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Comments
CentOS sucks, i dont like it.
12.04LTS seems very stable.
It is :-) I am very pleased with it.
That's the reason why it being used in businesses ?
I am with centos from the start until now..
I love centos more than others.. tried ubuntu days back, but end with centos again ..hehee
I think it's because if you know what you are doing it can be a very powerful OS it's hardened down (also it supports cPanel)
I believe that there are a few reasons why people use CentOS instead of Debian/Ubuntu. First, CentOS is just a re-compilation of RedHat Enterprise Linux with the only changes being primarily to remove artwork[1]. Second, RedHat Enterprise Linux has very long support cycles, generally 10 years from the date of release[2]. Because of the long support cycles RedHat provides, it's perfect for developing software which will also have a long support cycle, or software which does not need to be updated often to support new releases. It also reduces maintenance cost for software updates (i.e., time and frustration) since major upgrades don't have to happen often (and yes, 3-5 years fits my definition of "often", which is provided by Ubuntu due to their 5-year support for releases every 2 years). For instance, you could install CentOS 6.5 on a server right now, and have that server still get security updates until 2020. More than likely, at the point you really need to upgrade, you'll be shopping for a new server if it hadn't already been scrapped or repurposed a few years before.
[1] "CentOS conforms fully with the upstream vendor's redistribution policy and aims to be 100% binary compatible. CentOS mainly changes packages to remove upstream vendor branding and artwork."
[2] What is the support ''end of life'' for each CentOS release?
We . don't . like . Ubuntu...
http://news.softpedia.com/news/Canonical-Accuses-Criticizing-Website-of-Trademark-Infringement-398261.shtml
http://news.softpedia.com/news/Mark-Shuttleworth-Apologizes-for-the-Trademark-Infringement-Letter-Sent-to-Fixubuntu-com-398583.shtml
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/ubuntu-spyware.html
You can have the latest packages with a Centos installation as long as you install the two repositories below.
I find it interesting that so many people compare CentOS and Ubuntu for servers such as VPSs. Wouldn't a more appropriate comparison be CentOS and Debian? As we know, Ubuntu is derived from Debian. I assume that Ubuntu often appears in these queries because it is better publicized, and popular on desktops, where many Linux users got their start.
There support literally all over the place for CentOS. Google anything, check the CentOS forums.
CentOS tends to more stable and have longer term support, but for most people it boils down to personal preference.
Seems to me a lot of people who start out doing hardcore server stuff start with CentOS. It just works so no need to change it.
A lot of gamers start out with Ubuntu so that is what they stay with when they are finished playing games and want to do more serious stuff.
Ubuntu seems to have gained some ground in the server area over the last few years but I am hearing lots of complaints now about Canonicals poor behaviour towards the open source community. So I think they are going to be losing some of that ground. I know I have started to have second thoughts because of what I have been hearing lately.
Totally agree! Just for fun, go on www.ubuntu.com, hit Ctrl+F, type linux: No match found.
I'm starting to see Ubuntu as a Linux-based Operating System rather than a Linux distribution. SELinux? Nope, AppArmor. SystemD? Nope, Upstart. Wayland? Nope, Mir. Linux is finally starting to have some kind of standards and Canonical seems to go out of its way to not only not follow them, but also develop their own version. I wouldn't be surprised if Ubuntu becomes a closed source project at some point...
On topic: It seems to me that Ubuntu and Debian are getting more and more attention over RHEL these days, I don't get why OP would think CentOS is more popular. It used to be that's for sure, but according to W3Techs it's no longer the case (by a long shot). I'm a huge fan of Red Hat since the pre-Fedora days, because I think this is a very professional distribution that keep defining Linux standards and contributes a lot to the community. Managing RHEL servers feel just right. I still have my list of issues with Debian, but I can see why people are starting to adopt it as a serious server distribution: sooo many packages! Compiling all these new "cloud" tools yourself on RHEL gets old pretty fast hehe. In my opinion, if a stock RHEL (with EPEL/RPMForge) can do what you want, RHEL > Debian/Ubuntu). If you have to fight to get stuff compiled, well... Debian it is
For me personally, it's not that I think Ubuntu is better, I actually prefer CentOS, but the support for Ubuntu and debian systems alike is much more available compared to CentOS. For extensive problem solving, Debian based systems are easier to deal and get help with.
