CentOS

CentOS is a 100% compatible re-compilation of RedHat Enterprise Linux with all its security fixes, bugfixes and feature enhancements. Versions 2.1, 3, 4 and 5 exist and are maintained by a large group of volunteers.

32bit and 64bit versions exist for a number of platforms; most notably for Intel and compatible processors. On PC-type hardware, one should probably choose the 64bit version if the machine has more than 2GB of memory and is used for computing. The 32bit version is better for web surfing: for example, there are more 32bit Firefox plugins than 64bit ones (but of course one could manually install the 32bit Firefox on a 64bit machine).

Installation of CCP4 on CentOS

If you want to configure CCP4 using --with-x , you need "yum -y groupinstall 'X Software Development'"
There exists no blt (required for ccp4i) RPM for RHEL/CentOS. So, simply "ln -s /usr/bin/wish /usr/local/bin/bltwish". If /usr/bin/wish does not exist, install tk with "yum -y install tk".
Following Tim Grüne's advice, comment out the modification of MANPATH in $CCP4/include/ccp4.setup .

Tips and Tricks for a 64bit installation

create the file /etc/rpm/macros with the single line

%_query_all_fmt %%{name}-%%{version}-%%{release}.%%{arch}

This results in the type of package (i386 or x86_64) being listed for rpm and yum commands, which is very useful because one needs many libraries in both 32- and 64bit form.