What do you think of the recent Red Hat announcement about CentOS Linux/Stream?

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What do you think of the recent Red Hat announcement about CentOS Linux/Stream?

I can use either CentOS Linux or Stream and it makes no difference to me
17
12%
I will switch reluctantly to CentOS Stream but I'd rather not
9
6%
I depend on CentOS Linux 8 and its stability and now I need a new alternative
31
22%
I love the idea of CentOS Stream and can't wait to use it
12
8%
I'm off to a different distribution before CentOS 8 sunsets at the end of 2021
28
20%
I feel completely betrayed by this decision and will avoid Red Hat solutions in future
45
32%
 
Total votes: 142

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KernelOops
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Re: What do you think of the recent Red Hat announcement about CentOS Linux/Stream?

Post by KernelOops » 2021/02/26 19:14:28

Unfortunately, Stream is a beta/test product of RHEL. The only real difference, is that its not called RedHat Stream, I'm guessing because they didn't want to say its RHEL beta and at the same time they wanted to keep using the CentOS brand and pretend like they did not kill CentOS for marketing reasons.

Anyway, that is over now. CentOS is dead and we have to move on, maybe to AlmaLinux, maybe to Rocky linux... we'll see.

Someone mentioned the 16-server free redhat license, yes its restricted and limited. Essentially its a small offering by the marketing team to try and recover some user base. They also announced free licenses for open source projects, again with tons of limitations about who and what is open source (Fedora-like projects, etc), again someone at marketing trying to do damage control.

I feel sad for redhat, they really messed up this time. Redhat has become irrelevant, AlmaLinux gets official EPEL support for their packages and a beautiful migration script that converts CentOS into Alma without issues. Redhat who? :)
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jimbux
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Re: What do you think of the recent Red Hat announcement about CentOS Linux/Stream?

Post by jimbux » 2021/02/27 14:27:36

It’s been quite a few years since I worked at ILM (Industrial Light and Magic) - around 2011/12 or so. I believe they were on CentOS 5, but 6 was out (they might even have been still been on 4, hazy memory - I recall thinking that it was quite out-of-date at the time). I had been using Fedora on my home machines but was growing tired of the short lifespan so followed ILM’s lead and switched to CentOS to give me longer time between having to do major updates. [For the record, I had just switched to 8, thrilled that I wouldn’t have to go through this again until 2029 or so.]

I wonder what ILM’s response to this will be (and now ILM == Disney). I’m not even sure if they still use CentOS, so could be a moot point. I seriously doubt that they are going to switch to streams, and I also doubt that they are going to switch to paying for many hundreds of workstation licenses from RedHat. I’m sure they aren’t the only CG production studio now faced with this dilemma (CentOS was a good choice as most major 3d-CG packages are supported on Enterprise Linux distros). Whatever ILM ends up doing, I’ll probably follow suite. I’ll reach out to some old colleagues to find the answer in case anyone is interested. I’ll just edit this post with the answer when I get it. In the meantime if anyone else knows, please post!

[Edit: I found out that they are still on CentOS 7. No information about their plans yet.]

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canoodler
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Re: What do you think of the recent Red Hat announcement about CentOS Linux/Stream?

Post by canoodler » 2021/03/04 16:41:14

Hello all,


Image

so RedHat just as Micro$oft now wants their users to do the beta testing?

hm....

1) yeah short term support of an OS sucks (just ask apple Macbook Pro users X-D.... luckily GNU Linux also runs on them)

https://dwaves.de/2021/02/27/pure-beaut ... ust-works/

as with all products (soft- or hardware (imho even cars)) a "guarantee to work for 10 years" should be mandatory by US-EU-law, thus minimizing trash produced and admins having to reinstall from scratch over and over again (here virtual machines really come in handy... as they are just files that get copied to the new machine... speaking of waste: that sometimes (such as plastic) can only be recycled to 50% https://www.nabu.de/umwelt-und-ressourc ... 22033.html (actually imho thats probably already a lot, more can be done here)

so no LTS (long term support) really costs time and money... (another great distro GNU Debian does not give any guarantees, there is voluntary work done to make a 5 year LTS Debian https://www.debian.org/lts/, ubtuntu has 5 years of LTS https://wiki.ubuntu.com/LTS)

so yes there RedHat could really make a commitment and say CentOS8 gets at least 5 years of support.

a Micro$oft admin would say "great, more work for me means more bucks for me", but that compromises the "DON'T BE EVIL" guideline (that Google dropped to make mor buck$)


2) first thought naming a GNU Linux distro "rocky" could be a marketing problem, but after reading this..

