This is a First look at the newly released CentOS 7.1 1503. Here is my current setup:

ASUS M5A97-R2.0 Motherboard
AMD 6300 8.5 GHz 6 core Processor
16 GB of DDR3 1600 RAM (CAS 9-9-9-24)
1 TB HD
250 GB Samsung 850 EVO SSD
SATA Optical Drive
ASUS NVidia Gefore 640GT Video card w/2GB DDR3 RAM

Since my last review of CentOS 7.0 I've added and additional 8 GB of RAM and the 250 GB SSD, my buddy has likewise upgraded his system with an additional 8 GB of RAM and added a 250 GB SSD as well. Both machines are mirror images of each other built with EXACTLY the same parts. If something goes wrong we can test it out and find out if it is USER ERROR or something more basic.

Let's start with the GOOD news: CentOS 7.1 is vastly improved over the disaster known as CentOS 7.0. The coders and developers at both Red Hat and CentOS need to be highly commended for their efforts they put into 7.1. The BAD news is CentOS 7.1 is UNPOLISHED and still needs a lot of work.

One of the advantages of having a pair of mirror image machines is you can spot problems that would normally have you tearing out your hair trying to solve. I had no problem this time around doing the initial install of CentOS 7.1. It was only after I did the install that I started having troubles. The single biggest problem was in adding the latest version of kmod-nvidia drivers. I also ran into issues installing VMware Player 7.1.0 -- which installed just fine... but then crashed the first time I started it up. It was the problem with the Nvidia drivers that would throw me. I found every hack in the book, but no matter what I did, the second I rebooted the machine I got a Black Screen with a blinking cursor. After 5 complete installations I was set to throw in the towel and live without the Nvidia working.

While I did my install using manual partitioning, my buddy did his using LVN partitioning, but did not want to lose his Windows partitions. He got the same results as I did. So we decided he should try to manually partition his SSD. He never made it past the point where he could install the OS, which I breezed through. We decided to check into BIOS. The first thing we noticed is that he had two CD-ROM drives listed, not one, even though he only had one physical device: One UEFI and one NON-UEFI. The UEFI was listed first, then came the NON-UEFI. Just for fun we had him change the order and placed the NON-UEFI CD-ROM first. He then rebooted and had ZERO problems with the install. Next he then found an interesting link in regards to installing kmod-nvidia drivers in CentOS 7.1, and followed the instructions, and PRESTO he had Nvidia up and running.

http://linuxsysconfig.com/2014/09/nvidia-drivers-on-centos-7/

Excited by the news, I jumped on it, only to end up with a Black screen and a blinking cursor. One other difference in our install procedures was I installed the whole thing -- 7 GB -- which required that I install it from a thumb drive, while he installed his from a DVD live version. In BIOS the thumb drive shows up as a UEFI hard drive. Based on my buddy's experience I went over to the "Boot" portion of the BIOS and found in there a NON-UEFI version of the thumb drive. While I could not put this version in train I could over-ride the boot sequence and boot directly from this NON-UEFI version. The first thing I did was to install the LVN version and followed the hack my buddy found... and like him my system came up with Nvidia. I then went back and installed a test version via manual partitioning, but first I checked out to see what partitions were created by the automatic LVN partitioning scheme. What was created a a /boot, a /home, a /, and /swap; where as in all my installs there was also a /boot/efi partition. This time I left out the /boot/efi partition and the software installed just fine!!! Also the hack worked just fine and and the kmod-nvidia drives installed just fine as well. For the 8th time I did a total re-install only this time I booted from the NON-UEFI drive and left out the /boot/efi partition during the install.. It is just a guess but I suspect that Microsoft with its undue influence over everything, everything now defaults to UEFI, to include UEFI devices, motherboards, etc, and these receive priority over non-UEFI items, thus if you have a recent vintage motherboard, or other devices, they are set up to comply with the Microsoft UEFI policy, but to be backwards compatible, there is a list of non-UEFI items. If you are installing CentOS 7.1 your first trip should be to BIOS, to ensure that whatever device you are booting from is NOT UEFI ENABLED. If you are doing Custom Manual Partitioning DO NOT install a /boot/efi partition -- you do however need a /boot partition. Once you have done that the rest of the install is rather straight forward.

