Update: CentOS 8 EOL…
Well, this is saddening. Cent’s maintainers have kind of messed things up big time. Partway through CentOS 8’s service life the maintainers decided that they would favor a continuous release platform more. Now all users on CentOS 8 will have to decide to either to downgrade to CentOS 7 at EOL time (December 31st 2021) OR move to CentOS Stream which will be a rolling release platform upstream.
What does this mean? Well for one, Centos may be likely less stable being upstream. Furthermore, Cent8 will receive no more updates. Lastly, this means that your options for Stable long term support are limited essentially to RHEL… which is definitely convenient right?
Read more on this ZDNet article to get more details on the politics and drama behind the decision.
Preface: OS Wars
Many people see I prefer RHEL based Operating systems over the more common Debian based (or even Arch) and question my decision. Ultimately, the decision of which OS you use is up to you and your application. Many think that running HFH on Cent is a weird decision too, I think that’s a weird opinion but you’re welcome to have it! I am not saying one OS is better than the other. Nor am I going to say anyone is wrong in their decision on a specific OS That said, there is some fiery back and forth between power users on what is better, Mac or Windows or Linux. Which version? Which “Flavor”? Why pay when you can go free? Why go and spend days configuring when you can have something work out of the box? There’s no right answer for everyone, and many would like to think that their operating system choice puts them above someone else. My time in the power user community has allowed me to see all sides of it, and my bottomless appetite for learning has driven me to try experiencing as many as possible.
TL;DR style conclusion at the bottom for those that don’t want to read my rant.
Why does my opinion matter on this?
I guess it really doesn’t if you don’t want it to. But I was a Unix Engineer, and before that a Linux Systems Analyst. I’m A+ certified which requires a bit of Windows knowledge and use a Mac as a daily driver. I also know a touch of Solaris. Not super impressive but I think I have enough experience to say my opinion on the topic is a professional one.
Why not X operating system?
Let’s start with why NOT other operating systems. So I use CentOS for my servers, Fedora for my desktops (typically), and Mac for my daily driver. My gaming machine is Windows.
Servers
Most would suggest running Debian based such as Ubuntu for a server. Aside from not being as familiar with Ubuntu, I have found Ubuntu’s AppArmor to not quite fit my needs. Ubuntu’s solutions often feel more “weighty” and less flexible in my opinion as well, but if you go off of “feel” with computing you will generally be disappointed.
Desktops
When running working machines or personal laptops I prefer Fedora for alot of its drag and drop features. Again another common suggestion here is Ubuntu and I come back to familiarity. Additionally the default package manager front end, DNF, allows package groups which I have come to enjoy far more than apt’s features. Honorable mention, many suggest Arch, with claims of being highly extensible and “lightweight”. I might be offending some with this but I honestly don’t think of Arch first when I think about customizing my operating system or making it lightweight. Unfortunately, it just becomes bloated with precompiled packages that are rarely officially supported. It’s a process to get it going and to replicate something that I can frankly do with half the space, better support and half the time in Fedora. If I really wanted to spend that kind of time on my OS I’d probably move to Slackware or Gentoo.
Daily Driver
I get a lot of flak for my Mac (haha). If it were my personal machine I’d never go for it, but I have to say: for a machine my company hands me to just get work done it’s great. Not just because it works out of the box, does exactly what I need and has high quality construction; but OSX has many productivity features that specifically work well for the office, and as a security professional I value the limited places a user can circumvent security features in my organization. Additionally, Windows isn’t quite where I’d want it to be for providing the best work experience for me and Linux is great for certain things but unfortunately none of my work apps are natively supported and my users cannot be trusted or bothered with it. While Mac is very pricey for the consumer, that money spent is saved on your Help Desk team having to support the machines. The Apple support program is pretty advanced for a company of any size. It just makes more sense in the long run
Gaming computer
I want to drive Linux gaming, a ton. I think removing the operating system as a cost barrier to entry in the gaming world would be awesome. But unfortunately it’s not there. Windows is just the obvious option here and I am not proficient enough with that realm of software to change that. Sorry D:
But MY Operating system is better!
I’m gonna be blunt, maybe a bit scathing here: No it’s not. It’s better for you, for your applications. If you go around telling everyone that you use Arch to impress them and then tell them how bad their operating system is it has the opposite effect on me. I don’t think you’re giving great advice from some guru that can fix all computer problems with their “vast” Linux knowledge. I think you’re a person who is too stuck in their ways to explore more than their little island of technology. Or you just learned what Linux was in the last couple years and impressed yourself with your ability to follow a guide on Arch. Congratulations for your accomplishment, Really! But how much you fight with Arch is not a measure of ability or professional knowledge on this matter. Arch isn’t a defacto standard in any professional community I’ve ever experienced. In fact it’s non-standard, it’s difficult to work with and it breaks on updates regularly making it literally the worst decision you can make for a production system. I know I was a little nitpicky there and focused on Arch… ALOT, but this applies to literally any suggestion of that variety, there’s some argument to be made that shows exactly why it doesn’t work for my applications. Arch just so happens to the common case, sorry to the Arch users out there, especially the less fervent ones.
Conclusion
Basically the point I’m trying to make here is: stop trying to force your operating system choices on people. Professionals know that there are use cases for most, it’s rare a piece of technology with absolutely no viability makes it very long in the IT world. I picked CentOS to run HFH because I’m familiar with it and I work with Linux in a professional capacity which is the community it is aimed at. I don’t use Ubuntu and the like because it has a more bloated, beginner friendly experience that I don’t really like even after you get past that stuff. You may like it for different reasons. That’s perfectly fine and doesn’t make you any worse in any space for that. I know very intelligent Linux pros that prefer Ubuntu.
If I were in a business setting, my decision may be different depending on the users, applications and more for my server. It’s important to adapt and to be flexible when working in this space. Thanks for reading!