CentOS Project shifts focus to CentOS Stream • Hacker News Board

Re: CentOS Project shifts focus to CentOS Stream

#191

Post by apecat » Tue, Dec 08, 2020, 5:51 PM UTC

apecat wrote: post #152

posix_me_less wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That would be cool "stick it to the man" trick, but how do we organize?

Well, GoDaddy, or heh, AWS are The Man. My best hope is that the major hosting vendors, or maybe some industry consortium might offer resources for this.

@syshum, yes, but it's not exacly RHEL, and it's not distributed outside AWS https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25347232

But the point is indeed that there are resources and infrastructure, so one might be hopeful that there will be a good outcome.

One possible outcome would be increased demand and resources for Debian and/or Ubuntu and I definitely wouldn't mind that (five years of support isn't all that much in IT). Realistically though, a lot of people need RHEL for free and I suspect there will be a way.

Re: CentOS Project shifts focus to CentOS Stream

#192

Post by busterarm » Tue, Dec 08, 2020, 5:52 PM UTC

TheAdamAndChe wrote: post #184

busterarm wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except IBM thinks that this will convert everyone to RHEL licenses and I'm positive that is not what's going to happen. Ubuntu is already the default for people with ML pipelines and more and more vendors are targeting Ubuntu first for their software. CentOS will be effectively dead for a lot of companies starting next year (or 2024). (At least we aren't planning on licensing 10^5 systems on RHEL...). I imagine for t…

Why wouldn't they switch to Debian instead? Their emphasis on stability matches that of CentOS more than Ubuntu, or at least did.

Because some important vendors don't target Debian whereas they do target Ubuntu.

Canonical and RedHat are paying the salaries of the people steering the direction of Linux as a whole. They're forcing you to choose between the two.

Re: CentOS Project shifts focus to CentOS Stream

#193

Post by Iolaum » Tue, Dec 08, 2020, 5:53 PM UTC

microtonal wrote: post #158

FeistySkink wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you for the reply. While I personally never had a single issue with upgrading between Fedora releases, I also have the skills the resolve any potential ones if I would. I don't want to deal with somebody's computer suddenly being borked halfway across the world with no way to assist. So far CentOS fit that niche beautifully, with seldom major clean reinstalls (i.e. wipe root) when I'm there (7.x > 8.x). I'm goi…

I don't want to deal with somebody's computer suddenly being borked halfway across the world with no way to assist. Fedora Silverblue could be interesting alternative to regular Fedora then, since you can boot into or roll back to a previous release. You can also pin a known-good OSTree commit, so that one could always boot that version.

This. Although I 'd suggest running Silverblue in a VM first to learn about package layering and flatpaks. (This was my migration path. Made sure all my use cases were working within the VM before I installed on bare metal.)

Re: CentOS Project shifts focus to CentOS Stream

#194

Post by vbezhenar » Tue, Dec 08, 2020, 5:53 PM UTC

I don't like those news. CentOS was my "go to" distribution which I used by default if RAM was enough (it has surprisingly high requirements to install). I know it well. I'm using RHEL on my home server with developer license, but that allows only for a single instance, and I have more hosts.

My ideal outcome would be if they would allow using real RHEL for any hobby projects and for commercial projects with income below some threshold, so I can start and grow with RHEL and then switch to paid option when I'd have enough income to warrant it.

But it's IBM, so probably I'll have to switch to Debian which is good enough, but I'd miss SELinux, better systemd integration and more polished packages.

Re: CentOS Project shifts focus to CentOS Stream

#195

Post by adamc » Tue, Dec 08, 2020, 5:53 PM UTC

Seems like RedHat wanting to make CentOS a less "safe" alternative to RHEL.

Re: CentOS Project shifts focus to CentOS Stream

#196

Post by digitalsushi » Tue, Dec 08, 2020, 5:54 PM UTC

chasil wrote: post #165

phone8675309 wrote: post #160

How does this affect FermiLAB? They stopped development on Scientific Linux to rebase on CentOS and now CentOS might not be useful for their purposes.

Hello, Oracle Linux. http://linux.oracle.com

isn't Oracle Linux just CentOS wtih an oracle sticker and a contract?