"The new project's name is a tribute to CentOS co-founder Rocky McGaugh. "He is no longer with us, so as a H/T to him, who never got to see the success that CentOS came to be, I introduce to you... Rocky Linux," said Kurtzer."

convinced me otherwise :)

"The problem with CentOS Stream is that it is a development build, although one that is only just ahead of the production release of RHEL. This makes it unsuitable for production use."

"a community enterprise operating system designed to be 100 per cent bug-for-bug compatible with Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)".

https://www.theregister.com/2020/12/10/rocky_linux/

Q: What is the vision for Rocky Linux?

A solid, stable, and transparent alternative for production environments, developed by the community for the community.

Q: What do you mean, "CentOS has shifted direction?"

The CentOS project recently announced a shift in strategy for CentOS. Whereas previously CentOS existed as a downstream build of its upstream vendor (it receives patches and updates after the upstream vendor does), it will be shifting to an upstream build (testing patches and updates before inclusion in the upstream vendor).

Additionally, support for CentOS Linux 8 has been cut short, from May 31, 2029 to December 31, 2021.

Q: So where does Rocky Linux come in?

Rocky Linux aims to function as a downstream build as CentOS had done previously, building releases after they have been added to the upstream vendor, not before.

show me the src https://github.com/rocky-linux/rocky

CentOS Stream is a developer-forward distribution that aims to help community members, Red Hat partners and others take full advantage of open source innovation within a more stable and predictable Linux ecosystem. Its content is what Red Hat intends to be in the next update of a stable RHEL release. It is free for anyone to download, use, study, modify, and redistribute (with the exception of the CentOS trademarks, which are owned by Red Hat). CentOS Stream is a distribution that community members can use to take advantage of a stable ABI/API for development and testing, while still seeing some updates on an accelerated basis.

https://wiki.centos.org/FAQ/CentOSStrea ... _Stream.3F

what is great about CentOS also:

usually compiling the latest kernel works quiet well (even less supported)

... up to date had no problems installing latest GNU Linux kernel to CentOS7 (so did quiet a bit of beta latest-kernel testing already)

(already outdated latest version as of writing this https://centos.mirror.snu.edu.in/centos ... 5-boot.iso)

have recently installed CentOS-Stream-8-x86_64-20210215-boot.iso as virtualbox 6.1 guest machine on GNU Linux Debian 10 host, after fiddeling with the repo, it worked but did no extensive or long term testing.

here are the screen recordings...

https://dwaves.de/upload/videos/CentOS8 ... 021-03.mp4

https://dwaves.de/upload/videos/CentOS8 ... 021-03.mp4

<- what software selection is ur favorite choice? (mine for servers is definitely as minimal as possible)

<- are u guys using the "security policy" function?

https://dwaves.de/2019/08/15/update-202 ... epository/

"From the outside, it may appear that the way we build RHEL (and thus the CentOS Linux content) hasn’t changed in a decade. But beneath the covers, we’re pulling off a monumental transformation of how we develop RHEL without impacting our customers."

continuous integration ->"The “Always Ready RHEL” effort now continues with continuous delivery, which you now know as CentOS Stream"

"Each of these changes, whether bug fixes or features, is tested via automated tests and verified by Quality Engineering processes before landing in CentOS Stream."

https://blog.centos.org/2020/12/centos- ... -delivery/

imho what would be critical, that there is some sort of easy build-in error reporting and also fast error-fixing for CentOS8stream to make it usable and get fast beyond beta instabilities, so if RedHat wants the admin-users to test their software, they should give free support to them 8-)

PS: Has anyone already seen rocky and took a tested drive in a virtual machine?

PSS: "continuous integration"... does that mean what i think it means "hello here is customer x, there is problem x1" "hang on... will fix it and deploy immediately to ur system... done" "hello here is customer x again, yes probelm x1 is fixed, but now we have problem x2, x3 and x4"

PSS: Stream or Scream? :D

so guess... every responsible admin will have to do some testing... but still the majority of testing (which most of can be done automated) needs to be done on the software vendor side, to assure stability, security and performance.

and yes... before every update, there should be backups.

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canoodler
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Re: What do you think of the recent Red Hat announcement about CentOS Linux/Stream?

Post by canoodler » 2021/03/19 01:21:03

an interesting read: https://jonathancarter.org/2020/12/10/c ... or-debian/

"I’m also somewhat skeptical of how successful CentOS Stream will really be in any form of a community project.

It seems that Red Hat is expecting that volunteers should contribute to their product development for free, and then when these contributors actually want to use that resulting product, they’re expected to pay a corporate subscription fee to do so.

This seems like a very lop-sided relationship to me, and I’m not sure it will be sustainable in the long term.

In Red Hat’s announcement of CentOS Stream (https://www.redhat.com/en/blog/centos-s ... rise-linux), they kind of throw the community a bone by saying “In the first half of 2021, we plan to introduce low- or no-cost programs for a variety of use cases”- it seems likely that this will just be for experimental purposes similar to the Windows Insider program and won’t be of much use for production users at all."

