with Windows: you put one version on the server, and another version on the client, and it's all tested to work very well together. In that respect, Compiz on the client might be considered a feature.

Re:Does anyone even use this OS?

[Anonymous Coward]

And it's not only enterprise-quality, but since it essentially is RHEL without the branding, all documentation for RHEL works for CentOS as well. Though the Cent OS user can't depend on support from Red Hat, he could still use something like Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 Administration Unleashed [amazon.com] or whatever. If only all enterprise-level software was both well-documented in the public sphere and had Free versions out there.

Re:Does anyone even use this OS?

[EvanED]

About 75% of the University of Wisconsin Computer Science dept. (graduates + faculty + computer labs) uses CentOS. That's, I dunno, 400 computers?

Re:Does anyone even use this OS?

[doktorjayd]

CENTOS is ideal for any dev work that will eventually be deployed to RHEL, as its basically the same binaries with the redhat copyrighted stuff removed. ( and sans support contract ...)

we tend to set up vm's as dev and staging environments per project, last count there was about 30 dormant and 5 active on our vmware box.

as for the compiz & desktop candy.. you can thank fedora for that finding its way to centos... of course you dont have to install or even use it.

Re:Does anyone even use this OS?

[hughesjr]

A few people use it ... well, maybe more than a few as we have had 2 million unique IP Addresses do updates against our yum repositories in the last 12 months.

Re:Does anyone even use this OS?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, Duke University Shared Cluster Resource (http://www.csem.duke.edu/ [duke.edu], over 1,100 processors and still growing) has used CentOS for the last couple of years, and it was working just fine.

Re:Does anyone even use this OS?

[Gerb]

You can also do:

grub

grub> device (hd0) /dev/sda
grub> root (hd0,0) (if /boot is on the first partition)
grub> setup (hd0)

and then the exact same for /dev/sdb

Then both disks are bootable via grub. After that you won't have to mess with grub.conf again.

Re:yet another Fedora Core 6

[hughesjr]

Except ... Fedora Core 6 will stop getting updates once FC8 is out in a year .. but RHEL5 (and CentOS) being Enterprise OSes will continue to be supported for 7 years. So, while they are the same (or at least very similar) to FC6 now, if you are installing it on your enterprise servers or desktops, you will appreaciate the support lifetime and reduced cost of totally reloading your OS every 6 months.

Re:Does anyone even use this OS?

[rm69990]

All I see them doing is exercising their rights under the GPL using others' copyrighted code, which is, surprise surprise, exactly what Red Hat does with the vast majority of the code in their products...

The second best server OS

[Werrismys]

Debian is best for running non-commercial stuff on, but for most HP stuff and VMware server etc (that officially support RHEL4) CentOS is the way to go. The server install (single CD with all the stuff you need) rules, hope they make one for CentOS5 soon.

When installing for example VMware Server, all the stuff one needs is already in. Even the kernel modules load without any recompiling.

Re:Does anyone even use this OS?

[sarathmenon]

If you are running RHEL in prod, then nothing in the license stops you from installing it on the dev machines. We do that, and it works great because we have to maintain only 1 distro in the whole environment.

The RHN subscription is for access to the download page, and for support. If you have two licenses, then it entitles you to have support for 2 machines, but doesn't in any way prevent you from installing on a third machine. Just an FYI, in case you weren't aware of it.

Re:Does anyone even use this OS?

[hughesjr]

Well ... it seems that the Fedora team (and Board Chairman) do not seem to share your opinion of CentOS (they must not have gotten the memo to hate CentOS before we shared a FOSDEM 2007 [fosdem.org] devroom). Also see:

LinuxFormat Article [linuxformat.co.uk]

I'm sure that Red Hat would be much better off if the people who want to install a free server did not install CentOS (which can easily run anything on RHEL later if support and a paid for OS is required) ... but instead used debian or ubuntu. Of course they wouldn't ... Red Hat benefits greatly because CentOS gets software installed that can easily move to their flag ship product when and if the time is right.

Also, take a look at the Red Hat bugzilla sometime and do a search for CentOS. The code base gets seen / installed by many more people on many more pieces of hardware, many of which would not have installed on RHEL but some other free OS if CentOS were unavailable. This allows RH to get feedback and bug reports from many more people to stablize their codebase. All the time, RH does not need to provide any real support to this group of people.

You can even argue that because of the popularity of CentOS combined with some big name 3rd party repositories like RPMForge [rpmforge.net] and KBS CentOS Extras [karan.org] that a whole new need was demonstrated, and that the EPEL project [fedoraproject.org] was created to help fill that need. Again, Red Hat and RHEL users benefit greatly because of this colaboration.

There are other numerous advantages as well ... but that is enough for now. No, Red Hat is not loosing sleep because CentOS exists ... indeed, quite the opposite.

Re:Does anyone even use this OS?

[Anonymous Coward]

https://www.redhat.com/licenses/rhel_us.html?count ry=buying+a+Red+Hat+Subscription+from+Red+Hat [redhat.com]

You need to reread section 5 if you have an RHN subscription. You MAY NOT install redhat software on a machine that does not have an RHN subscription and they MAY ask to audit you.

Re:Does anyone even use this OS?

