gentoo vs centos

Message

djinnZ · Post by **djinnZ** » Thu Dec 16, 2010 6:04 pm

Hi, I need to use centos for compatibility with proprietary software (or centos or will not install, so I tink to use it in a chroot later and start direcly centos only for updates).
The pc will have two HD in software raid for data (shared between the two system).

Someone has tested similar situations?
Warnings? Issues?

Measures to take in gentoo to prevent data lost?

Thanks in advice.

db_404 · Post by **db_404** » Fri Dec 17, 2010 5:08 pm

First you might want to be sure that you really can't install under Gentoo - often it's just a matter of altering install scripts etc. to make the install complete. As long as you have all the required libraries and utilities there's really nothing special in Centos that would make it required. Of course getting support from the vendor might be interesting...

You should also consider installing Centos in a VM - that would be a fairly simple way of having side by side installs. I have both centos and ubuntu server instances running nicely under KVM on Gentoo.

djinnZ · Post by **djinnZ** » Fri Dec 17, 2010 6:48 pm

thanks for answer.

Its a strange situation, the producer has released the program certified only for centos/RH; not supporting other linux distributions never affect the "real" assistance, only the system related problems must be solved direcly by the user (no help for configuration of the system, thats all and I will to do by myself).

Only the local vendor pretend to install it directly (I have refused to buy sell a windows server with assistance from a frieds of the director) and not release the installers.
And, because its the first linux installation she hope also to learn something about linux from me.

So I need to have a dual boot pc for install or in case the maintenance creep need to use it directly. Later I think only to use a chroot or to copy the libreries (main and QT, just to be sure). A virtual machine is too much.

Because I see centos like windows my fear is to experience problems with the raid software or with something strange in autodetect.

Have you experience issues about this?

pappy_mcfae · Post by **pappy_mcfae** » Sat Dec 18, 2010 8:12 am

I have some experience playing with centos. It's easy to install, and the kernel is a make allmodules special. That means that anything that can be modular is modular. That and initrd tend to allow for boot from pretty much anything.

Centos is made to be easy to use, far easier than Gentoo. It's not as easy as Ubuntu, but it's easy enough. Being a binary distro, you also have all the same issues that other binary only distros have.

You would probably do better in a centos forum finding out the exact things you need to know to make things happen.

Cheers,
Pappy

djinnZ · Post by **djinnZ** » Sat Dec 25, 2010 3:47 pm

Sorry for delay in answer.

pappy_mcfae wrote:I have some experience playing with centos.
[cut]
You would probably do better in a centos forum finding out the exact things you need to know to make things happen.

"Better to do with the devil you know" say people in my country and sure is easiest to prevent troubles by adapting gentoo than try to customize an RH based distribution.
( admitting than a normal gentoo user has more knowhow than an expert on another distribution sound not politically correct...

).

But I suppose you not have not been in troubles with the sharing of a raid partition between two OS. Right?

[OT]

pappy_mcfae wrote:Centos is made to be easy to use, far easier than Gentoo.

I have quickly configured makefile and some others, start a classical

Code: Select all

emerge -eDNuv world ; emerge [some packages] ; exit

in a

Code: Select all

chroot /mnt/gentoo ; shutdown -h now

and, in the nex day, after a simple kernel building and configuration in five/ten minutes the system was complete and working fine.
With centos i have waited for the end of the installation (more than half hour with the dvd) and now is not working. I hate "plug(pay) and play(pray)" is not so easy as seems.[/OT]

pappy_mcfae · Post by **pappy_mcfae** » Sun Dec 26, 2010 6:49 am

Just like with every other binary distro I've used, there wasn't a lot of thinking required installing centos. Once installed, it booted and ran as expected. Xfce was ready to go, as was pretty much everything else...in about a two hour space, not a day and a half.

Centos has its place. It's just not on MY machinery.

Cheers,
Pappy