The BIOS hack needs to be published and save everyone from tearing out their hair in frustration. Were it not for the fact I was working with a mirrored computer I might not have caught this.

The biggest problem with CentOS 7.1 is that it is grossly unpolished. There is no reason that you should have to jump through a bunch of hoops just to install kmod-nvidia. A "yum install kmod-nvidia" should be all that is needed. Other problems come to the installation of Users and Groups. In Fedora, all you do is go to Administration --> click on "Users and Groups" and be on your merry way. Both in CentOS 7.0 1406 and 7.1 1503 there is no easy way to add Users and Groups, as the administrative icon is missing. If you want to add Users and Groups you need to be Old School and do it from the CLI. That said I was able to add the Users and Groups icon back in: You need to 1) enable several repos including elreo, epel, extras, and nux-dextop. 2) Run yum grouplist 3) Run yum groupinstall "MATE Desktop", yum groupinstall "Xfce", yum groupinstall "Milkymist", and groupinstall "Haskell". It is somewhere in one of those four groups. When you next click on Applications --> Administration you will find the familiar "Users and Groups" icon.

What about tunes?!? If you are looking for kscd, forget it, I've looked and still can not find it. The news is slightly better if you are a fan of Amarok. IF you plan to run amarok do try to install it before you add your kmod-nvidia drivers. Before I "fixed" the OS to run kmod-nvidia, I had no problem installing amarok, and it worked just fine; after I "fixed" it so I could run kmod-nvidia I went to install amarok I got the following message:

Error: Multilib version problems found. This often means that the root
cause is something else and multilib version checking is just
pointing out that there is a problem. Eg.:

1. You have an upgrade for qtwebkit which is missing some
dependency that another package requires. Yum is trying to
solve this by installing an older version of qtwebkit of the
different architecture. If you exclude the bad architecture
yum will tell you what the root cause is (which package
requires what). You can try redoing the upgrade with
--exclude qtwebkit.otherarch ... this should give you an error
message showing the root cause of the problem.

2. You have multiple architectures of qtwebkit installed, but
yum can only see an upgrade for one of those architectures.
If you don't want/need both architectures anymore then you
can remove the one with the missing update and everything
will work.

3. You have duplicate versions of qtwebkit installed already.
You can use "yum check" to get yum show these errors.

...you can also use --setopt=protected_multilib=false to remove
this checking, however this is almost never the correct thing to
do as something else is very likely to go wrong (often causing
much more problems).

Protected multilib versions: qtwebkit-2.3.3-3.el7.x86_64 != qtwebkit-2.3.4-3.el7.i686

I suspect the problem occurs because when you run the hack that "fixes" it so you can install kmod-nvidia part of it requires you to install 32 bit libraries. To quote the source:

"When running a 64bit OS, the 32bit Nvidia libraries may also be needed for compatibility, I always install them. The good thing is that kmod-nvidia also disables nouveau automatically, so no more manually tweaking modprobe and grub

"yum install kmod-nvidia nvidia-x11-drv-32bit"

I suspect that the "!= qtwebkit-2.3.4-3.el7.i686" is 32 bit and that conflicts the amarok install. You might try to get around the problem by installing amarok before you fix the nvidia drivers problem. No guarantee, but it is worth a shot.

The alternatives included in CentOS 7.1 are sparce -- Rythembox being the ONLY alternative.

