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walterbyrd

Member

Registered: 2018-07-30

Posts: 41  

Devuan vs. RHEL/CentOS : my experience

I used RHEL and CentOS at home, and professionally, before the dark days of gnome3/systemd. I thought they were solid distros, with a solid install process. Besides, in the corporate Linux world, these distros dominate.

After "upgrading" from CentOS 6.5, I tried hard to like the new CentOS, but failed. I absolutely hated gnome3/systemd, which is why I went with Devuan and MATE.

I like Devuan, except for one thing: it is difficult to install an application called: plex-media-server. But my real issue with Devuan is: I really should get comfortable with systemd RedHat. As I said, in the corporate world: RedHat rules. So I decided to give CentOS another go.

Sadly, I am finding that RHEL/CentOS are even worse than I remember. Maybe it's just me. But CentOS seems slow and broken, and worse than ever.

I started off with CentOS 7.9, I figured (wrongly) I could always update later. I decided to dual boot with Windows-10, but that failed. CentOS did not overwrite Windows, but did not set up a dual boot, with a lot of help from linuxquestions.org, I was able to fix that in a few days. CentOS 7.9 is what I am using now.

Besides the install, I am finding CentOS 7.9 to have all kinds of small issues. About one time in four, it will not connect to my network, I have to reboot my router and start and stop my network connection. Sometimes it will not let me umount a usb drive. It seems slower than Devuan with MATE.

I tried to upgrade to CentOS 8 Stream in a non-destructive way, but found that is impossible. There are many sites telling you how to do this. None of those procedures, or tools, work. I have to wipe out my CentOS 7.9 system, and re-install. And then it gets worse. I tried to do a destructive install with: CentOS 8 Stream, RHEL 8.5 and RHEL 9.0; none of them work.

BTW: over the last 20 years, I have installed Linux, or FreeBSD, or Solaris; hundreds of times. By far, most of those installs being RHEL. But that was before the dark days.

Just judging from my recent experience: I would have to say that RHEL/CentOS is a steaming pile of crap.

But again, let me emphasize, this is just my experience.

Last edited by walterbyrd (2022-02-18 23:39:46)

golinux

Administrator

Registered: 2016-11-25

Posts: 3,316  

Re: Devuan vs. RHEL/CentOS : my experience

But again, let me emphasize, this is just my experience.

Perhaps if you paid to obtain their "Certification" you would be granted the secret
incantations needed to make it function properly.  LOL!!   

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alexkemp

Member

Registered: 2018-05-14

Posts: 357  

Re: Devuan vs. RHEL/CentOS : my experience

I used RHEL and CentOS at home, and professionally, before the dark days of gnome3/systemd. …

After "upgrading" from CentOS 6.5, I tried hard to like the new CentOS, but failed. I absolutely hated gnome3/systemd, which is why I went with Devuan and MATE.

Ditto. I began administering my own server shortly into the new millennium, just before the first version of CentOS was released (I think it was also shortly before RHEL was a thing, but it *was* RedHat). Then I got a dedicated server, built by the guys that later started CentOS. They were corrupt (I'll try to avoid the whole story, but they have worked extremely hard to make sure that Google does not retain any mention of either of them). I went with RedHat & later moved to CentOS after shifting Host when the two CentOS guys screwed me over (I was used to RH by then, and only afterwards discovered that they were leading agents in establishing CentOS).

I was also disillusioned by CentOS (or, more accurately, RH & their practices with Enterprise Linux). Specifically, it was the way that they deliberately made it impossible to do an in-place upgrade from one major version to another. IIRC they first tried to stop the in-place upgrade of RHEL/CentOS-4 to -5 but, although it was difficult, effective steps to achieve it were published (I may have the versions wrong). They then made sure that RHEL/CentOS-5 to -6 actually *was* impossible; you had to utterly wipe the server before installation. I was done with RedHat after that.

Contrast Devuan:– I started with Debian-Jessie & did an in-place upgrade to Devuan. Not easy, but it worked without too much fuss. Then in-place upgrades through 3 more versions (ASCII, Beowulf & now Chimaera). Yet another impressive difference between RH & Devuan.

walterbyrd

Member

Registered: 2018-07-30

Posts: 41  

Re: Devuan vs. RHEL/CentOS : my experience

alexkemp: interesting.

Of course now Redhat is IBM. I don't think that happened overnight. I know that IBM had a close relationship with Redhat for over 20 years. IBM used to be partners with Microsoft, and I think that is where Microsoft learned much of their evilness.

I suppose evilness moves in circular motion. Today, once again, IBM/Microsoft dominate the desktop/server OS market, with their  inferior products. Because of their market dominance, they can force technologies that nobody really likes.