Linux Mint 8 (x86-64)

CentOS as a group is a community of open source contributors and users. Typical CentOS users are organisations and individuals that do not need strong commercial support in order to achieve successful operation. CentOS is 100% compatible rebuild of the Red Hat Enterprise Linux, in full compliance with Red Hat's redistribution requirements. CentOS is for people who need an enterprise class operating system stability without the cost of certification and support.

CentOS is basically just like Red Hat Enterprise Linux. The source RPMs had just been changed a bit to put together its own OS, but CentOS is not supported by Red Hat. The installation is pretty simple with this distribution. And it is the free version that comes with free support through 2008, and maintainance and updates through 2012. This is a big plus for users of CentOS. CentOS is a good distribution if you are looking for stability and reliability. Although it does not have all the latest and greatest packages as does other distributions, CentOS is definitely a professional operating system good for anyone using a desktop or even on a server.
CentOS 5.0 represents many changes from previous releases.

• CentOS 5.0 has been completely rebuilt using a newer build system and library checks to confirm upstream binary compatibility.
• We have decided not to follow the UOP's usage of Installation Codes. All 'channels' are available to the System Administrator at time of installation.

• OpenOffice.org 2.0.4
• Firefox 1.5.0.10
• Thunderbird 1.5.0.10
• Gaim-2.0.0
• Scribus-1.3.3
• xchat-2.6.6
• k3b-0.12.17
• Gimp-2.2.13

• 1. Full set of LVM and RAID command line tools
• 2. QTParted
• 3. Nmap and NMapFE
• 4. Graphical Traceroute
• 5. samba-3.0.23c with cifs kernel support to connect to Windows file shares
• 6. System Log Viewer
• 7. GUI Hardware Device Manager