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Why use Cent OS?


Cent OS offers the same tested security and stability as Red Hat Enterprise Linux, but is offered free because it does not include support from Red Hat. This does not mean it is not supported, rather it is supported through the community of developers who maintain the packages and the users who deploy them. The current release of Cent OS, 5.2 corresponds directly to the current version of Red Hat Enterprise Linux, version 5. With Red Hat Enterprise Linux updates are offered directly from Red Hat through up2date, while Cent OS uses the Yum package manager developed by Yellow Dog. The packages that comprise the official Cent OS yum repositories and updates available through these repositories are released shortly after security patches and updates are released officially by Red Hat. Some of these updates are developed by Red Hat developers and some of these updates are developed by the community. The difference between Cent OS and other distros is the updates to Cent OS correspond directly to the updates made to RHEL. Cent OS includes its own version of up2date where security patches are automatically made available. There are many applications and drivers designed for Red Hat Enterprise Linux which will also work with Cent OS, because Cent OS offers 100% binary compatibility. Cent OS also includes Xen, the powerful virtualization software.


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