CentOS is a Linux distribution based on the Red Hat Enterprise Linux. It was created with the community in mind aiming to provide the computing community with an enterprise level computing platform for free. It was founded by Lance Davis and David Parsley in 2006 and is still very active in the open source community.
The operating system comes free of charge and one can get technical support through the official mailing lists, chat rooms and web forums. It supports the x86 computer architecture which includes x86 and x86-64 architectures which stand for 32 bit and 64 bit respectively.
CentOS is the preferred choice for most people who wish to experience a typical enterprise operating system like Red Hat Linux without having to spend money on it. Since CentOS is based on Red Hat, one can still enjoy the same experience of enterprise computing affordably. It is very stable and very secure so it comes in handy for system and network administrators managing a large number of computers.
It is very secure meaning that it can be used to host sites and web applications that are security conscious. It can be used as a virtualization server, mail server, and FTP server and so on. This is very useful for companies and businesses that are running their own computing infrastructure locally. The patch cycle of this operating system is long meaning that there are not updates to worry about and one is assured of the security of their installation.
For startups that are looking to enjoy the enterprise version of Linux without having to pay a dime, CentOS is a good choice for them. It is absolutely free of charge and still offers a stable computing platform which gives one peace of mind as they make use of it in their everyday activities. Indeed, CentOS is a stable Linux distribution that comes free of charge.
