“Second” must mean as ‘Web Server’ software because their Desktop/Laptop share can’t possibly be that close to Ubuntu (Ubuntu is pretty much the clear #1 in all categories). Wikipedia says the CentOS’s “Marketing target is Desktop computer, Workstation, Mainframe, server.” Took me 2 days to finally get it installed, so their focus isn’t on Desktop users, IMHO.

Was on the verge of putting it as the #1 Linux Distro on the A-1 Linux *JUNK* Page, but that would mean that another Distro was actually worse than Arch Linux, and that may be an impossibility. Thusly, I decided to ignore the installation wikis and guides for CentOS, updated ‘Rufus’ to 3.8 and went with ISO Image mode instead of CentOS’s recommendation of not using Rufus and using only DD Image mode.

Got that confusingly wrongly worded instruction page from the “Download CentOS” page. OK, maybe that was an old page – so I looked for a new CentOS 8.0 installation instructions page under Documentation, then ‘Manuals’ page which got me to a really confusing instructions page, the “Creating installation media” page. Here are 3 pics, in order, of just a portion of that page.

Look confusing? If they need to go thru *ALL* of that to create a basic ‘Live” or installation USB then there is no way they are “Second” to Ubuntu on Desktop/Laptop users. Anyway, downloaded the 6.5+ GB CentOS-8-x86_64-1905-dvd1 iso yesterday morning…tried most of the day to get it installed…tried a bunch of USB creation utilities – including the suggested ‘Fedora LiveUSB Creator, Win32 Disk Imager, Rawrite32 and dd for Windows’ utility tools. Tried the old SATA II test HDD and also a SSD, but no luck there either. Then I tried to copy the 6.5+ GB CentOS-8-x86_64-1905-dvd1 iso file to a 16 GB USB (to see if Ubuntu or Puppy could create the USB), but it said there wasn’t enough room for their 6.5GB file on that 16GB newly formatted USB!? OK, maybe I screwed up the file by trying 1,000,001 USB creation utilities in order to get it to install something!?! Decided to give up for the day, delete all the newly installed utilities and that CentOS iso file, restore back to before these tests, and wait until I’m back on my ISP’s BONUS time – which ended up being about 5:00 AM EST this morning. Fresh download of 6.5 GB using BONUS data (still wouldn’t move to USB – though moved to other folders?!), and then downloading the new Rufus 3.8. Oh, it takes a long time to download 6.5 GB from the CentOS download sites, so I finished a little after 8:00 AM EST time, which cost me about 400MB of my regular data. I also downloaded a smaller “boot” iso of about 600 MB which didn’t work. So, soon after starting the second day I had about 15 GB’s downloaded, still a new day and I was ready to give it another try.

So, am not sure if it was the new Rufus 3.8, the ISO Image mode, or/and/or switching to a 30GB USB 3.0 for the installation media, but the installation went smoothly and actually worked! *HOORAY*!!! That saved it from being placed as the #1 Linux Distro on my A-1 Linux *JUNK* Page, and barely saved it from being put at any spot on the *JUNK* Page. If there is a ‘Live’ USB version of CentOS then I couldn’t find it. Here are a few quick pics:

GNOME has some great backgrounds lately! Here’s CentOS info on ‘Rose’:

I installed Dash to Panel for that Windows OS taskbar look:

For a 6.5+ GB iso file it sure was skimpy on software…*REAL* skimpy. I’ll do some more testing over the next day or two, but probably no updates on it here. Second? CentOS 8 is a *DISTANT* “Second” Linux Distro to Ubuntu 18.04. Site has “Linux” at 4.28% which probably includes most of the 2000+ Linux Distros ‘after’ Ubuntu, CentOS, Gentoo, Red Hat, Fedora, SUSE … and eventually DOS coming in at an amazing 0.24% Market Share (which is probably more than most of the 2000+ Linux Distros not just listed!).

Rule of Thumb – if you can’t install Ubuntu on it, then you can’t install any Linux Distro on it.

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