puias sl centos, what's best

So they all have 6.0, some even has 6.1. and they are all free and rhel clone. but what's their real difference? which is the best? please answer with experience.

The difference is primarily one of timely updates (not just new releases, but even more importantly security/bugfix updates) and trustworthiness of the organizations/people behind it.

PUIAS: Faster releases, not much QA, but does encourage volunteers

CentOS: Takes their own sweet time, has more name recognition, slightly closed development process

Scientific: Intended for use at major labs, but is still RHEL-based nonetheless. Has some QA, developers are practically required to keep track of patches (ensuring quick turnaround), encourages community development. Is not 100% RHEL (due to some additional packages, and some saying that its not 100% binary compatible, but still, its close enough for most)

PUIAS: relatively unknown RHEL clone created by Princeton University and the Institute for Advanced Study. Is supposed to have good additional software repos.

CentOS: was the most known clone of RHEL. Widely used by many in different corporate environments (servers, datacenters, etc.). Major goal is to be 100% identical to RHEL. At this moment the development has several hickups (closed development, delayed release, etc.).

Scientific Linux: another clone of RHEL created by Fermilab and CERN (CERN is known from the Large Hadron Collider). The LHC is powered by SL. SL is recently getting more attention and its community is growing. Popularity is climbing according to the rating on DistroWatch. Scientific Linux is created for Fermilab and CERN and not for the world. As such, development goes steady and with little problems.


Personally I chose SL because of the stability and availability of the software and the fact that development is open for everybody to see, question and participate (although the devs from SL determine what finally happens). Another reason to go for SL is that any version remains supported: for example 5.1 can still be used and is still getting security updates. CentOS 5.1 isn't supported because users are expected to go for 5.2.