Linux flavors - opinions

[Scally]

Hi Mike,

I’ve just got my hands on a RPi 4b with 4gb of RAM, the operating system is Raspbian Buster where the default gcc compiler is 8.3.0

Al.

[Look]

Ubuntu has gcc 7.0 by default which is fine, but CentOS 7 on the other hand comes with 4.8.5 which is a royal pain.
It can't compile my fortran 2008 and c++11 codes most of the time.

Code: Select all

yum-config-manager --enable rhel-server-rhscl-7-rpms \
   && yum -y install devtoolset-7-gcc devtoolset-7-gcc-c++ devtoolset-7-gcc-gfortran devtoolset-7-gdb

Then you have to source it "source scl_source enable devtoolset-7" everytime you want to use it .. The other option
is to compile the compiler itself from source. Good luck with that.

CentOS is garbage. This is well known. No one in their right mind should choose this. Of course some people are forced to use it because it has been installed for them on their work machine. But we are talking about choice here.

There seems to be a reason ("stability") why CentOS sticks to ancient kernels and packages from the time the pyramids were being built (indeed, the pyramids are still standing stably today as well), but I fully agree that installation of CentOS should be very strongly discouraged.

I'm running Fedora and it has gcc-9.1, which is the latest.

I guess CentOS is designed for site hosting.

[mhull]

... The other option
is to compile the compiler itself from source. Good luck with that.

Yes, you'll need it. After what seemed like weeks of preparation in my free time, I compiled an m68k cross-compiler using an 2.5GHZ AMD Phenom-II x4 830 which took about what seemed like 45 minutes. On an m68k, it would have taken months.

[MikeB]

Hi Mike,

I’ve just got my hands on a RPi 4b with 4gb of RAM, the operating system is Raspbian Buster where the default gcc compiler is 8.3.0

Al.

Interesting.

[MikeB]

Appreciate all the responses - thank you very much.

[lucasart]

Ubuntu has gcc 7.0 by default which is fine, but CentOS 7 on the other hand comes with 4.8.5 which is a royal pain.
It can't compile my fortran 2008 and c++11 codes most of the time.

Code: Select all

yum-config-manager --enable rhel-server-rhscl-7-rpms \
   && yum -y install devtoolset-7-gcc devtoolset-7-gcc-c++ devtoolset-7-gcc-gfortran devtoolset-7-gdb

Then you have to source it "source scl_source enable devtoolset-7" everytime you want to use it .. The other option
is to compile the compiler itself from source. Good luck with that.

CentOS is garbage. This is well known. No one in their right mind should choose this. Of course some people are forced to use it because it has been installed for them on their work machine. But we are talking about choice here.

There seems to be a reason ("stability") why CentOS sticks to ancient kernels and packages from the time the pyramids were being built (indeed, the pyramids are still standing stably today as well), but I fully agree that installation of CentOS should be very strongly discouraged.

I'm running Fedora and it has gcc-9.1, which is the latest.

The stability theory would make the implied statement that older versions of open source software are mort robust with fewer bugs. In my experience of open source development, people have little interest in maintaining old versions for the sake of it, and more bugs get removed than added as new versions come out. So their marketing argument (old = stable, new = broken) is based on a myth.

I think the only valid reason to choose something like CentOS is for a company, who will subscribe to IT support. Companies need a throat to choke when things don't work, and they are ready to pay for that. So, this actually results in a wrong way incentive for Red Hat: they need the system to be as broken as possible, and in ways that only they know how to fix.

[jdart]

If you're managing thousands of machines, then your nightmare is the failed mass upgrade, where you roll something out and then there are major problems. So these organizations delay updates, typically, letting somebody else have that problem and hopefully having it fixed by the vendor before they step into it. You can take that to extremes, and some organizations don't update because they're lazy/incompetent and so they have old unpatched systems, but the conservative approach does make some sense for bigger sites.

--Jon

[syzygy]

The stability theory would make the implied statement that older versions of open source software are mort robust with fewer bugs. In my experience of open source development, people have little interest in maintaining old versions for the sake of it, and more bugs get removed than added as new versions come out. So their marketing argument (old = stable, new = broken) is based on a myth.

They are obviously fixing the bugs that are found to exist in the old versions. Not adding new features does decrease the probability that new bugs are added.

I have no problem to believe that CentOS is more stable, but I don't think the stability advantage outweighs the disadvantages in the case of a desktop system of a user who wishes to get the most out of his hardware.

[smcracraft]

Ubuntu definitely.

--Stuart
AWS CDA/CSA/SysOps
RedHat RHCSA/RHCSA
Oracle DBA / SUN SA

P.S. Reasoning? Ubuntu is the most responsive. Also Mark Shuttleworth of Canonical is a kick-butt dude. If you ever get a chance to hear him speak,
I strongly recommend.

[Patrice Duhamel]

I think you can do what you want with any Linux distribution.

I prefer to use Linux Mint Cinnamon.