Complicated OS setup, 64/32 Bit, Windows/various linux distros

[b0redom]

What do you plan to get out of Centos? I've never really understood why it exists

Because the enterprise software vendors, Oracle etc will only support you running on a 'supported' Linux. Centos, as you're aware is a recompile of RHEL, so it has all the same libs etc. Try getting Oracle support to work with you on a debian install.

It's the same reason there's still a market for Solaris, AIX, HPUX etc.

No one (sane) would deploy a mission critical app on Centos - as you say it's not great for anything none standard, and you don't get the support you would from RedHat, but for test environments it's as good as the real thing.

[directhex]

Because the enterprise software vendors, Oracle etc will only support you running on a 'supported' Linux. Centos, as you're aware is a recompile of RHEL, so it has all the same libs etc. Try getting Oracle support to work with you on a debian install.

It's the same reason there's still a market for Solaris, AIX, HPUX etc.

No one (sane) would deploy a mission critical app on Centos - as you say it's not great for anything none standard, and you don't get the support you would from RedHat, but for test environments it's as good as the real thing.

Oracle won't support Centos either. Proximity to RHEL doesn't help, your big expensive Oracle support contract won't be honoured.

[b0redom]

No they won't, but to all intents and purposes it's the same OS. So you can develop cheaply on Centos and deploy in live, where you do need, and do get, support on RHEL. It's a bit pricey to use RHEL/RHAS as a desktop.

[timbomfg]

I code in VB.net but also work heavily on a couple of linux based projects. As a result, i swear by VirtualBox. If you predominantly need linux support for coding, VirtualBox would be a good way to go!

[directhex]

I code in VB.net but also work heavily on a couple of linux based projects. As a result, i swear by VirtualBox. If you predominantly need linux support for coding, VirtualBox would be a good way to go!

directhex@mortos:/tmp$ lsb_release -d
Description:	Ubuntu 8.10
directhex@mortos:/tmp$ cat hello.vb 
Imports System
 Module Module1
     Sub Main()
         Console.WriteLine ("Hello World")
     End Sub
 End Module
directhex@mortos:/tmp$ vbnc hello.vb 
 version  (Mono 2.0 - r)



Assembly 'hello, Version=0.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=null' saved successfully to '/tmp/hello.exe'.
Compilation successful
Compilation took 00:00:02.5077040
directhex@mortos:/tmp$ mono hello.exe 
Hello World
directhex@mortos:/tmp$

[Time Bandit]

You could always try the Linux distribution chooser at zegenie studios for a bit of fun - a bit like going to a fortune teller.