From: Paul Kraft
Date: 21 December 2011 20:29
----------
From: Sabuj Pattanayek
centos 6
----------
From: David Schuller
From: <mjvdwoerd
----------
From: Ethan Merritt
Well, since you ask...
My preference is for Mandriva, followed by Suse.
IMHO neither Fedora nor RHEL (of which CENTOS is a clone) are as
suitable "right out of the box" for use either at home or in the
lab. We (lab scientists) are just not in their target audience,
so their packaging and configuration defaults are not the best
for our use. Oh, and I much prefer a KDE desktop, which is only
an afterthought at best in the distros you mention.
Ethan
----------
From: Sabuj Pattanayek
Not out of the box, but the latest ffx works in centos6. I think there
are third party repos for ffx, but I just download and maintain that
separately (e.g. in /opt or /usr/local ), which basically amounts to
clicking update in the about box of ffx.
Centos 6 does but it's really not that big of a help either and
neither is RHAT's bugzilla unless it's something that effects the
majority of servers that RHAT gets paid to support (e.g. some bug in
NFS, the filesystem, or kernel)
----------
From: George Reeke
FWIW, I use RHEL 5 = CentOS 5 and recently upgraded to 6.
Everything I use (not crystallographic software) works fine
except vmware workstation currently does not work on it,
so if you use vmware (I use it to run Windows inside Linux)
you have to wait a while.
Best to all from an old lurker,
George Reeke
----------
From: Sabuj Pattanayek
Tried upgrading to vmware workstation v8? Compat guide :
http://www.vmware.com/resources/compatibility/search.php?deviceCategory=software&testConfig=17
says that v8 works with RHEL6/CENTOS6 as the host OS. VirtualBox is a
decent alternative if you don't want to pay.
----------
From: David Schuller
Fedora releases are supported for about a year from initial release.
Red Hat Enterprise, Centos and Scientific Linux are all supported for about 5 years.
----------
From: Francois Berenger
Ubuntu has long term support distributions as well:
"Starting with Ubuntu 12.04 LTS [...] versions will receive 5 years support"
Previous versions were 3 years for desktop and 5 years for server.
cf. https://wiki.ubuntu.com/LTS
Regards,
F.
Date: 21 December 2011 20:29
hello,
I'm considering upgrading my linux software from CENTOS5 to perhaps Fedora or UBUNTO. Does anyone have an opinion about the best linux version to upgrade to for not only CCP4 but also for general robustness and for the best standard apps..Thanks
Paul
Dr. Paul Kraft
Structural Biologist
Structural Biologist
----------
From: Sabuj Pattanayek
centos 6
----------
From: David Schuller
Opinions? You want opinions? On this mailing list? This one ought to keep us going until the new year.
As for Fedora v. Ubuntu, my opinion is that Fedora is better for a centrally managed system, whereas Ubuntu is perhaps more convenient for a single owner-operator.
Fedora uses the RPM system for software distribution. and it's easy to install a lot of pre-packaged libraries and applications, including Coot and Pymol. If you do stereo, installation of the nVidia proprietary drivers is easy enough using the RPMFusion repository. The "akmod-nvidia" module rebuilds the driver automatically for a kernel upgrade.
But as for robustness? Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. I can't use that word in the same sentence as Fedora. It is Red Hat's "bleeding edge" product, where they introduce all the latest, greatest bugs. Fedora 15 and 16 do not have a graphical application for managing system services, because they just switched to systemctl and do not have all the details worked out yet.
A current issue in the Linux community is desktops. Fedora switched from Gnome 2 to Gnome 3 in their previous release (15). G3 has a whole bushel of bugs and some nonintuitive "features." Ubuntu switched from Gnome to their own "Unity" desktop, which has sent some users fleeing to the Mint distribution.
I am just now contemplating a switch in the opposite direction, from Fedora to Scientific Linux 6. Like CENTOS, SL is a repackaging based on the Red Hat Enterprise source code, and is FREE. It has backing from some of the big physics labs, including CERN and Fermilab.
The price of stability is that you don't get all the latest stuff. In SL6.1, the current version of Firefox is 3.6.24, and the image rendering is SLOW. I am wondering if I want to go back that far in time.
Also, SL does not have their own bugzilla. If you encounter a bug, they tell you to take it to RedHat. You can imagine the finger-pointing circles that is going to lead to.