[timbo234]

I don't think that's right at all. I've come across the same question in 2 different companies now and the answer has always been that you must have a RHEL subscription for every machine you have RHEL installed on. In fact have a read of the licencing agreement:
https://www.redhat.com/licenses/rhel_us.html?count ry=buying+a+Red+Hat+Subscription+from+Red+Hat [redhat.com]

Read sections 3.1 and 5.1 in particular. In 5.1 they are saying that you must notify them if the number of installed systems exceeds the number of subscriptions you have, and they will bill you for the extra systems etc.:
Client will promptly notify Red Hat if the number of Installed Systems exceeds the number of Installed Systems for which Client has paid the applicable fee. In its notice, Client will include both the number of additional Installed Systems and the date(s) on which such Installed Systems were put into use. Red Hat will invoice Client for the applicable Services for such Installed Systems on a pro-rata basis and Client will pay for such Services in accordance with this Agreement.

This is why Centos is so useful, you can have as many dev/test/uat/whatever machines as you like without having to worry about subscriptions.

Re:Does anyone even use this OS?

[goonerw]

What about students, both formal and informal?
For formal students, they should be able to buy the academic version of RHEL which, for v4 was $50 for AS.

Re:I'd really love a ServerCD version of this

[morcego]

The ServerCD version of CentOS always take some time to show up.

That said, you can do a bare minimum install with CentOS 5 CD1 these days easily enough. Just select custom install, and deselect all package groups.

Re:yet another Fedora Core 6

[jimicus]

RH admitted that 300+ packages in RHEL5 are rpms from FC6. RHEL 5 strongly resembles of FC6... it is nothing but augmented version of it anyway ...and CentOS is exactly that as well.

That's the whole point of the fedora project: to provide a base from which to produce RHEL.

The core difference, as has already been pointed out, is long-term support. If you find you need a security update for a particular package for Fedora Core 6 in a couple of years when FC9 is the latest version, good luck. Your only options are to upgrade the whole system or build the package (and any dependencies which also require updating) yourself.

You may not have a problem with that. CentOS and RHEL is intended for people who do.

Re:Does anyone even use this OS?

[MBGMorden]

GPL doesn't prevent the standard "you can't copy my software" practice as many believe.

What the GPL says, is that if you give someone a binary copy of the software, the source must either come with it, or be readily available. Now, the giving of that binary copy is still subject to normal copyright laws. If I for instance create a boxed software product, GPL it, and then put it on the shelves of Best Buy (with source on the CD), you still wouldn't necessarily be able to copy it and give it to friends, because you have no distribution rights on the binary, and therefore whether or not you must include the source with it becomes moot.

Re:One Red Hat to Rule Them All

[ePhil_One]

The only functional difference between the two is the removal of the RedHat name and logo from all packages. redhat-config-network becomes system-config-network, etc; the rest is all artwork.

Fedora is a whole other beast. While Fedora rpms will often run fine on a RHEL system (and RHEL5 makes many of the FC6 packages available as unsupported extras), its goal is to be much faster moving and bleeding edge, at the cost of reliability and long term support.

Re:The second best server OS

[C_Kode]

Except the ones that count. Like Oracle. I don't need Linux support, I need enterprise application support. Some people just don't understand that. If I needed Linux support, I would just run RHEL on all servers.

Re:Red Hat and the GPL

[0racle]

While Red Hat do comply with the letter of the GPL (the provide the source code) they don't do it in a very friendly or helpful way

By providing SRPM's, Red Hat goes beyond the GPL requirements and makes it very easy for projects like CentOS to exist. You're really going to have to find something else to complain about.

Re:Does anyone even use this OS?

[david_thornley]

What the GPL says, is that if you give someone a binary copy of the software, the source must either come with it, or be readily available. Now, the giving of that binary copy is still subject to normal copyright laws. If I for instance create a boxed software product, GPL it, and then put it on the shelves of Best Buy (with source on the CD), you still wouldn't necessarily be able to copy it and give it to friends, because you have no distribution rights on the binary, and therefore whether or not you must include the source with it becomes moot.

Who modded this informative? It's flat-out wrong.

The GPL indeed says you need to provide source to anybody you provide the binary to, but that's not all it says. It also says that any recipient of the code can modify and redistribute at will. Therefore, anybody who has a copy of GPLed software can freely give it to friends.

Heck, the right to redistribute changed and unchanged versions of the software are two of Stallman's Four Freedoms. There's no way the GPL would not reflect that.

So, if you have GPLed software, you have the right to get the source code, you have the right to run it, the right to modify it, and the right to redistribute it. The limitations that the GPL has is that you cannot deny any downstream recipient those rights.

Re:Does anyone even use this OS?

[slamb]

We use Cent where I work. There's a special "Server" CD that strips out pretty much everything that's not a major requirement. I think they're taking the same path that Microsoft has with Windows: you put one version on the server, and another version on the client, and it's all tested to work very well together. In that respect, Compiz on the client might be considered a feature.

I think that "Server" CD is something your company created. RedHat split RHEL5 into "Server" and "Client" repositories [centos.org], but CentOS 5 combined them into a single repository, as CentOS 4 did before. So "Server" or "Client" is just a choice of which packages you install.

Where I work, we've created kickstarts for several configurations - development workstations for a couple different teams, basic server, server with RAID. They're minor differences, and in fact I'm switching our configs to be all generated from one file through gpp [nothingisreal.com]. As of last night, you can get a CentOS 5 machine by booting our CD, typing workstation-x86_64 name=foo, and waiting half an hour. At some places, you don't even need to put in a CD - you can use pxelinux [zytor.com] to boot off the network.