[LUNI] Seen any good distros lately?

[Branko Kotur]

On Monday 08 January 2007 12:01 am, Trev Peterson wrote:
> I have been maintaining a few CentOS 4.4 servers for a client for the
> last 6 months.  In that time we've had the following problems:
>
> 1. SELinux is broken on CentOS4.4 and it is on by default (very bad
> choice).  There are many reasons I say this and if you are interested in
> a list let me know.
>
> 2. As Larry mentioned the Apache package leaks memory (severely in some
> instances).
>
> 3. Auto-updates break on dependency hell (yes we are using yum and it
> still is unable to reliably update).  This has happened twice in the
> first 3 months I was maintaining the servers.  Both times it left the
> packages in a state that required considerable manual intervention to
> correct (read more than 1 - 2 hours).  Choosing Sendmail and Bind as the
> default mail and DNS servers make it even more important to regularly
> update your system.
>
> 4. Limited packages and configurations results in much more software
> maintained outside the package management system.  This adds to
> increased support time/cost and even more upgrade headaches.
>
> Compared to the Debian and even Gentoo servers the CentOS servers
> require a lot more babysitting and have a lot more gotchas.  It seems
> you have used CentOS enough to work around some of the problems (disable
> SELinux, compile Apache from source, etc.)
>
> All things being equal I recommend Debian to CentOS as I find it to have
> lower admin costs and higher reliability.
>
I guess my needs are a bit different then yours.  I have a very basic install 
of CentOS (just the core functionality).  I basically unchecked everything 
except 1 or 2 items during install (I used the Server Only CD instead of the 
4 CD's that are offered).  Everything that runs on it (httpd, bind, etc) was 
compiled.  

Unfortunately, the main reason I'm sticking with CentOS is because some of the 
software I'm using doesn't work very well on Debian.  It's best supported on 
RHEL and CentOS.  Would RHEL 4 have the same problems as CentOS 4 since 
they're basically the same?  Or do the CentOS guys change things here and 
there?