Tom wrote:
> don't be put off by some of the answers here Dave, centos is primarily
> for servers but I use it on all my desktop machines besides my
> servers. you can pretty much add any application to your system that
> was intended for RH9 upwards including fedora without too much problem
> and dag covers most of the good stuff. what you cant find in dags repo
> get from rpmfind.net...I use webmin for that.
>
CentOS is perfectly fine for desktop/workstation use. However, if
you're new to Linux (like Dave) and you want to use unsupported
tools/components, you're going to have to dig under the covers and
customize things. If you don't know much about Linux internals, that
could turn out to be a supreme pain in the behind. My suggestion is to
"use what works" until you're comfortable with the inner workings of the
system. THEN you can experiment when you have some of the skills
necessary to get out of trouble if you break things. Switching to
Fedora Core (whatever's current this week), Gentoo or Ubuntu or
whatever, might improve things somewhat. I suspect a Linux "virgin" is
going to have just as many issues with those if they try to get off the
beaten track of supported packages.
A good analogy is someone who is disappointed with their new car because
they can't change the camshafts or pistons by themself to make more
power without spending a lot of money on an expert or by repeatedly
breaking things and taking a lot of time to learn to do it themselves.
Better to just drive the car until you can learn more about how its
engine works.
Cheers,
