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Fosdem 2007 flyer text

Update: I changed some sections. Yeah, it is still not perfect. That why I encourage people to make changes to the text now, rather than adding comments. It is hard to combine a bunch of (slightly) different opinions on what a flyer should look like. So, please, feel free to make corrections or changes.

Update2: Gideon has made a mockup for the flyer (with the old text): flyer-mockup.tar.gz

Update3: As we established, that the flyer has too much text at the moment and as I am a big fan of 4.4's grub logo, I took a fast shot at another mockup, which needs much love (I only have a touchpad at the moment and am watching the handball finals). This mockup will work better with one column of text: flyer-mockup-grubstyle.tar.gz (RalphAngenendt)

Update4: flyer-mockup-grubstyle-textfit.tar.gz has Ralphs layout with rehashed text. I couldn't use bullets for the feature list, because it completely messes up the page flow. I think the "Security" heading should be moved down. It would be great if we can work towards the final version now, because printing takes a week, and I'd like to have some safety margins. (DanielDeKok)

As we're going to do A5, two column style probably doesn't work anyway.

Update5: I changed the flyer text in some parts. Please look at the diffs to see what changed. And please look at the questions I had while editing. They are set in bold Otherwise this now somehow fits a flyer I could get used to. Maybe someone (Dag?) knows proper marketing speak? And please: Can someone else from the Core team look over that and give a "thumbs up"? (RalphAngenendt)

Update6: flyer-mockup-grub-textfit-3.tar.gz

-- DanielDeKok

Front page

Introduction

CentOS is a free enterprise-class Linux distribution for desktops, workstations, and servers. It is derived from the Red Hat Enterprise Linux source packages to create an exactly compatible Enterprise Linux product. CentOS is designed for people who need an Enterprise operating system but don't need the support available from Enterprise Linux vendors.

CentOS is developed and maintained by a small but growing team of core developers. In turn, those developers are supported by a growing and active user community which helps testing software packages, providing mirrors, and answering questions on the project's support avenues.

Why do I need an enterprise distribution?

CentOS delivers all that. A new release comes out every 18 to 24 months, and each release is supported for around 7 years. With these characteristics, CentOS is an excellent desktop and server operating system for people who want a system that just works. Due to its heritage, CentOS is also an excellent migration path for former Fedora legacy users.

A short summary of project goals

Back page

CentOS features

An (incomplete) overview

Does this need to be in here? Sure, we should talk about what we have, but all other distributions have that, also. Maybe we should try to point out, that it's not only a server distribution, but also makes a good company Desktop (or one for your mother).

Security

In addition to traditional UNIX-like access control, recent versions of CentOS include the SELinux mandatory access control framework. This framework allows the system administrator to limit the rights of processes through policies. The default targeted policy confines many commonly used server applications. Additionally, CentOS includes technologies to counter common vulnerabilities such as buffer overflows. Does this last sentence need more explanation or a short list of what is in there? See http://www.awe.com/mark/blog/200701041544.html

Package management

CentOS uses the yum package management tool to allow for seamless updating and installation of packages. The project provides some additional repositories with optional software like the Cluster Suite and the Global File System. The CentOS mirroring system automatically provides mirrors that are close to the host that yum is being used on.

Virtualization

Starting with version 5, CentOS has integrated support for the Xen virtual machine monitor. CentOS 5 can run both as a privileged or unprivileged domain. The virt-manager tool allows system administrators to bootstrap new virtual machines with minor effort.

Supported platforms

More information

Discussion

Ralph

I think that the text is too long in parts and should be a bit more concise, if put on a flyer. The introduction part is okay that way, but for example the "Enterprise" part should be snappier:

Why do I need an Enterprise distribution?

CentOS delivers all that. A new release comes out every 18-24 months, each release is supported for around 7 years. With these characteristics, CentOS is also an excellent migration path for former Fedora legacy users.

The feature list should also be snappier and probably in list form, while the security stuff could use a bit more explanation (I have to search for the page by Marc Cox explaining the included features in RHEL).

Like:

Feature List

Security

SELinux foo. stack protection bar ...

Package management

yum, repositories, blablabla ...

Putting that all together: I'm for shorter sentences and snappier language in that flyer. That might get a bit more attention than what we call "Bleiwüste" (which roughly translated means "Lead desert", short for pages with just text). It's just not sexy that way :)

Fabian

Instead of naming Red Hat or RHEL because of trademarks issues , can't we just say that centos is rebuild from sources publicily available at ftp://ftp.redhat.com/pub/redhat/linux/enterprise/4/en/os/i386/SRPMS ?

This is the way it's written on the centos website : http://www.centos.org/modules/tinycontent/index.php?id=2

This way we don't mention officially Red Hat , rhel , etc ... but clever people will understand the basis of CentOS ...

As Ralph said, shorter sentences attract people for the essentials , like a 'get the facts' campaign ... :o)

Andreas

General stuff:

Introduction: I'd change the last sentence to "CentOS is designed for people who need an enterprise-class operating system without the support of a commercial Linux vendor."

"What is an enterprise Distribution?": I like Ralph's idea to simply list the advantages of an enterprise-grade os, however I would shorten the List to a few key-advantages and describe these in a short sentences inline. This way you get eyecatching lines naming the key-features and more verbose descriptions for people who want to know more Maybe some important parts of the feature-list could be merged, too. We can also drop the generic "enterprise Distribution" in favor of "CentOS" - after all it is a CentOS flyer, isn't it?

for example:

Key-Features of CentOS

Long time stability

Long time support

Being designed for production-enviroments, CentOS provides feature-updates, bugfixes and security updatesfor several years rather than a few months. A CentOS release therefore lasts longer than most Hardware does.

Enhanced security

In addition to traditional UNIX-like access control, recent versions of CentOS include the SELinux mandatory access control framework, which allows the system administrator to limit the rights of processes through policies. The default policy already confines many server applications. CentOS also includes technologies to counter common vulnerabilities such as buffer overflows.

DagWieers

The introduction text is the most important part of the flyer. If you get the attention there, people might read on.

For the FOSDEM website I made the following introduction text for the CentOS devroom:

CentOS - Community Enterprise OS

CentOS is a an Enterprise community distribution, based on the sources from Red Hat Enterprise Linux. CentOS conforms with the upstream redistribution policy and aims to be 100% binary compatible.

The benefits of CentOS include a proven and stable enterprise platform, 7 years guaranteed low-risk security updates and low maintenance. These characteristics make CentOS suited for server environments, appliances and desktop systems.

As a community effort, CentOS has a big installation base, a vivid community and extra package repositories that complete the experience.

The CentOS booth is available to introduce you to CentOS 5, our latest release. For more advance inquiries you can find CentOS experts at the CentOS devroom to help you.

After this introduction, we could go into the different characteristics in depth. So that these are highlighted for someone skimming the text. In that view I think the current text is good. However, the text should emphasize the enterprise capabilities *and* the fact that everyone (99.99% except the deep technical people maybe) needs a stable, enterprise OS and not the next bleeding-edge operating system.

I would state that several times in the text so that is explicit (instead of the often implicit text). A lot of people do not realise this distinction. I noticed this at LinuxWorld, especially new Linux people (< 2 years experience) often do not understand that Linux may be a management nightmare if you *do not* take an enterprise OS. They will only learn after 4 or 5 years of messing around.

2023-09-11 07:22