Another place where CentOS 7.1 falls down is when it comes to turning ON and turning OFF services. You use to go to Applications --> Administration and find "Services", you go there open it up and then at a glance you could see what was running, and what was not. You could also choose to STOP and/or RE-START any given Service. Like "Users and Groups" this too is missing. There may or may NOT be something similar in CentOS 7.1: If you go to Favorites --> System Settings --> find System Administration --> find and open Startup and Shutdown --> Service Manager you have something that looks sort of like the old service manager. things such as ntp, etc, are missing. The *old* version was far better, and for better or worse, it should be included as an alternate to the "new" version.

One place that is a clear improvement is VMware Player. Once I "fixed" the problem with installing the kmod-nvidia drivers, it also it seemed to "fix" the problem with the Vmware Player. It now opens all my Virtual Machines without a problem. One BIG improvement was that even though during the install the 1 TB SATA is not in the train (it is listed as being found, just not listed in the boot sequence)CentOS 7.1 goes out and can see all the directories on that HD. You just need to select the directory, enter your secret sauce root password, and BINGO!! you now have access to the data on your other drive!!!

OTOH if you are looking for Games -- card, or board -- SORRY you are out of luck. I've gone in search of these and none can be found.

CONCLUSION: Unlike CentOS 7.0 1406 which was a Total Disaster, CentOS 7.1 1503 is very much a usable OS though still lacking in features. It is clearly NOT designed for a newbie who would through up their hands in total defeat. It really is a DIY type of OS -- if you are willing to sink a lot of time into it, it really is a nice OS with some nice features, but there are clearly places where it can be improved: It still needs a way for people to Add Users and Groups; kmod-nvidia should be a rather straight forward install without needing to jumps through hoops; amarok, kscd, should be part of the multimedia package set as these are two old standards people know and love; games -- totally missing and found on every distro except CentOS 7.1 (and probably RHEL 7.1) need to be added; Administrative tools such as the "classic" "Services" that was found under Application --> Administration should be reinstalled; and overall the OS needs to be polished. In short CentOS 7.1 needed far too much hacking to be made usable. Unless I encounter other problems I can now say I will be migrating off Fedora 20 and to CentOS 7.1. While it still needs work -- a lot of work -- CentoS 7.1 is quite usable, even if not as polished as Fedora 20, and 21. The Problem with Fedora, is you are always on the Bleeding Edge -- and trust me you do a LOT of BLEEDING; CentOS by contrast is nice and stable for the most part, however CentOS 7.x has been quite a disappointment. With the release of CentOS 7.1 1503 I can now say it is usable even if it still needs work. For the Newbies out there I would pass on CentOS 7.1, and wait until CentOS 7.2 is released when hopefully many of the problems I have encountered have been fixed; for the more experienced user with a handful of tricks published above I think you'll really enjoy this release, understand this is closer to a Beta or a RC1 release than a final release since it still needs work.

@desertcat, i see you have done lots of work and congratulations to you! Why did you choose CentOS? It is created to be a binary compatible of RedHat Enterprise Linux, thusly, it is recommended for enterprise servers, not Desktops/Workstations. Yes, it's awesome and stable; with the caveat of not having the latest versions of softwares and somewhat more limited repository packages.

I'm not intending to be a troll here and telling you what is better, I just wanted you to consider this. Granted, just about every distro you choose will require a lot of work to get it the way you like; but that is all the fun isn't it?

I agree with what you say... mostly. It can and frequently is used on workstations. But to answer your question, its a install once and forget it. It automatically upgrades itself when the next point release comes out. It is also quite stable -- it is Fedora Linux without all the blood. On my 3 computer network consisting of a gateway, workstation, and backup machine I'm running CentOS 5.(now) 11 on the Gateway, CentOS 7.1/Fedora 20 on my workstation, and on the backup machine Fedora 8 (that's right Fedora 8). The Gateway I think I installed when it was still around CentOS 5.6. Having an up-to-date machine *without* having to do re-install after re-install is worth its weight in gold. My buddy -- for whom I am "The Official Test Guinea Pig" ie I test OS's to see if they are good for a production machine and what bugs he might encounter -- installed CentOS 7.0 on an "old" machine that is dedicated to doing one thing, and one thing only: being a time server. When CentOS 7.1 was released his time server automatically updated itself to CentOS 7.1