Re: CentOS Project shifts focus to CentOS Stream

#197

Post by em500 » Tue, Dec 08, 2020, 5:54 PM UTC

Twirrim wrote: post #169

FeistySkink wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So is it a drop-in replacement for CentOS 8.x without any nonsense? I.e. same packages, compatibility with upstream, etc.

Should be. It's CentOS packages with rebranding and maybe some custom fixes on top. There are two kernels that ship with it, either the RedHat Compatibility Kernel (RHCK), or the Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel (UEK). I would point out, I'm not in the OL org, I have absolutely no idea what this change means for Oracle Linux. Oracle Linux is based off the CentOS sources as that's the only way that RedHat was making the…

I didn't know Oracle builds from CentOS rather than RHEL sources. Nor that RHEL doesn't release sources anymore?

If that's true, I wonder how Oracle got some of their 8.x releases out much earlier than CentOS. (Oracle Linux 8.3 2020-11-13 vs CentOS 8.3 2020-12-08, Oracle Linux 8.0 2019-07-19 vs CentOS 8.0 2019-09-24.) I'm assuming here without verification that both track the RHEL 8 point releases.

Re: CentOS Project shifts focus to CentOS Stream

#198

Post by gmfawcett » Tue, Dec 08, 2020, 5:55 PM UTC

djeiasbsbo wrote: post #150

gmfawcett wrote: post #119

Interesting development. What's the current difference between RHEL and Oracle Linux? Our institution used to be an RHEL shop, but switched to OL -- I just assumed that RHEL was historical at this point. [edit -- thanks for the answers. I realize now that my memory failed me... I mis-remembered that Oracle bought RedHat, not IBM.]

Oracle Linux is RHEL... just with the Red Hat branding replaced by Oracle branding. I guess there are some other differences as well but that's the gist of it. It's mostly for Oracle products and has the oracle yum repositories preconfigured iirc. So their database products can be installed out of the box. But RHEL is considered the industry standard when it comes to corporate Linux distributions.

Thanks, that helps. We're also an Oracle (database) shop, so the Oracle-specific repos are probably a plus in our case.

Re: CentOS Project shifts focus to CentOS Stream

#199

Post by DCKing » Tue, Dec 08, 2020, 5:55 PM UTC

What was the point of Red Hat taking over CentOS then?

If they're just transparently killing of the "free version of RHEL", that surely won't work in anything but name? There's an obvious need for a 1:1 RHEL clone, and due to the license of all software that RHEL builds on, there's no way IBM or Red Hat can stop people from actually building their own "new CentOS" and many companies and communities have done so in the past.

All we have now is Red Hat taking the CentOS branding and running with it. And even that point I don't get - they could have done this with plain RHEL or Fedora branding too.

I get why Red Hat or IBM doesn't like CentOS' existence, but I am fully expecting this won't kill "CentOS the concept". This sequence of events boggles my mind really.

Re: CentOS Project shifts focus to CentOS Stream

#200

Post by jmnicolas » Tue, Dec 08, 2020, 5:56 PM UTC

awill wrote: post #109

This is awful. It's proof of the downsides to the IBM acquisition, which I think we all knew was coming. Imagine if you were running a business, and deployed CentOS 8 based on the 10 year lifespan promise. You're totally screwed now, and Red Hat knows it. Why on earth didn't they make this switch starting with CentOS 9???? Let's not sugar coat this. They've betrayed their users. I personally run a CentOS 7 server (as…

Yes this hurts. My use case is specific: I'm a dev but since we're 2 in the IT service with barely any budget I'm also a (modest) sysadmin and they also call me when the printer or the TV doesn't work.

So a few years ago when Debian decided to have faster release cycles I migrated all my VM to CentOS: once the OS is installed I don't want to think about it for the next 10 years.

I still didn't finish my Windows 7 to 10 on all my desktops, I'm swamped with users wanting to do Zoom / Teams / Skype / Whatever visio conferences, I have 3 new dev projects for 2021 and now I have to migrate all my CentOS VM...

Yeah, thank you RedHat I won't forget / forgive that.