Michael Klinosky wrote:
> Hello.
> I've been using Fedora since about the FC6 era, for home use. I don't
> like the 6 month upgrade (or re-install) concept, and I don't need the
> latest & greatest versions of apps. So, CentOS sounds enticing.
>
A lot of desktop users come to CentOS for exactly that reason. Stability
and long term support are two of the core fundamentals of an enterprise
class distro.
> But, I have some questions. I found 2 centos websites (primary and
> wiki), and checked the forum - but couldn't find answers to these concerns.
>
> Is CentOS basically like Fedora? (Well, except for the updates every 6
> months!) As in 'look & feel', underlying operations, etc. (Btw, I know
> about removing upstream branding.)
>
RHEL 5, and hence CentOS 5, was based off a snapshot around the time of
Fedora 6 so if you're familiar with FC6 then you'll feel right at home
with CentOS.
> Any caveats? Meaning, does it use the same repositories that Fedora
> does? Are there any major or significant differences?
>
Best see the Wiki for that:
http://wiki.centos.org/AdditionalResources/Repositories/
Be careful which 3rd party repos you use and always enable/use the
priorities plugin.
> I should just go for the most recent package (5.2) - yes? About how old
> are the apps? (A few months?)
>
Yes. That depends - some are 2 years old (around the time of FC6 and the
release) whereas others have been/are updated (eg, Firefox, OpenOffice,
Thunderbird).
> How are application updates handled? 5.2 has firefox-3.0-0.beta5.6.el5.
> I saw (on the Firefox website) that 3.0.6 is out. Will an app update get
> that version, or something just a bit older? (btw, I know about
> backporting.)
>
Upstream normally doesn't change the version of apps in the release, but
this time around they did update Firefox from 1.5 to 3.0. Presumably
they felt it was easier to maintain than to backport fixes into 1.5.
Generally, Other than a few selected desktop apps, most stuff will stay
at the same version and have fixes backported. It's actually pretty easy
to just update stuff like Firefox/Thunderbird and OpenOffice straight
from their websites if you do need the very latest versions of these.
> Does centos use Plymouth? I have a somewhat recent computer (about 3
> years old) that has an intel chipset (which Plymouth can't handle yet,
> and so it needs xdriver=vesa during install).
>
No, no Plymouth in CentOS 5 and there never will be. Funny, you're not
the first Fedora user I've heard complain about lack of support in
Plymouth :-P
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