Centos

I put CentOS on my Linode because I wanted a consistant set of libraries and binaries for as long as I have my image installed. You get backported security patches, and no new features, giving you a stable production level system.

Alternatives like Fedora Core are moving targets, with new versions of software coming out all the time. This might be interesting from a developer point of view, but I don't want to have to mess with updated software very often, as it breaks a stable system.

In short, CentOS is a viable choice for a stable server where you aren't interested in upgrades and features as much as security and stability.

Debian Stable is another viable option for this.

The version of CentOS that caker has a image is it RHEL 2.1 or RHEL 3 pacakge wise?

@evane:

The version of CentOS that caker has a image is it RHEL 2.1 or RHEL 3 pacakge wise?

It appears to be RHEL 3, which of course will take RH9 packages as well (which I am doing).

they using yum, apt4rpm or up2date for there own package management?

It includes yum for package management, though I'm sure apt-get works just fine. I've never used up2date, though I see that the binary is included. There are default CentOS repositories available in the distro, and I've successfully used 3rd party repositories for RHEL3 and RH9.

(snipped)

# Party Updates mirror: Rotating Mirror
[party-rhel-lost]
name=Red Hat Enterprise Linux Lost RPMs $releasever/$basearch
baseurl=http://www.party-updates.net/pub/rotating/rhel-lost/$releasever/$basearch
gpgcheck=1

[atrpmsstable]
name=Red Hat Linux 9 ATrpms stable
baseurl=http://apt.physik.fu-berlin.de/redhat/9/en/i386/at-stable

[dag] 
name=Dag RPM Repository for Red Hat Enterprise Linux
baseurl=http://apt.sw.be/redhat/el3/en/$basearch/dag

[freshrpms]
name=Red Hat Linux $releasever - $basearch - freshrpms
baseurl=http://ayo.freshrpms.net/redhat/9/$basearch/freshrpms

I use CentOS-3 on my linode as well (hell, I was the one who got caker to provide it). Advantages to using CentOS have already been mentioned, so in the interest of full disclosure, I'll mention a few disadvantages:

1) If you want an up-to-the-minute distro feature-wise, CentOS is not for you. Gentoo is a much better distro for that. CentOS (and RHEL3, which CentOS-3 is based on) favors long-lasting compatibility over new features. So as long as you keep up to date with errata, you should have a functioning, stable, "old" distro running 5 years down the road.

2) While I love RHEL/CentOS in the server world, I would never use it as a main linux desktop (again, go Gentoo!). Again, it is much more suited for server and "workstation" environment (IE, hundreds of identical workstations deployed in a corporate environment), than desktop.

3) As mentioned, Debian stable is another alternative. It just comes down to which distro you are more comfortable with. I've used Red Hat products for a great many years and hence find CentOS very comfortable to manage, but if you're more used to debian, by all means, use debian stable instead.

4) Again, CentOS-3 is a rebuild of RHEL3, which is made by Red Hat (duh). If you have a deep hatred toward them, it'd probably not a good idea to install CentOS :)

@pdx6:

It appears to be RHEL 3, which of course will take RH9 packages as well (which I am doing).

RH9 packages usually work, but since it is technically a different distribution, it won't always (just like RH RPMs will sometimes work with Mandrake, but not always). I usually rebuild the source RPM anyways for packages that are not part of base RHEL3; it's very simple to do:

rpmbuild --rebuild foo-1.0-1.src.rpm

@evane:

they using yum, apt4rpm or up2date for there own package management?

yum is the default package manager. up2date may or may not work on CentOS itself, I've never really tried. The RH9 version of apt-rpm also works fine.