----------As for Fedora v. Ubuntu, my opinion is that Fedora is better for a centrally managed system, whereas Ubuntu is perhaps more convenient for a single owner-operator.
Fedora uses the RPM system for software distribution. and it's easy to install a lot of pre-packaged libraries and applications, including Coot and Pymol. If you do stereo, installation of the nVidia proprietary drivers is easy enough using the RPMFusion repository. The "akmod-nvidia" module rebuilds the driver automatically for a kernel upgrade.
But as for robustness? Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. I can't use that word in the same sentence as Fedora. It is Red Hat's "bleeding edge" product, where they introduce all the latest, greatest bugs. Fedora 15 and 16 do not have a graphical application for managing system services, because they just switched to systemctl and do not have all the details worked out yet.
A current issue in the Linux community is desktops. Fedora switched from Gnome 2 to Gnome 3 in their previous release (15). G3 has a whole bushel of bugs and some nonintuitive "features." Ubuntu switched from Gnome to their own "Unity" desktop, which has sent some users fleeing to the Mint distribution.
I am just now contemplating a switch in the opposite direction, from Fedora to Scientific Linux 6. Like CENTOS, SL is a repackaging based on the Red Hat Enterprise source code, and is FREE. It has backing from some of the big physics labs, including CERN and Fermilab.
The price of stability is that you don't get all the latest stuff. In SL6.1, the current version of Firefox is 3.6.24, and the image rendering is SLOW. I am wondering if I want to go back that far in time.
Also, SL does not have their own bugzilla. If you encounter a bug, they tell you to take it to RedHat. You can imagine the finger-pointing circles that is going to lead to.
-- ======================================================================= All Things Serve the Beam ======================================================================= David J. Schuller modern man in a post-modern world
From: <mjvdwoerd
Paul,
Wait a while, and then CENTOS 6 (or not wait a while). In my opinion neither of your choices are as stable as CENTOS. The big drawback is that CENTOS does not have the latest gadgets - but gadgets and stability are mutually exclusive, by definition. I have lately been annoyed because I obtained a program that needs C-libraries that are not available in CENTOS5, so I can appreciate your thinking, but I am not planning on moving away from CENTOS. It is completely maintenance-free nothing ever crashes and all standard programs work on it.
Uh-oh, I think I just heard a breaking-sound in the computer room. :-)
Mark
----------
From: Ethan Merritt
Well, since you ask...
My preference is for Mandriva, followed by Suse.
IMHO neither Fedora nor RHEL (of which CENTOS is a clone) are as
suitable "right out of the box" for use either at home or in the
lab. We (lab scientists) are just not in their target audience,
so their packaging and configuration defaults are not the best
for our use. Oh, and I much prefer a KDE desktop, which is only
an afterthought at best in the distros you mention.
Ethan
----------
From: Sabuj Pattanayek
Not out of the box, but the latest ffx works in centos6. I think there
are third party repos for ffx, but I just download and maintain that
separately (e.g. in /opt or /usr/local ), which basically amounts to
clicking update in the about box of ffx.
Centos 6 does but it's really not that big of a help either and
neither is RHAT's bugzilla unless it's something that effects the
majority of servers that RHAT gets paid to support (e.g. some bug in
NFS, the filesystem, or kernel)
----------
From: George Reeke
FWIW, I use RHEL 5 = CentOS 5 and recently upgraded to 6.
Everything I use (not crystallographic software) works fine
except vmware workstation currently does not work on it,
so if you use vmware (I use it to run Windows inside Linux)
you have to wait a while.
Best to all from an old lurker,
George Reeke
----------
From: Sabuj Pattanayek
Tried upgrading to vmware workstation v8? Compat guide :
http://www.vmware.com/resources/compatibility/search.php?deviceCategory=software&testConfig=17
says that v8 works with RHEL6/CENTOS6 as the host OS. VirtualBox is a
decent alternative if you don't want to pay.
----------
From: David Schuller
Fedora releases are supported for about a year from initial release.
Red Hat Enterprise, Centos and Scientific Linux are all supported for about 5 years.
----------
From: Francois Berenger
Ubuntu has long term support distributions as well:
"Starting with Ubuntu 12.04 LTS [...] versions will receive 5 years support"
Previous versions were 3 years for desktop and 5 years for server.
cf. https://wiki.ubuntu.com/LTS
Regards,
F.
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