Linux & Open Source - eWeek

Linux & Open Source: eWEEK Labs Puts CentOS 5.3 Through Its Paces


CentOS, the popular community-supported clone of Red Hat Enterprise Linux, hit Version 5.3 in March, packed with the improvements around virtualization, application development, security and storage that first appeared when RHEL 5.3 began shipping in January. What's more, CentOS 5.3 may be had without any subscription fees, which explains the growing popularity of CentOS as an operating system option for many hosting providers and cloud computing vendors. Join eWEEK Labs for a peek at CentOS 5.3, and check out our full review of the distribution here.
 
  • eWEEK Labs Puts CentOS 5.3 Through Its Paces
    by Jason Brooks
  • Virtualization Focus
    Many of the enhancements in CentOS 5.3 focus on virtualization.
  • Spartan Tool Set
    As with the Xen implementation that ships with Novell's SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11, CentOS offers a more Spartan feature set compared with purpose-built virtualization products such as VMware's ESX Server.
  • Paravirtualization or Full
    I was able to roll out new, fully virtualized Linux or Windows guest instances very easily, as well as install Linux guests in higher-performance paravirtualized mode.
  • SystemTap
    I was able to use SystemTap, a Linux answer to Sun's DTrace, to generate disk and CPU utilization information and pipe that data to Gnuplot to visualize the information.
  • Desktop Use
    CentOS 5.3 can also work well in a desktop role, although the software packages that ship with CentOS trail those that ship with the faster-moving Fedora and Ubuntu Linux by a couple of years on average.
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