eWEEK Labs Puts CentOS 5.3 Through Its Paces - Linux and Open Source - News & Reviews - eWeek.com

eWEEK Labs Puts CentOS 5.3 Through Its Paces

eWEEK Labs Puts CentOS 5.3 Through Its Paces
Written By
Jason Brooks
Jason Brooks
Apr 22, 2009
1 minute read
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eWEEK Labs Puts CentOS 5.3 Through Its Paces

eWEEK Labs Puts CentOS 5.3 Through Its Paces

by Jason Brooks


Virtualization Focus

2

Many of the enhancements in CentOS 5.3 focus on virtualization.


Spartan Tool Set

3

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

4

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

5

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.


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Desktop Use

6

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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