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Originally Posted by
reed9
Yup.
1. Desktop-oriented distros running a modern kernel have better hardware support. He's running this on a laptop, and will probably run into trouble with Redhat and Redhat clones.
What do you base this statement on? I've run CentOS on my laptop just fine, and know several others who have as well. If the hardware on a laptop is particularly obscure, he/she will have the same trouble on ANY version of Linux they try. It's not confined to Redhat clones.
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The #1 response I see around the web when people have trouble running Redhat/CentOS as a desktop distro, is "Why are you using enterprise linux as a desktop. It's not meant for that." Which I think is somewhat baloney, since it's marketed as a desktop as well, but the point remains that you will likely have more trouble with things like wireless cards and webcams than you would with Fedora or Ubuntu or whatnot.
Again, what are you basing this on? NDISWrapper and Madwifi work just fine in Redhat Enterprise and CentOS, as do the built-in Intel drivers in the Linux kernel.
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Also, the poster is obviously not experienced with Linux, and while Fedora isn't the most newbie friendly distro out there, it is moreso than Redhat.
That's your opinion and I'll heartily disagree with it. I never recommend what's essentially a beta product to a new user. They're more likely to run into issues that aren't their fault (buggy new versions of programs, random crashes) on Fedora than they are on a more vetted platform like Redhat Enterprise.
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2. It's easier to install non-free software such as media codecs and flash on a desktop-oriented distro. Or maybe I should say, there are more guides, forum posts, blogs, etc. about doing so. More community support.
Yes, but if you're going to go down that route, why not suggest Ubuntu or Linux Mint?
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3. If the poster really wants an enterprise oriented distro or needs a Redhat clone, I think Scientific Linux is a better alternative. Obviously this is up for argument, but I agree with the conclusions in the article I linked to by Caitlyn Martin. CentOS has historically been slower to release security updates than either RHEL or Scientific Linux. Scientific Linux is backed by Fermilab and CERN, meaning if you need long-term stability and support, there is less risk with Scientific Linux than the community developed CentOS. This is more of a concern for someone using it in their business, but I'm making the assumption that someone interested in using enterprise linux will share these concerns to some extent.
I don't disagree with the suggestion of Scientific Linux.