hi i am new to centos ,so can any 1 help me to know what centos is basically used for instead of others unix flavors and i heard that centos is very popular for web servers , might be u think that my answer is in the post
but either please u explain me ,
thanks

if you read any of the existing literature about it, you'll know that it is a free clone of Redhat EL. It's very very popular.

CentOS is used mostly for servers, but can be used as a desktop distribution as well. It's essentially just RHEL without any of the redhat trademarks.
As for why it's used in place of other *nix systems or other linux distributions, well it has access to the yum repositories so adding and managing software is pretty simple, and it's as stable and reliable as RHEL, and just as easy to use.
Otherwise I'm not entirely sure what advantages it has over other very stable distributions, but it's certainly a good choice when you need something that won't break unexpectedly.

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in addition to what has been mentioned above and a bit of an extension to the fact that CentOS is just a fork of RHE what this means is you have a 5yr support for its repositories from Red Hat indirectly.

Outside of that it is a simple matter of picking a platform you are comfortable with and playing with it.

We use CentOS at work and to support our clients. I use CentOS at home for my NFS server for the simple reason I know for 5yrs from release it will have security updates, patches, fixes, etc...

There is no other reason I use it.

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oops, misposted.

Well thanks to all of ur time and information which is very useful to me , basically what i want to do in centos is , to create a web server and for that i am searching a centos iso file to run it in virtual box , so if any 1 of u know the link please post it and i downloaded some iso files but that are not for the virtual machines although they are setups. so please do me a favour,


And one again thanks to all of u

download this from the link below: CentOS-6.0-i386-bin-DVD.iso

http://mirror.usonyx.net/Linux/CentOS/6.0/isos/i386/

burn it to a dvd, then check out this link (http://www.psychocats.net/ubuntu/virtualbox)
on how to install on your virtual box link is for ubuntu but the procedure will be the same for centos.

Good luck!!!

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You may want the RHEL manuals here (Centos is the same) http://www.linuxtopia.org/online_boo...ion_index.html

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Please, please, please give up the "any 1" nonsense. It annoys people and is against the site rules and it isn't really that hard to type out 'anyone'.

When you have been doing this for a while, you will come to appreciate what a total pain doing OS upgrades is on a server (validation, making and keeping reference copies of everything, fixing new interoperability 'features', keeping test hardware for the purpose, etc). At that point, you will probably say to yourself 'I wish I did not have to do this so often'.

It turns out that so-called 'Enterprise' editions of software are often supported for a longer period than 'end-user' or 'desktop' software, so there is a clear advantage in using an Enterprise edition in this kind of application. (The apparent alternative of using a desktop edition, and using it beyond its support period, is really not an alternative; once the version that you are using has know security holes, which are not going to get patched, it is just a matter of time, and usually not very much time either, before someone utilisies that shortcoming in your security to break in. You really, really, don't want this.)

As has been mentioned already, Centos falls into the category of software with the Enterprise-style length of support arrangements, but without the bill that some enterprise editions also bring (Red hat Enterprise, Oracle, SLES), so it understandably popular with people who want that kind of thing.

The two contrary points that I should make are

• It is not the only way of getting an extended 'support' period; something like Debian would also do that
• 'Support' can have several meanings: The first is that updates are available for critical security issues, but the second is that there is someone who will help you (phone/e-mail/forum) through issues, when you have them; if you want the guarantee of 'hand holding' through difficult issues, pay for it. Its the only way of getting it
• Just because Linux can be a secure OS, it doesn't mean that your configuration of Linux (and the apps) will be a secure OS, unless your configuration is good, and for that you will have to understand security. Plenty of reading in the stickies here.

(OK, I know i said that I was going to make two contrary points, but the last one is something that you will have to take into account, irrespective of which OS you use.)

have to ask why are you going to run CentOS in the VM? Do you not have the hardware for it, or is this just for testing before you try to bring it live to run your web server (apache server)?

yes lleb u are right i am using it on virtual machine first for the sake of practice and also this is new to me.

ok good, i was hopping you were not going to try to run your web server via the MS Windows VM. that just be bad.

You should also try Scientific Linux (http://www.scientificlinux.org/), which is another clone of RHEL maintained by CERN and another bunch of universities.