Gee ... You'd THINK comp.os.linux would get LOTS of posts

[1p166]

Get a lot more on COL.misc ...

What's up here ?

Here's one for you ... what have the strategies
been since IBM decided to screw over Centos ?

I was running a couple of useful Centos boxes,
but was faced with The Decision. One became
Ubuntu Server, the other FreeBSD.

I don't especially love Ubuntu, plain-Jane Deb
is better in many respects. However Ubuntu has
a better distro upgrade system. Didn't work all
that great from 18.04 to 20.04, consistently
crashes halfway through, but you get ENOUGH of
an upgrade to force everything else through.
(keep two or three terminals open)

[Aharon Robbins]

Post by 1p166
Get a lot more on COL.misc ...
What's up here ?
Here's one for you ... what have the strategies
been since IBM decided to screw over Centos ?

As I learned today, there are at least 4 different distributions
vying to take over for what CentOS did. Rocky Linux is the only
name I remember, but there are others. Google is your friend.

I like Ubuntu myself, but out of long habit (from my Redhat and Fedora
days) I tend to install each major release from scratch instead of
trying to upgrade.

HTH,

[1p166]

Post by Aharon Robbins

Post by 1p166
Get a lot more on COL.misc ...
What's up here ?
Here's one for you ... what have the strategies
been since IBM decided to screw over Centos ?

As I learned today, there are at least 4 different distributions
vying to take over for what CentOS did. Rocky Linux is the only
name I remember, but there are others. Google is your friend.

There IS a problem however. Centos had a deal with Red Hat,
it was an "authorized" clone and that conveyed benefits.
Without access to some of that "value added" RHEL code
IBM has cornered, replacements may be a bit on the thin side.

As such, it's probably better to just abandon that branch
entirely. Some of Debs - including vanillia Deb - are very
good for servers. Arch and derivatives have a large following
and a solid base.

Post by Aharon Robbins
I like Ubuntu myself,

I don't. It adds novel, usually crap, ideas and has
drifted into the quasi-commercial cloud universe. Have
to KILL all that crap every time I install.

It's ONLY advantage, IMHO, is it's fairly good version
upgrade capabilities. Saves a ton of time re-installing
everything.

Post by Aharon Robbins
but out of long habit (from my Redhat and Fedora
days) I tend to install each major release from scratch instead of
trying to upgrade.

It's OK if your system is only doing a few, or one,
function. If it's a "busy", heavily-utilized, box
though ... just TOO much to reinstall and re-tune
from scratch. The one I converted to U-Server was
doing a LOT of stuff. A ton of apps, a ton of
config files, a lot of little system-level tweaks
in lots of obscure files. I'd have to review my
docs to remember most of the tweaks - and I know
SOME were on the fly and NEVER documented. This is
a system worth an in-place upgrade.

The other I converted to FreeBSD. It doesn't do
nearly as much diverse stuff - but it needs to be
very secure, plus the little differences between
FBSD and Linux makes it even harder for the
script kiddies. OpenBSD ... that can be kinda
weird and anal ... security comes at a price.

I mostly have avoided VMs ... always seem to have
ridiculous problems with them. Hardware is pretty
cheap these days, so may as well dedicate a box
to a vital function. Amazing what a 2000/4000
series i5 can do with Linux or BSD, it's more
than enough computer. I/O delays make anything
faster pointless.

[Aharon Robbins]

Post by 1p166

Post by Aharon Robbins
As I learned today, there are at least 4 different distributions
vying to take over for what CentOS did. Rocky Linux is the only
name I remember, but there are others. Google is your friend.

There IS a problem however. Centos had a deal with Red Hat,
it was an "authorized" clone and that conveyed benefits.
Without access to some of that "value added" RHEL code
IBM has cornered, replacements may be a bit on the thin side.
As such, it's probably better to just abandon that branch
entirely. Some of Debs - including vanillia Deb - are very
good for servers. Arch and derivatives have a large following
and a solid base.

I agree with that.

Post by 1p166

Post by Aharon Robbins
I like Ubuntu myself,

I don't. It adds novel, usually crap, ideas and has
drifted into the quasi-commercial cloud universe. Have
to KILL all that crap every time I install.
It's ONLY advantage, IMHO, is it's fairly good version
upgrade capabilities. Saves a ton of time re-installing
everything.

That's what I really like about it. I use Ubuntu Mate, personally,
for laptops and desktops. I don't manage any large servers, so I
just don't have those headaches. :-)

To each his own.

Arnold

[1p166]

Post by Aharon Robbins

Post by 1p166

Post by Aharon Robbins
As I learned today, there are at least 4 different distributions
vying to take over for what CentOS did. Rocky Linux is the only
name I remember, but there are others. Google is your friend.

There IS a problem however. Centos had a deal with Red Hat,
it was an "authorized" clone and that conveyed benefits.
Without access to some of that "value added" RHEL code
IBM has cornered, replacements may be a bit on the thin side.
As such, it's probably better to just abandon that branch
entirely. Some of Debs - including vanillia Deb - are very
good for servers. Arch and derivatives have a large following
and a solid base.

I agree with that.

Post by 1p166

Post by Aharon Robbins
I like Ubuntu myself,

I don't. It adds novel, usually crap, ideas and has
drifted into the quasi-commercial cloud universe. Have
to KILL all that crap every time I install.
It's ONLY advantage, IMHO, is it's fairly good version
upgrade capabilities. Saves a ton of time re-installing
everything.

That's what I really like about it. I use Ubuntu Mate, personally,
for laptops and desktops. I don't manage any large servers, so I
just don't have those headaches. :-)
To each his own.

My office and home PCs are vanilla Deb. This laptop
is MX. My servers are US and FBSD ... guess I'm
"democratic" for the most part :-)

But only ONE server, by absolute need, is Win-Server.
I'd love to dump that, but ...

Oh, and wherever possible, it's still good old light
LXDE. Don't care if it's quasi-obsolete. LXQT sucks.
If no LXDE, then XFCE on the upside or OpenBox on
the downside. I've also wound up with a shitload
of PIs at the job, doing their various little things.
Plug in a USB SDD and you've got a lot of space.
Almost all are Raspbian, but I've got MX running
on one. OpenSUSE is just too slow for Pi-4s.
I really like FreeBSD+XFCE ... but DID install
pcmanfm too.

I also have OpenSUSE as an alt-boot ... and as
a VM. It's a Cadillac system - makes it SO easy
to set up complicated stuff. RAID in 30 seconds,
bridged network cards in 30 seconds with all the
options. However it is just a tad bulky and badly
wants you to use KDE or Gnome4 (yuk!).

Clearly I'm no longer a fan of terminal-only
servers. At this point, that's just ridiculous.
GUIs let you get it done 10 times faster and
with far fewer mistakes. This ain't Win-2 World
anymore. (though I DO have that in a VM along
with CP/M-86 and some appropriate compilers
for recreational/nostalgic reasons :-)

Next project, UNIX-V on a Pi-emulated PDP-11.
Alas VAX/VMS seems to be a lost cause these
days ... such a waste .....