So I learned of the news of CentOS changing direction and decided that I want to loosen any ties with Red Hat.
As an OpenBSD user and a 9front user who likes the gopherspace, one might ask why I am even using a RHEL based product.
The fact is I have hardly any idea why. I liked yum better than apt-get so that is probably the main reason. I dislike systemd I vastly prefer rcctl(8),it has cat -v as opposed to the more correct vis(1) and uses the GRUB bootlader.
In fact, I dislike almost everything about CentOS, and yet I like CentOS for reasons I can't explain. I also run DOS so that might answer a few questions.
So after that long intro and apology for compromising the sacred UNIX(R) values, I will present my question.
What happens if I don't update CentOS?
What happens if I never issue a `yum update` again? (and yes I know it is dnf now)
What if I work with it as I would work with a Linux From Scratch? What is instead of `yum install` I used `make install`
Is there any reason this is a BAD idea? The main thing I can think of is security. But if I was concerned about that, I wouldn't have DOS.
This is a personal computer, and I browse in a modern browser (surf(1) or firefox generally, though I do use links sometimes)
I have a content blocker, and I am behind a router. additionally, I don't browse as root. And am not a high profile individual or member of the Maphia.
As a result, is not updating still dangerous? I don't mind doing extra work. Also, I don't mind building the Linux kernel from source as I have done so before.

Or is this my big chance to get free of the evils of the RHEL world and go to something more inline with UNIX(R).
I know some are Devuan fans, but I don't like the Debian infrastructure, specifically `apt-get` even though I started out on Raspbian. I would go exclusively with OpenBSD as it is the best system I have used (with all due respect to 9front.) but it doesn't run Zoom.
(And yes I know that Zoom isn't FOSS, but unfortunately, my contacts have paid for and insist on using it.)
I do not fault OpenBSD for not including zoom, but sometimes I have to compromise my beliefs to continue to exist in a meaningful fashion. You can judge me for that if you want.
I do notice zoom includes a tarball for Linux, in addition to the RPM and DEB formats. So I thought that I might be able to run it on some non-standard distros.

Having had experience building gcc (I am not sure I ever finished) I don't like the thought of building it from source. st, dwm, and even Motif are easy to build from source, but not the GNU userland.
(Not that it is hard, but it is long and bloated.) So if I decided to stick with my current setup I might be interested in switching package managers (NetBSD's caught my eye.)

So I don't know if this is a proper question, but let me summarize it in a more terse format:

• How wise/safe is it to not use a current distro?
• What package managers would best fit the purpose? Or is make better?
• How difficult would it be to dump systems in favour of a different init system?
• Are there non-linux kernels that are compatible with Linux systemcalls and other expectations? Would Zoom run on these?
• What pennace would I be doing for running RHEL?

OK, the last point was not terribly serious. I should probably have asked in on an IRC
Thanks for taking time to look at the question!

Plenty of people roll their own. Nothing wrong with that. Does mean a lot of duplicated work though. If you want to do that then it's up to you. I will make a general request. If you want to run out of date unsupported software then keep it off the internet. We will all be safer for it. Unsupported software is not just dangerous to you, it's dangerous to all of us.

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To summarize tersely

• not wise
• eopkg, portage? Look at the gentoo-derived Sabayon, perhaps
• do you mean systemd? just use a different distro [see line above]
• do not know
• self-flagellation comes to mind

Gentoo or Slackware spring to mind as alternatives, but only you can say. Love your humor!

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Please note that I keep my unsupported software off the internet. I intentionally have not configured DOS to attach to the internet and keep my browser up to date. I will let everyone decide for themselves wether 9front is supported. I prefer timeless to outdated
I was thinking of sort of rolling my own but not all the way, kinda like half-rolled or something like that. in other words, I wouldn't do all the build systems, releases, fundraising and all that, but use what I have as sort of a base to build off of and patch. I will give the duplicated work aspect thought though! thank you!

First, yes I meant systemd. Bad autocorrect. Bad autocorrect.
Second, I will look at the Gentoo derived package managers. I haven't yet installed Gentoo. I have played with CRUX in a VM before, as well as did a little of LFS, but got discouraged building the GNU stuff, and figured I could probably write my own operating system in the time it took to build GNU. I didn't end up doing that, but I wrote a cool text editor for floppy disk that even had backspace support. It took a few weeks, so I don't know how that compares to GNU butI figured that if GNU had written the text editor it would have taken that long to compile.
Thanks. also `man self-flagellation` returned no results.

I couldn't read it all TL, started skimming, but ...

I install a distro, never update it, and just use it for browsing and as a personal development system. (Work is different, I do what they require.)

I don't install new apps much at all, I get the system I like and stay with that.

Years later I may do a complete install of the newer version of that distro or try another.

I am guilty of distrohopping, but I have found it easier to do in a VM.
I do not update frequently, but every time a new BSD stable is released I update it. Windows permanently ruined updates for me, even though Linux and Unix have a non-obtrusive update philosophy.
I am worried that Zoom will at some point in the future drop support for my distro, and I will be forced to upgrade to something, so I don't want to get too far behind. (Wayland is far too cutting edge. xenodm was a bit of an adjustment for me.)
I have my eye on CRUX as it will give me all the customization I want and more.

Depends on your knowledge of many “things Linux” and your uses. It is your risk anyway, not ours to take. I'd say, you will end up with Donald Trump's haircut, a Yugo and fifty-two unroasted coffee-beans (that is what the books say).

The question is ill formulated, and there are two, maybe three. What purpose? Let me skip the package manager question, as there is no answer anyway. If you would like to compile software to install on your own system, it is great to trace all the changes that the installation will do, in an attempt to keep the software manageable. Chances are that this is illusory. But I use the Porg tool for this. You will be confronted with the process when you decide to give LFS a try, but I recommend it to everybody who installs self-compiled packages.
Depends on the way that you have installed the first system. Use your partitions wisely and the answer is proably: as difficult as it is to replace one distribution by another.
I know nothing about both.
Your having doubts is enough. Keep it going that way throughout the rest of your life and with everything.

[And thanks, I had to lookup a few English words and expressions for this post.]

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I use what I like, I like Debian apt-get, so I use Debian based distros.

Having said that, mine are not usually the most up to date versions.

I use the internet through my suppliers equipment, for which they are responsible for security.

So far, so good, been using it for about 9 years now without problems.

I don't have anything of much consequence on my computers anyhow, a cracker would probably get bored looking around it.

Thank you, yes that was ill formulated.
I do know some package managers (e.g. NetBSD's pkgsrc and ArchLinux's pacman) are "portable" but I was kinda hoping someone would say, "I have been using the same Yggdrasil Linux and have never switched distros even though it is no longer maintained. I use the XYZ package manager as it can match my filesystem hierarchy by edditing /etc/XYZ/fhs.conf"
Or something like that.

To put it briefly:
I was looking for a portable, configurable, flexible, adaptable, and simple package manager. I am not sure such a thing exists. Or maybe it is called `make`

That is a good point. By the time I am done, I could have installed a distro that is better than what I came up with.
I might look into a musl based distro, though I will have to research if I can fool Zoom and it's dependencies into that.

My old desktop died for Christmas 2019. At the time CentOS still hadn't implemented Xfce and the maintainers were complaining that Red Hat was getting more and more tied to Gnome, so I reluctantly decided to abandon the Red Hat family. I installed something completely different – PCLinuxOS. A year later I'm still a happy user. As far as package management goes, we have the strange (but not unique) combination of rpm to handle the packages and apt to access the repository.

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