Computer Tips From A Computer Guy

Posted: 26 Jul 2009 03:24 AM PDT

CentOS is based on the enterprise RedHat project, so unlike other Linux distros, this one targets enterprise users. CentOS is available free of charge from http://www.centos.org/. Technical support is primarily provided by the community via official mailing lists, web forums, and chat rooms.

The project is not affiliated with Red Hat and thus receives no financial or logistical support from the company; instead, the CentOS Project relies on donations from users and organizational sponsors.

Its default desktop theme is on trend with latest Linux distros like Ubuntu and Mandriva. At the top is the menu and divided into 3 groups: Applications, Places and System.

At the side of the menus are quick links to programs which acts like the quick links in Windows. A pop-up menu appears every time you hover on the icons.

It has a rich set of applications by default from basic calculator to office software

Few office applications are installed by default: OpenOffice Word processor, Spreadsheet, Presentation and Project Management tools. It also has VNC and Firefox installed by default.

CentOS's target users are enterprise users – meaning for users who want a stable OS for running critical apps like SQL database, web servers, FTP and so on… it is not the best choice for home users who want eye candy applications, games, media players and the like. But unlike UNIX, CentOS is user friendly – it's default GNOME based interface is easy to pick up.

Unlike Ubuntu, CentOS seems to boot slower. CentOS guys need to work on that as the major Linux developers are breaking out when it comes to boot-up time. After boot-up I didn't feel any difference with it's performance – it is at par with other Linux distros –if not even faster.

For corporate use, CentOS seems to be a fine choice. For enterprise IT organizations who would not want to cash-in to RedHat, CentOS is a good free alternative.