One of the other projects I'm actively doing is pushing the boundaries of Virtual Computing. While most people *may* run *1* Virtual Machine I trying to test a *theory* of seeing if I can have several VM open at the same time, dedicating each to a specific task. With 16 GB I can run 3 sometime 4 Linux VM at once, yet IF you are running a Windows VM [ Windows 7 Professional, and Windows 10 Beta] that's all you can run. Opening a Linux VM while running a Windows VM will crash the machine, sometimes requiring a reboot of the host machine as well. I also sometimes like to "test" a new release first as a VM before doing a full install. In this case I had a brand NEW SSD my sister sent me for my birthday just waiting for an OS so... If you do a LOT of multitasking on your computer ie having several "projects" on going at the same time -- you want to run Linux; if you want stability, you want an "enterprise-like" OS. CentOS is a solid OS that is a good for more than *just* being a "server only" OS. Unless it starts throwing problem after problem at me I'll be switching to CentOS 7.1 and beyond; if I do have problems... well Fedora 20 has proved to be remarkably stable without too many problems.

i see, i see; well kudos to you for picking an os-family and sticking with it. my os-family of choice is Debian for all things personal and we do chiefly RedHat/CentOS at work. i see you do know what you are doing quite well. concerning the VM's, is everything virtualbox? Or would you consider containers like Docker? (I have yet to do any real task with it, but for performance it seems it has great promise). Of course if you want a bare-metal virtualization, please do consider VMWare ESXi or ProxMox-VE.

Yep. IF I was was going to pick another distro for stability purposes it would have been Debian -- no surprise there. I go all the way back to the days of IBM and M$ DOS. I left M$ when Win '95 came out and have been using Linux ever since, and never looked back ( I think we were playing with Mandrake Linux 7.x and Rat Hat Linux 7.x back then). While I'm more competent with computers than the average person -- I've built two computers from scratch, and rehabed several others that were hand-me-downs, and have been using Linux when the GUI was still young, and you lived in "RPM Hell", and compiled and blown up (not a fun thing to do), a couple handful of programs, because that was the only way you could run them -- I'm no guru, and I'm nowhere near as good as my buddy. Yet my cat-like curiosity makes me adventurous enough to try anything. Usually if I might be about to blow the system up I've backed it up

I'm still new with VM having stated using them only about two years ago, and only within the past year with the building of my latest workstation -- probably classed as a light duty workstation by today's standards -- have I really started to really investigate them. Nah not Virtual Box though we *may* get into at some point. Docker I've heard of and that's about it. One Question: Currently I use VMware Player 7.1.0 I am aware of VMware ESXi, but not sure if it costs $$$. ProMox I have never heard of. Running several VM on a single host system has some major advantages as each can be configured to each particular user, who can run their VM as they see fit, without touching the host machine. Memory *seem* to be a limiting factor, but CPU availability *may* or *may NOT* also be a limiting factor. If it blows up, well you just start up a new VM. Mind you I'm running on a limited machine with an AMD 6 core processor, with 16 GB of RAM. While running multiple copies (up to 4 right now) of a Linux based OS seems to not be a problem, trying to run more than a single copy of Windows and say Linux, will crash my machine sometimes requiring a reboot of the host machine. Not sure why though. My next "experiment" is to throw another 8 GB of RAM into the machine and see if that has any effect.


