CentOS Linux 8 is now EOL (December 31, 2021)

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toracat
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CentOS Linux 8 is now EOL (December 31, 2021)

Post by toracat » 2021/08/17 17:31:25

CentOS Linux 8 will reach end-of-life on December 31, 2021. No further updates will be available after that. The moment a security update comes out in 2022, you are at risk with CentOS Linux 8 from that point on.

You should absolutely have migrated well before this date to something else.

Some candidates for CentOS Linux 8 alternatives include:

* CentOS Stream
* RHEL (no-cost subscriptions)
* Alma Linux
* Rocky Linux
* Springdale Linux (formerly PUIAS)
* Oracle Linux
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Re: CentOS Linux 8 support ends on December 31, 2021

Post by TrevorH » 2021/08/17 17:52:20

In case it is not obvious:

RHEL is RHEL though the free subscription expires once a year and cannot be renewed until it does expire and then you have to re-register your systems to pick up the new subscription. Apart from being a bit of extra work once a year, the rest of that should be transparent - i.e. it doesn't require you to reinstall anything or make any changes to the system other than running subscription-manager to re-register.

All of Rocky/Alma/Springdale are or should be binary compatible with RHEL of the same version but will lag behind RHEL by a day or 6 as they can only rebuild things once the source has been pushed to git.centos.org. None of these need subscriptions. Rocky and Alma are both new players so do not have a long track record to judge them on.

OEL should be the same as RHEL except that it ships with their own "UEK" kernel though I believe the rebuild of the RHEL kernel is also available as an option. Again, rebuilds for their packages need to wait for the source to hit git.c.o.

CentOS Stream is the same as current RHEL except that it has updates in it that will not appear in RHEL until the next future point release (and sometimes not even then). It has updates in advance of RHEL but some of those sometimes may be withdrawn or subject to subsequent updates. Many of us do not consider Stream to be suitable for production workloads.
The future appears to be RHEL or Debian. I think I'm going Debian.
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Re: CentOS Linux 8 support ends on December 31, 2021

Post by itcorner » 2021/09/22 17:13:46

TYVM for your fast response.

I will reinstall and use Oracle Linux which also meets the min. requirements for the server I need to setup.

Thanks again.

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Re: CentOS Linux 8 support ends on December 31, 2021

Post by jlehtone » 2021/09/28 08:40:18

AlmaLinux Wiki has a summary table: EL8 Distro Comparison

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Re: CentOS Linux 8 is now EOL (December 31, 2021)

Post by javajox » 2022/01/06 10:18:11

Very sad, after spending so much time and other resources migrating toward CentsOS 8. The only viable candidate is Ubuntu, lets hope Canonical won't change to some "Enterprise bullshit" type of company.

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Re: CentOS Linux 8 is now EOL (December 31, 2021)

Post by TrevorH » 2022/01/06 13:22:00

The only viable candidate is ...
You mean apart from the list in the very first post?
The future appears to be RHEL or Debian. I think I'm going Debian.
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Re: CentOS Linux 8 is now EOL (December 31, 2021)

Post by BShT » 2022/01/06 14:12:22

i don´t like oracle, but a had to take a decision, we have a lot of expect and few assurances when those announcements comes out

i migrated a LOT of servers from C8 to O8 without any problem, easy, fast, just run a script and reboot

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Re: CentOS Linux 8 is now EOL (December 31, 2021)

Post by jlehtone » 2022/01/06 15:05:05

I had no hurry and then migrated the handful of CentOS Linux 8 that I had into AlmaLinux in the summer. CentOS Linux 7 remains the main platform for us.

It was almost a coin toss between Alma and Rocky and I expect horizontal migration options to remain should any of the rebuilds fade away.

Considering all porting and validation that move from one major version to another requires, EL8 will not be our next main. EL9 will.

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Re: CentOS Linux 8 is now EOL (December 31, 2021)

Post by javajox » 2022/01/06 16:28:27

TrevorH wrote:
2022/01/06 13:22:00
The only viable candidate is ...
You mean apart from the list in the very first post?
The question is : Are they going to stay around for the next 10 years ? I have no idea about "Alma Linux", "Rocky Linux", what kind of animals are these ? The developers of such OSes after 2 years can change their mind and drop the development and support, who knows ? Why to take the risk ? But I know about Canonical and Ubuntu, Canonical is more or less a solid company. I need a stable rock-solid operating system to support my business.

Also in Ubuntu I can switch to the next major LTS version with "do-release-upgrade" command. In case of CentOS I was forced to manually reinstall the OS itself.

By the way, what happened with CentOS is a catastrophe, I just have no words, I really didn't expected this to happen !

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Re: CentOS Linux 8 is now EOL (December 31, 2021)

Post by jlehtone » 2022/01/06 17:51:16

We got more than we paid for in CentOS Linux, didn't we? If you need really stable, then you surely pay for that guarantee?

CentOS Linux, Alma and Rocky are rebuilds of RHEL. Red Hat does all the development for RHEL.

Both Alma and Rocky can sign their kernel-builds for Secure Boot. Microsoft does not hand out such keys for random bypassers, does it?

Interesting description/opinion about Enterprise Linux: https://crunchtools.com/the-state-of-en ... x-in-2022/

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