[BlueOnyx:10107] CentOS6 based 5107R/5108R ISOs

[Michael Stauber]

Hi all,

BlueOnyx 5107R and 5108R ISO images based on CentOS-6.2 have been released 
today. From now on we will release updated ISO images of these two versions of 
BlueOnyx both on Scientific Linux as well as on CentOS.

The ISO images can be found at the usual download location:

http://devel.blueonyx.it/pub/BlueOnyx/ISO/

Newest 5108R versions:
===================

    BlueOnyx-5108R-SL-6.2-20120401.iso
    BlueOnyx-5108R-CentOS-6.2-20120410.iso

Newest 5107R versions:
===================

    BlueOnyx-5107R-SL-6.2-20120401.iso
    BlueOnyx-5107R-CentOS-6.2-20120410.iso

Newest 5106R version:
===================

    BlueOnyx-5106R-CentOS-5.8-20120406.iso

Naturally this raises the questions what the differences between the 
CentOS-6.2 based and Scientific Linux 6.2 based BlueOnyx 5107R or 5108R are. 

Below you will find some more information that may allow you to form your own 
opinion about which one to choose:

Scientific Linux or CentOS based 5108R/5107R?
=======================================

This is a somewhat loaded question. Technically and in an ideal world it 
wouldn't make much of a difference. You will have a hard time to spot 
differences between a CentOS based and a Scientific Linux based BlueOnyx.

Software compiled and built for RHEL6, CentOS6 or SL6 will run on each of the 
other platforms without recompile. All things considered they are binary 
compatible and technically it therefore really makes no difference whatsoever 
which one you choose. In fact you could easily turn a CentOS6 based BlueOnyx 
into a Scientific Linux 6 based box and vice versa - by just replacing the 
"centos-release" RPM with the "sl-release" RPM - and vice versa.

Advantage CentOS: The CentOS distribution has a much better recognition and 
publicity due to ancient historical achievements - laurels on which they may 
have rested idly for way too long. Still: From a point of marketing an ISP 
will have an easier time to get his new clients to embrace a CentOS based 
distribution, because the clients may already know CentOS.

Advantage Scientific Linux: Scientific Linux is a Linux release put together 
by Fermilab, CERN, and various other labs and universities around the world. 
Its primary purpose is to reduce duplicated effort of the labs, and to have a 
common install base for the various experimenters. Like CentOS they also take 
the latest RHEL5 and RHEL6 sources and rebuild them for their own 
distribution. However, instead of volunteers they have a permanent team of 
developers tasked to keep the distribution up to date. This is basically your 
tax money at work.

The verdict: It has to be said very clearly that the Scientific Linux 
maintainers do a much better job than the CentOS maintainers. Typically 
Scientific Linux releases new major and minor versions of their RHEL clones 
months ahead of CentOS. Plus their clones are more complete and include tools 
which the CentOS team doesn't bother to include. Such as Revisor, the glib 
library and other bits and pieces. Typically a Scientific Linux box receives 
patches several weeks - sometimes months - ahead of an identical CentOS 
version. THAT is defenitely a major advantage.

Staying ahead of vulnerabilities is very important for anyone running a server 
connected to the internet.

So Team BlueOnyx recommends to use Scientific Linux instead of CentOS wherever 
possible.

-- 
With best regards

Michael Stauber