It is 98% of RHEL with the exception that all logos, names and references to Red Hat are removed.
While is a very capable and robust Server OS, it can also be used as a workstation. The missing multimedia bits in Centos has caused many to label it merely good for Server.
To enable multimedia in Centos 5.x, first download the rpmforge rpm from here http://dag.wieers.com/rpm/packages/rpmforge-release/rpmforge-release-0.3.6-1.el5.rf.i386.rpm
Install it by either double clicking on the RPM or issue the following command as root:
rpm -ivh rpmforge-release-0.3.6-1.el5.rf.i386.rpm
Install yumex, the GUI front-end for yum:
yum -y install yumex
Once that is done you can launch yumex from the Applications -> System Tools menu or just as root launch it from the CLI by typing yumex.
Let it run for a while (it needs to refresh a bit) and then click on All in the packages bar. Put in gstreamer in the search bar and hit enter or click on the binoculars icon.
Select :
- gstreamer-plugins-bad
- gstreamer-plugins-ugly
- gstreamer-plugins-bad-extras
- gstreamer-plugins-ffmpeg
- xvidcore
- libquicktime
- mplayer-plugin (to enable viewing of online streaming content)
To enable Realplayer playback download the RealPlayer11Gold rpm from http://real.com/linux and click on Red Hat Package. Install it as per to the rpmforge rpm above.
To enable flash support (Youtube etc) install the following:
- flash-plugin
- libflashsupport
For Fedora 9 pls refer to http://www.mjmwired.net/resources/mjm-fedora-f9.html