On the desktop, yes. RHEL/CentOS are not desktop OSes.
..and I think a lot of that desktop attention is from the gamers. CentOS is still king of server land. For now.
I think they are getting attention even on servers. Look at the recent "cloud-related" developments like Docker, LXC tools, overlayfs, etc. They all support Ubuntu first (available through ppa's), and then they port to RHEL when (if) they see fit. With all the new techs directly available from the repos (or ppa's), Ubuntu is definitely getting more used than you can you can imagine.
I'm not saying RHEL is not getting any new tech, far from it, but it certainly lag behind Ubuntu (and even Debian) for Web/cloud related stuff. For an enterprise server, RHEL is the best option in my opinion. If you want to serve Node.js or Ruby-on-Rail applications, run Docker, run more recent (and supported) kernels, and you don't feel like compiling stuff: Ubuntu/Debian makes your life so much easier. If you want build a "if it works, don't touch it" type of server that is rock-solid and supported for 10 years, RHEL clones are definitely the way to go.
Look at this (for Web servers):
http://w3techs.com/technologies/history_details/os-linux/all/y
How do they collect that stats ? The only way for them is only to take look at response Server header. I'm sure that most of the people will disable sending such information. That means that stats definitely can't be correct and it just shows that people who uses Debian/Ubuntu not changing default configuration.
Please correct me if I'm wrong!
Your question looks more like
"why do some people like apples not oranges"
It is their personal choice. Both are good OS.
Of course, that is by design. RHEL/CentOS are not "lastest and greatest" platforms. They are stable/tested long term support platforms.
I've never heard of that website, but headers don't really give you any truly useful information. What matters is the environment in which the software is used. "Popular" is a context-sensitive concept.
This is correct. Look at this page: http://w3techs.com/technologies/details/os-unix/all/all
Only 47.3% of the Unix server detected are running Linux, 1.6% BSD, and 51.1% are unknown. So look at this the another way around: out of the 47.3% identifiable Linux Web servers, 32.7% are running Debian, 26.7% Ubuntu, 25.4% CentOS, and 8.4% Red Hat. It's not the definitive number, I agree, but my guess is the proportion should be about the same, even if you were able to identify all the unknowns (unless one of the OS disables the server header in the configuration by default and the unknown is skewed).
Yup, and this is the reason I use CentOS on all my servers. Just saying that I can see why Ubuntu is getting more popular even on servers: all this "cloud" buzz that requires the latest techs.
My big gripe with CentOS is the inability to do a major version update. Maybe that's changed now, dunno [1]... but when CentOS 4 was about to go EOL and I was faced with reinstalling from scratch, I built new machines with Debian.
[1] Doesn't look like it: http://wiki.centos.org/HowTos/MigrationGuide/MigratingFiveToSix
While Ubuntu boasts easy upgrade and it is easy indeed, it is far from reliable. They like to change all kinds of configs from one version to another and even place binaries and configs in other places. This breaks stuff, we had cases of VMs unable to boot after upgrade.
This is not the case of Debian, tho, occasionally things can break there too, but it never happened to me or someone that I know of except in cases of sudden network or power loss.
This. CentOS is more "Enterprise" grade distro, suited for server tasks.
Ubuntu is more desktop oriented distro. Ofc they have Ubuntu Server, but we weren't talking about it, right?
CentOS (as RHEL) keeps on very conservative on releasing new package versions. Mostly keeping stable ones, carefully appliying important bugfixes and security patches. And this usually happens with manual patch inspection and backporting it to current package version. I.e. they aren't upgrading the whole package, only applying needed patch. This keeps system stable and requiring less frequent updates. If you run a server you might encounter what a pain could arise when some package update breaks whole thing. Not a rare thing to happen.
Also Ubuntu (not including LTS releases) have much shorter lifespan (i.e. release support age), which also less suited for servers.
But anyways this is just all a matter of preferences.
EDIT: Just to note. I use Gentoo when I need dev environment. I pick Ubuntu or Mint for desktop stuff. And I'll go for CentOS for a servers with common tasks.