My buddy for whom I'm the "Official Test Guinea Pig" is my Computer Guru -- he gets to play with real heavy iron -- Super Computers, etc. at the university. I am both disabled and retired living on SSDI. Its get harder and harder or me to get out of the house, and I take a lot of drugs, which explains my workstation -- call it my neuro network -- my "Window on the World". I usually have several "projects" going on at any given time, some letters, some technical writing, some online research, some real time monitoring of my system resources and messing around with virtual machines. We just added Skype for Linux 4.3 to it and we are still doing experiments with it. I also do some rare consulting (I've a Ph.D. in Water Resources), but as far as computing, I seem to spend enough time providing tech support for my sister who lives 400 - 500 miles away. Yep she is a WINDOWS user. The biggest thing I'm trying to do is get her OFF of WINDOWS -- her machine crashes and she wonders why -- it's a ritual: her machine crashes, she calls me, I more or less diagnose the problem (given I live some 400 - 500 miles away without seeing the thing that's quite a trick, especially since I don't use Windows), she then calls Dell Tech support since it is under warranty, they send someone out, they more or less confirm my initial diagnosis, etc. etc. Windows 10 (based on the Beta version) is more KDE like than ever, yet it still seems to have all the problems that Windows is notorious for, including crashing for no apparent reason at all. My latest gambit is to get her to install VMware Player and run a VM of Fedora 21 KDE that I've already built and configured for her. Do let me know more about VMware ESXi. I'm curious. If it doesn't cost a thing that will be my next BIG adventure in computing.

Thanks for the reply.

ESXi is "free" in that you can throw it on a machine and use it. It is a great time-tested bare-metal hypervisor that performs really well. The caveat is that if are a business you will certainly need more than one host and thusly will absolutely have to buy expensive licensing so that you can use vCenter Server to manage it all. Another caveat is that the Client is either a) a windows client, or b) a webUI that uses flash and needs the vCenter server that is still Windows.

Proxmox-VE is something i've only used in testing. It seems really great and should do everything ESXi can do and more as the latest version has containers too. I would love a real project so that i can "truly" use it. If someone were to create a custom linux-OS and install all the virtualization and management software you could ever need, you'd end up with something polished like Proxmox-VE. It's caveat (When i did test it several versions back) is that the user interface was not so intuitive.

If I were to test OS's just to play with or need something to run a little while or even overnight, then i'd just use VirtualBox on my workstation.

If however i wanted to run VM's practically 24/7, then at work i'd use ESXi and at home i'd likely opt for proxmox-VE. Although there is nothing at all stopping a business from buying support for proxmox as they do advertise Enterprise functionality. One claim to fame is that any proxmox-ve host can manage any other proxmox-ve host. in my opinion that is awesome as management servers and services then become void.

Hopefully your sister will one day "ascend" into linux. My recommendation for Windows evacuees would be Linux Mint or ZorinOS, but that goes against your philosophy. Maybe a nice stable Fedora with a windows-like theme on XFCE (and whisker-menu) or similar. At your level, you could create the "perfect" flavor, then re-bake it to an iso. OH WAIT YOU DID THAT! WOOT! The hard part would be having her back everything up (cloud?) for a fresh install and data-restore. That's actually a quite the nightmare for non-techies and even sometimes for us.

Thanks for the info. VB was the next test since it comes with CentOS 7.1, but the VMware product is interesting since we are already familiar with that "fanily".
I had to laugh at your suggestions for my sister -- you have it about right. I have to hand my sister one thing: her machine crashes so often she routinely back it up using something called "sys-image" or some such thing, which in case her machine crashes -- a given -- she can restore it with ease. Still refuses to use "Administrator" and "User" accounts. God save us from Window$ users!!! Again Thanks for the info. These are small scale experiments. I just "curious". Prior to the install of Cent)S 7.1 about 50% I was working out of a VM, not the host OS. Since I have a "dual headed monster"I could quickly slide from one VM to another. Until I get the feel for CentOS 7.1 however and it's quirks, however my experiments are now on hold.

you might find this interesting also:
http://www.howtogeek.com/117635/how-...nes-on-ubuntu/
http://www.howtogeek.com/213922/easi...h-gnome-boxes/

Something similar is do-able in CentOS i'm sure. KVM is the software ProxmoxVE uses. So you could install KVM and a gui manager as above in your CentOS and have VM's without necessarily using any of the aforementioned products.