" I have been doing this for 17 years and CentOS is basically my life's work. This was (for me personally) a heart wrenching decision. However, i see no other decision as a possibility. If there was, it would have been made.
— Johnny Hughes"

src: https://lwn.net/Articles/838889/

:oops:

edwardsmarkf
Posts: 51
Joined: 2012/07/06 23:57:24

Re: What do you think of the recent Red Hat announcement about CentOS Linux/Stream?

Post by edwardsmarkf » 2021/03/23 00:26:40

Rocky-Linux will hopefully be out at the end of the month.

in the meantime, you can buy tee-shirts and hats advertising it.

sml
Posts: 305
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Re: What do you think of the recent Red Hat announcement about CentOS Linux/Stream?

Post by sml » 2021/03/23 16:39:52

edwardsmarkf wrote:
2021/03/23 00:26:40
Rocky-Linux will hopefully be out at the end of the month.
It definitely won't be, despite what they were promising. Just have a look at their Koji. Their unofficial build server is not much better. And they still haven't figured out how to rebuild everything from source. I don't believe they'll even manage to release a beta by then.

Besides, there's also quite a bit of miscommunication here.

Their Wiki:
The current ETA for initial release is March 31.
Their February update:
Release candidate availability - March 31 [On Pace]
Their December update:
We are targeting Q2 2021 to deliver our first release of Rocky Linux, made available not only in standard commercial regions, but also GovCloud, and China.
Their GitHub repository:
Release is planned for Q2 2021.


OTOH, AlmaLinux is going to release on March 30.

mkhomo
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Re: What do you think of the recent Red Hat announcement about CentOS Linux/Stream?

Post by mkhomo » 2021/03/24 07:09:17

Pretty Neutral.

I am very new to CentOS, a refugee from Win32 platform EoL and was seeking a platform that would support my stock of desktop apps. Turns out MariaDB which was one of them also discontinued Win32 but were already on CentOS so that's how I got here following them. Right from the start, I had to choose between Linux and Stream and my limited bandwidth / disk resources naturally led to the Community Stream variant.

So what did that mean? I learned slowly that with Community I had to find my own restricted binaries (unlike Linux distro users) and had to dnf install Enterprise this and Enterprise that, and when it got to media codecs I had to go far and wide for simple things like for microphone and speakers to work and videos to play.

And then the announcement; and the avalanche that followed of angry Linux users, feeling betrayed, etc, etc. Which is the above comforts I never new of but they took for granted as defenders of that Community Enterprise.

I sympathized with them, but did not shed a tear, remembering how they brought Sun Microsystems down with LAMP, and now as the clock turns, systemd the grim reaper returns from the BSD graveyard ...

2358
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Re: What do you think of the recent Red Hat announcement about CentOS Linux/Stream?

Post by 2358 » 2021/03/25 18:06:19

I feel betrayed by this decision I believe CentOS will face the same demise like Rational after it was acquired by IBM. The tool has now become became unworkable, pointless and useless.

Same fate has happened to RedHat since has been acquired by IBM

For example
  • - Rational before acquired by IBM ---> install distro 300MB, 4GB RAM, 100GB HDD served egregiously an enterprise of 500 concurrent developers
  • - Rational after acquired by IBM ---> install is a whooping 25GB with minimum requirement of 64GB RAM and 1TB HDD and barely 100/150 developers can use it
Now I am working on projects where I am asked to extirpate IBM out the organizations, I clearly see the same fate for CentOS . . .

NOTE 1: Rational is (was) the lead in Software Configuration Management

NOTE 2: Of course this is an opinion based on personal observation

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KernelOops
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Re: What do you think of the recent Red Hat announcement about CentOS Linux/Stream?

Post by KernelOops » 2021/03/31 23:17:45

WOW

Two recent flaws have been found in openssl, which are deemed important. Redhat rushed and patched their source code on March 24-25 and released openssl packages for RHEL8 on March 30.

CentOS of course gets nothing for now.

AlmaLinux had updated openssl packages by March 31st.

Things are looking good for Alma...
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sml
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Re: What do you think of the recent Red Hat announcement about CentOS Linux/Stream?

Post by sml » 2021/04/02 15:08:18

TBH, CentOS has it updated today.

Code: Select all

$ LC_ALL=C rpm -q --qf 'Pkg:\t%{nvra}\nBuilt:\t%{buildtime:date}\nSig:\t%{sigpgp:pgpsig}\n' openssl
Pkg:	openssl-1.1.1g-15.el8_3.x86_64
Built:	Tue Mar 30 16:35:59 2021
Sig:	RSA/SHA256, Wed Mar 31 16:51:14 2021, Key ID 05b555b38483c65d

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