CentOS 8 Ending Next Year To Focus Shift On CentOS Stream

[ezekrb5]

This absolutely sucks. I saw some folks on this thread supporting Red Hat's decision (like @dubby229 ) , and I think you are a bit confused on the topic. Here's a few points:

-CentOS is mostly used as a Headless server (that means, no GUI, only ssh terminal)
-There are millions of servers running CentOS right now, not only huge companies use it, but many small ones do as well.
-Many of these companies do support open source and submit changes and contributions to CentOS (this is really common).
-These servers are meant to be very stable and not be messed with, the goal here is to have your applications running and only update when you are absolutely sure it's stable for you, while keeping security in check (sometimes security updates can be unstable as well, that's why you need a well curated and stable repo).
-While you can get RHEL for free technically, you are allowed to download it for testing purposes, as Red Hat tells you NOT to use it on production and to buy a license from them.
-If you run RHEL anyway without paying, the OS is full of warnings that tell you to get a subscription, and you need to reconfigure many settings in order to get this working without any limitations.
-Centos Stream was yet another distro, meant to be an in-between on CentOS and Fedora. The idea was really neat as it could help you test and prepare yourself before moving into the next Centos version. It was a cool idea to have even as a Workstation OS, so your developers could test stuff locally first and see how the new packages are working with your applications.
-This change doesn't help to reduce fragmentation, as we are NOT putting CentosStream on production, now then, not now. Creating Stream was fragmenting, killing Centos is not a solution for that.
-Fedora is neat, I use it personally, but even Fedora Server doesn't compare to Centos Stability (specially on Back-Ported applications).
-There were TONS of developers contributing to CentOS, it was a real community alternative to RHEL. I don't see any of them changing to CentoStream all of the sudden. At work we were contributing to centos, after these news we see absolutely no point in doing so if this change is for real.


I don't know what are we going to do with our servers, they currently run Centos7 so I guess we have time to see if anything changes before starting to migrate to something else. We do have some OpenSUSE hosts, so we might go that path, which sucks as we were really well integrated with .RPM packages.

[C8292]

We do have some OpenSUSE hosts, so we might go that path, which sucks as we were really well integrated with .RPM packages.

Isn't Opensuse also RPM? so it is ok?

About CentOS:
- You have Oracle Linux also (it was already superior but very curious how it will go)
- People want the RHEL stability, testing, etc without paying for it. If it is tested when it reaches CentOS it is because someone, somewhere tested it.
- Fragmentation is caused by stagnation. And RHEL/CentOS always were very... frozen. So maybe stream is no that a bad option (and still very stable) - difficult to disagree on that.

also, If you're running mission-critical servers maybe you shouldn't be running a community-driven distro?

[jaypatelani]

https://teddit.net/r/linux/comments/k95dt7/centos_project_shifts_focus_to_centos_stream/gf2m1g9/

rockylinux.org

[ezekrb5]

Isn't Opensuse also RPM? so it is ok?

Yes I mis-wrote there, it sucks that we might have to change, but at least we can keep the RPM format.
I know Rhel/centos is slow, that's the point of it tbh, you don't want surprises, you just want your stuff to run without breaking while still getting patches oriented to security. I've tried stream and it's not really the same regarding packages and stability.

What's wrong with free and open source server distros? Are you telling me people running Debian on their critical servers are just cheapskates?

[pWe00Iri3e7Z9lHOX2Qx]

https://teddit.net/r/linux/comments/...tream/gf2m1g9/

rockylinux.org

Thanks for that. This nugget from the VP of Linux Engineering at Red Hat was interesting.

"The relatively fewer that are on CentOS Linux 8 have an upgrade path to CentOS Stream 8 which goes until 2024. Its a major change for sure, and not 10 years. But I think what we've provide will be enough for many current CentOS users if they give it a shot."

I assumed that if people were okay with using the pre-beta RHEL point release (CentOS 8 Stream) in production they'd get a full 10 years. But from that comment it looks like they'll have to upgrade to CentOS Stream 9 in 2024. This just keeps getting better.

[zxy_thf]

Isn't Opensuse also RPM? so it is ok?

RPM is more of a packaging format, and you need the whole package ecosystem to benefit from it.
For example you cannot use an SRPM from Fedora to build the package on CentOS without fixing things because quite a lot packages are not available in CentOS.
For SUSE I believe they have different names for the same packages, and thus probably won't work as a drop-in replacement.
(Although I agree this would be much easier to work with than switching to .deb system)

About CentOS:
- You have Oracle Linux also (it was already superior but very curious how it will go)
- People want the RHEL stability, testing, etc without paying for it. If it is tested when it reaches CentOS it is because someone, somewhere tested it.
- Fragmentation is caused by stagnation. And RHEL/CentOS always were very... frozen. So maybe stream is no that a bad option (and still very stable) - difficult to disagree on that.

also, If you're running mission-critical servers maybe you shouldn't be running a community-driven distro?

One of the biggest complaints I've seen from blog comments is, CentOS also commonly serves as the hassle-free RHEL for test bed, e.g., use a bunch of CentOS VMs to test an application developed for RHEL, claim it's RHEL compatible if it works on CentOS, and then drop those instances.
With CentOS Stream, this is impossible -- unless the customers are also happy with "RHEL BETA compatible".

Another problem is CentOS Stream is, some person I know told me he tried CentOS Stream and couldn't even compile his own code.
It may be better now but the damage to its reputation and users' confidence is already done.

[browseria]

:
-CentOS is mostly used as a Headless server (that means, no GUI, only ssh terminal)
:
-These servers are meant to be very stable and not be messed with, the goal here is to have your applications running and only update when you are absolutely sure it's stable for you, while keeping security in check (sometimes security updates can be unstable as well, that's why you need a well curated and stable repo).
:
-Fedora is neat, I use it personally, but even Fedora Server doesn't compare to Centos Stability (specially on Back-Ported applications).
:

:
I know Rhel/centos is slow, that's the point of it tbh, you don't want surprises, you just want your stuff to run without breaking while still getting patches oriented to security. I've tried stream and it's not really the same regarding packages and stability.
:

It seems to me that you are mixing server stability requirements with application stability requirements. If you want an absolutely stable headless server, Fedora CoreOS or openSUSE MicroOS / Kubic seems to meet all the requirements you specified above better than CentOS, and both are rock solid and easy to manage in this way. Also, neither one is "slow"

Packaging your application up in a container also helps separate OS update and application update concerns; it is a model for application hosting/deployment that appears to suit your requirements/use case better than what you are trying to shoe-horn CentOS into doing, from my perspective.

[mulenmar]

Hopefully this will push people to something more current, like Debian Stable.

This is may be the only time that sentence has ever been used seriously. 😂

Meh. Just wait a month or two, somebody will take the source code and build PennyOS to be exactly what CentOS was.

All IBM and RedHat did was waste money and piss people off.

Especially those in developing nations, where many people have very slow, capped, or no Internet at all, can't afford to upgrade hardware all the time, and are lucky to buy a DVD or six and distribute the old, stable code locally, with an occasional use of jigdo or the equivalent to update to the latest version from a public Internet access point.

Not that I can even do that anymore, given that the libraries are closed due to people with more antisocial personality disorder than disease/malware spread comprehension making a pandemic political and refusing to do what's needed to starve it out until the vaccine is widespread. 😒

Even the EOMA68 guy got in on it, before he vanished without a trace with in May. Won't be buying his vaporware! 🙄

[jabl]

-Many of these companies do support open source and submit changes and contributions to CentOS (this is really common).
-There were TONS of developers contributing to CentOS, it was a real community alternative to RHEL.

What is this massive CentOS developer community you mention? Since the entire raison d'être for CentOS was to be a bug-for-bug compatible rebuild of RHEL, there was never much scope for independent CentOS development. AFAICS CentOS development mostly revolved around replacing RedHat trademarks and artwork, and running the distro infrastructure. A tedious and thankless work, which perhaps explains why they had continuous trouble attracting contributors.

I've managed to contribute to CentOS indirectly by filing bugs against RHEL in the RedHat bugzilla, and once those bugs were fixed they of course trickled down to CentOS as well. But that's quite a long way from "CentOS development".

And to make it clear, RHEL feature requests go straight into the trash bin, unless you're a big customer/partner. In a way that's of course understandable, since the way to run a successful business is to spend resources on fulfilling the needs of your actual customers (and prospective customers) instead of listening to everybody on the internet with an Opinion. So yeah, if you're looking for a "community" project to contribute to, RHEL is the wrong target.

[jabl]

What's wrong with free and open source server distros? Are you telling me people running Debian on their critical servers are just cheapskates?

There's absolutely nothing wrong with a free and open source server distro. And if you're happy with Debian, which is a very fine distro indeed, good for you!

At the same time, Redhat is under no obligation to provide the world with such a free and open source server distro. After they acqui-hired CentOS, they were free to do whatever the heck they liked with it. Now they've done something which, as they certainly know, is against the interests of a large fraction of the existing CentOS userbase. But, you know, it's not the end of the world, people will adapt. Some will switch to CentOS Stream, some will buy RHEL subscriptions, some will switch to other RHEL rebuilds like Oracle EL or the upcoming rocklinux, and yet others will switch to some other distro like SUSE, Ubuntu or Debian.