[Lias] Red Hat substitutes

[Roger Buck]

Evaluating various freeware distributions based on RedHat Enterprise
Server V3 (ES3), I downloaded and installed Centos-3 RC4 from www.centos.org

Similar distros can be found at www.whiteboxlinux.org and www.taolinux.org

I have tried a variety of installation types (GUI, text, server,
workstation) and spent several hours evaluating each type.

The test system was same as previously used to trial Debian:

Roger Buck wrote:
 > Test System: Intel P4 HT + GigaByte GA-8IG1000 pro
 > motherboard (Intel 865G chipset).
 > This is a "modern" hardware system suitable for
 > normal home/office use but is by no means "leading edge"


WHAT I did first:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I first browsed errata, FAQs and general comments at each of the above
sites. All three projects are in their "formative" stage and only time
will tell....


Brief findings:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The following is intended to be a minimalist description of _some_ of
the things I tried. The comments are those of someone with a long unix +
linux history. I have had a lot of experience using RH7.3 and earlier,
but new to more recent RH distros in general and new to RedHat
Enterprise Linux in particular.

1. The .iso images were easy to download and burn. The install CD booted
first time without problem.

2. The "text" based install contained a few minor bugs (such as missing
Timezone information for some zones and Disk Druid failing to accept DOS
partition mount points).

3. The GUI installation worked without problem (including auto detection
of video and other hardware). The GUI install definitely is recommended
method... even for those who'd normally prefer to use text

4. The installation can be customised or you can choose from options
such as "minimal", "server", "workstation" and "all". In general, the
expected packages were installed - but some packages may still need to
be installed from CD (glibc-devel for example - despite having chosen
all the devel install options), depending on what type of stuff you
intend to do on the box.

5. You need to examine the screen options in some detail - missing a
simple check box can install a mouse or startup option that you may not
really want (such as auto-booting to GUI instead of tty).

6. In some configurations (especially when using multiple NICS in a
multi-homed configuration), the network cards would lock up or fail to
be registered by the kudzu utility. There are some comments about this
found on RedHat bugzilla which include a simple work-around... once you
identified kudzu as the source of the problem

7. I found the command-line redhat-* configuration tools were to be
avoided if possible - they are very limited and even RedHat advise
against using them. A lot of the configuration methods and config file
formats/locations have changed since the pre RH7 days. I don't know if
they would be familiar to users of more recent RH distros but I'd advise
new RH users to install XWindows and start by doing their admin from there.

8. A couple of small gotchas: Make sure your install machine has plenty
of RAM and disk space: Suggested minimum RAM 512M (RH install wants
256M) and 20G HDD (absolute minimum 6G if installing a standard server).

9. One big gotcha - especially for new installations. If your network
configuration is incomplete or wrong, the booting and loading a KDE GUI
can take a veeerrrry long time.... so walk away for at least five
minutes and have a cup of coffee before you assume that the system has
become terminally hung.

10. As a compatibility test, I downloaded several "official" RedHat ES3
updates (including rsync and gnupg). I was able to use the default
rpmbuild tools to create and install rpms on the Centos-3 distro with no
apparent problem.


Discussion:
~~~~~~~~~~~
The above reminded me very much of my first experiences installing
RedHat linux distro's - relatively a breeze. Even Mandrake users would
not be too badly disappointed


According to the Centos FAQ <http://www.centos.org/>,

"CentOS-3 is a stable Enterprise-class OS built from very
high quality sources.

It will be as compatible with RHEL 3 as is legally possible.
This will allow it to benefit from the published sources to
RHEL's updates and errata.

CentOS-3 will have a long lifespan and will be a reliable
choice for production machines for years to come."

Based on the fact that I was able to re-compile and install official RH
source RPMS on Centos-3, the above statements do not seem excessive....
though there is no guarantee about how long Centos-3 itself will survive
as a distribution.

The distro I was working with was only a "release candidate" but on the
basis of a few hours experience, I'd still say it would already be of
higher quality than most "production ready" distributions that I have
experienced over the years.

Users coming from an existing RedHat environment will probably feel
right at home and I'd have not trouble recommending they give it a try
sooner rather than later. As usual, YMMV

R.

PS: Looking forward next to evaluating the imminent release of FreeBSD 5.2