On 1/19/2011 9:13 AM, John Hodrien wrote: > On Wed, 19 Jan 2011, Les Mikesell wrote: > >> CentOS would likely only be used as a desktop OS by people who also run >> servers and like everything to be the same. They all assemble approximately >> the same set of upstream packages, though, so it is possible to make them >> all do the same things with varying amounts of work in finding current >> packages that might be missing in the base distribution. > > I do think CentOS gets unreasonably knocked as a desktop OS. I definitely > don't use it on desktops *because* I run it on servers. >
The difference is that open source server software has been 'feature complete' for ages and the standards processes that change client/server interactions are very, very slow - so outdated versions of server software is not a problem as long as bug/security fixes are made. That's not true for desktop applications and environments. If you don't have something current you are missing the improvements that many thousands of man-hours of work have made. Personally, I use Windows at work and a Mac at home as desktops and use their applications for 'typical' desktop work so I avoid the issue completely (along with the ubiquitous Nvidia driver problems and lack of media codecs) and run NX/freenx to access CentOS hosts for development and server management. This gives me a full Centos desktop with good performance when/where I want it, with the ability to disconnect and reconnect with everything running, but without being limited to old, free software versions. If I didn't have the commercial apps available, I'd almost certainly need to run some current distribution for desktop use. -- Les Mikesell lesmikes...@gmail.com _______________________________________________ CentOS mailing list CentOS@centos.org http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos