CentOS upgrades to 5.1 -- and there's a new netinstall image

For those who don't know, the corporate world, when it uses Linux, pretty much splits its loyalty between Red Hat and Novell's Suse. Both cost money but include either Web or telephone support.

And when it comes to Red Hat Enterprise Linux on the server and desktop, there's another, freer way.

CentOS. Since everything based on Linux and the GNU software tools that make it run is subject to the GPL license -- making all sources open and the code freely distributable and modifiable -- CentOS is carving its own sizable niche in the Linux landscape with its clones of Red Hat Linux distributions. You can get everything from version 2 to the current version 5.

And you don't have to pay a thing.

And since Red Hat recently upped its flagship RHEL 5 product to version 5.1, CentOS has done the same with its clone. (It usually takes a couple weeks or so for CentOS to get the changes from upstream and roll them into their own distro).

So if you want a Red Hat-like system for your desktop or server -- or just want to see how it runs (very well, in my tests), give CentOS a try.

One of the best things about Red Hat and CentOS is the Anaconda installer. It's the best I've seen. (Yes, that means better than Ubuntu, too.) And you can count on quite a few years of support for any of these releases. They're still supporting Version 2, I believe.

But for me, the biggest news is that there is now a netinstall image for CentOS. That's a big deal, because you usually need to download two or three ISO images and burn each on a separate CD to get the full CentOS distribution on your computer. I think the netinstall process for Debian is one of its great strengths, and having a similar image for CentOS is, indeed, a great thing.

Note: If I was about to do a CentOS install, I'd get the netinstall image, but there's also a single DVD image for those with DVD burners (I don't have one; I'm still stuck in the CD era). At least that way you can do the full install without a networking connection. It's nice to have choices, at any rate.