What I mean is...Mint enables all these free goodies by default. From what I understand Centos would have much older/stabler packages, but all the things you would need to make it "just work" you would have to get from fiddling with add on repo's. Does a Centos/Redhat clone distro exist that has all the mint/ubuntu restricted extras type stuff enabled, exist? Even if it is just older more stable versions of these packages?

I was googling and did not find anything (I saw a few things such as Fuduntu but that is based off Fedora, I am talking a redhat clone here).

Thanks for listening.

I recommend Mint 9 in your situation, this is based on the "long term support" release of Ubuntu (10.04) so you will achieve your goal of using older, more stable software.

What you need to understand is that certain "nonfree" software (like the firmware necessary for some brands of wireless) is legally restricted in many countries. If you limit yourself to distros that include "restricted" software, then you will be missing out on many fine options.

My personally philosophy is that I would rather manually install the one driver I need for my hardware, rather than a distro that includes hundreds of restricted drivers I'll never use. But it's your choice in the end.

ps Don't be so quick to rule out Fuduntu--it is a very nice choice for the typical everyday desktop/laptop/netbook use--Red Hat and its clones are perhaps best known as server distros.

Kororaa is a Fedora re-spin that adds all the useful things that Fedora can't or won't give. And because it comes out after Fedora, it gets the bug fixes. It's worth trying.

CentOS, Scientific Linus, and PUIAS require quite a bit of work to expand their software base. I've got packages from EPEL, RPMfusion, and atrmps. That required setting priorities so that one repo can't replace a library from another, and getting the priorities in the right order. Then there are the other odds and ends I've pulled in from Fedora and Mandriva, manually finding and installing the dependencies. By the time I'd done, I might as well have installed Slackware!

Thanks for the responses, it is not actually old/stable that attracts me, it is the thought of using at home exactly what would be used in many production environments (ie what you would learn most linux jobs, redhat) while still being able to use the distro as a desktop without adding repos/tweaks. I actually just put linux mint 12 and it seems real nice, I guess running kvm with centos would be my path to learning. I will look at the fedora spin as well as at least that would come closer to being redhat compatible. Again thanks for the insights.

Just a thought, this is not meant as a criticism: If you want to learn about Red Hat based distros, then why not learn basic skills such as configuring YUM repositories and enabling support for your hardware?

Your best bet is to install the Ubuntu server edition using the 10.04 LTS version which is stable and then to install one package ubuntu-restricted-extras. This gives you a server edition with five years of support and a upgrade path (Mint lacks both a server edition and an upgrade option). Ubuntu is one of the foremost server platforms with great cloud support. Mint is not a server edition and the only reason to use it IMO is for Cinnamon and if you do not need that then why bother?

I agree that using CentOS and learning yum is not so hard and worth the effort. There is lots of help.

If you cant learn how to enable MP3, etc. playback with CentOS, Fedora or other RPM based distros, then it wont matter if you are using a OS used in 'production environments', you'll never make a decent sysadmin.

Installing the desktop packages in a ubuntu server version basicly turns it into 'ubuntu desktop with server packages'. Desktop 10.04 only receives 3 years support. You will not get 5 years support for *buntu-desktop.

'Formost server platforms', LOL. Ubuntu has a very low uptake with working servers. Red Hat and CentOS dominate servers, and even Debian, Slackware and other distros have more installs on working servers AFAIK.

Thanks for the responses, and even the critical insights. I am going to give kororaa a "spin", seems to like a nice balance of having a redhat/fedora style system without needing to tinker with repos/etc. I do need to do that I realize to get "real" admin skills, but I could also just do that in a virtual environment.

would anyone here have an opinion of fuduntu vs fusion vs kororaa? Really I want a distro that will have enough support not to up an disappear on me...

I can't speak to Kororaa because I don't have any experience there, but Fuduntu is pretty well rooted. I don't see us disappearing any time soon.

If "having enough support" is your main objective then stick with the top 10 distros:

http://distrowatch.com/dwres.php?resource=major

The smaller/fringe projects have a greater risk to fizzle out after a year or two... (no disrespect intended)

I'll completely agree with that.

Why would you install Adobe flash plugin, Gstreamer codecs, TTF fonts, etc. on a server? That's whack!

I hope Fuduntu is around a long, long time, it's pretty close to the "sweet spot" as far as I'm concerned.