CentOS Annoyances

Posted: 7/11/2015

Introduction

This is now my third report on my experiences with different distributions of Linux. This time, I will cover CentOS 7, which is, like Fedora, also supported by Red Hat.

My conclusion: CentOS is not very user friendly and requires a system administrator to install and run!

Annoyances

1. The CentOS image comes with over a dozen or so variants as to what kind of operating system you want to install like “minimally installed” or “workstation” or “web server” etc. Each variant has a short description. This customization is nice, but perhaps too many variants.
2. During installation, I choose the workstation variant, because for decades a workstation was defined as a powerful computer for advanced users. Well, CentOS did not tell you that it comes without any GUI nor did CentOS during advanced installation configuration allow you to choose one. Great!!! I tried another full install, but this time I scrolled down the list of variants and discovered at the bottom two variants with KDE Plasma. So I installed one of them successfully.
3. After reboot of my freshly installed CentOS with KDE Plasma, I had to discover that my notebook was without any connectivity. Network manager indicated that wired connection was not available, because “cable was unplugged” even when it was not (see also my Ubuntu Annoyances). There was no wireless available at all. Then I spent about 1.5 days googling for answers to this problem. Apparently, CentOS comes only with a few Intel and Atheros network controllers pre-installed. However, my HP notebook comes with Realtek wired and wireless controllers. CentOS would not even pretend to install a generic driver to get you some connectivity. I also tried to install a manufacturer’s driver for Ethernet, but CentOS produced error messages that kind of suggested it needed to be connected to be successful.
4. Best of all, I then installed Fedora 22 Linux. And voila it installed apparently the correct driver for my Realtek wireless controller out of the box. So are the CentOS and Fedora project people not talking to each other or what the heck is going on here!!!