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June 30th, 2024, will bring the End of Life (EOL) of CentOS Linux (2023)

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Re: June 30th, 2024, will bring the End of Life (EOL) of CentOS Linux (2023)

#101

For better or for worse, this has caused a lot of software vendors to drop RHEL/CentOS support. Many have started to offer Ubuntu support in it's place. Most of them didn't even try to support stream. I'm not sure what the process behind that was. CentOS was free, which is why we used it. Sure, our SAP boxes run RHEL but the other stuff doesn't. We started moving a lot of stuff to Ubuntu as well. Now, Ubuntu is by no…

> Additionally, Red Hat support is so bad these days. It almost reminds me of Microsoft Technet forums of the past. Random 'techs' offering copy-paste solutions and the same bad information. Yeah, that's been my experience. We had a bad driver package from them completely hose one of our prod systems. It took 3 days and multiple calls from our CTO to get anyone to seriously look at the issue despite being on the top…

Well that explains a lot. Historically, the basic idea as I understood it was that you could have the software for free (CentOS) and they didn't really mind because they knew they were selling support. If the support is worthless, then they have to try and squeeze money out of the software, which explains their behavior.

Re: June 30th, 2024, will bring the End of Life (EOL) of CentOS Linux (2023)

#102
post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It will not automatically remove dependencies that were installed along with a package when that package is removed. I'm guessing this is due to some historical ideology about how `apt-get` was intended to function. I just typically run `apt remove foobar && apt -y autoremove`. There is also nala, which _does_ automatically remove dependencies when you remove a package: https://github.com/volitank/nala

Is it aware if another package is using the same dependency, so it only removes the dependency if it is not being used by anything else?

Yes, that's what 'apt autoremove' does... remove packages that were installed as a dependancy, but are no longer needed because packages using it have been removed.

However, the package could of course still be used by unpackaged software or local scripts.

Re: June 30th, 2024, will bring the End of Life (EOL) of CentOS Linux (2023)

#103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I fail to see what separates Alma from CentOS Stream at this point I believe that AlmaLinux's approach is in-line with Red Hat's vision for downstream OS-es. Rocky's is not. I think a potential benefit to aligning with Red Hat's approach is that both AlmaLinux and Red Hat will be contributing fixes, improvements, etc. to CentOS Stream -- and any other OS-es that base off of CentOS Stream. And, nothing is preventing…

>I believe that AlmaLinux's approach is in-line with Red Hat's vision for downstream OS-es. As far as I can tell this is logically incorrect CentOS/Alma are upstream not downstream and red hat's vision of downstream OSes is they don't exist because that takes a nickel out of IBM's pocket.

You're correct, I was referring to AlmaLinux's former status of being downstream of RHEL. Additionally, from Red Hat's perspective, AlmaLinux is still downstream of CentOS Stream (and thus a participant of Red Hat's vision for CentOS Stream[0]).

> red hat's vision of downstream OSes is they don't exist because that takes a nickel out of IBM's pocket

I think CentOS Stream actually contradicts this because (I would imagine) it's a lot of work to maintain and greatly benefits the community -- and Red Hat still makes it freely available for other distributions to base off of.

[0] https://www.redhat.com/en/blog/furthering-evolution-centos-s...

EDIT: clarified RH's vision for CentOS Stream and added my thoughts on CentOS Stream

Re: June 30th, 2024, will bring the End of Life (EOL) of CentOS Linux (2023)

#105
post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am always baffled by people using ubuntu because "free". I get the desire if you want the paid stream. EG, an alternative to Redhat or SuSE as a paid stream. But if you're going to use Ubuntu, why put up with the snaps, the commercialism, the app store, when you can just use debian? Every time I hear a reason why, it makes little sense to me. Even though 95% of Ubuntu is Debian, and Ubuntu wouldn't exist without De…

Because 15 years ago Ubuntu shipped them distro CDs in the mail for free, and Debian was an entire dvd to download, slowly. Their more clever friends were compiling Arch, but who has time for that? I say this tongue in cheek, as a personal lived experience.

This isn't wrong, really. Canonical, for all its flaws, correctly identified a lot of problems with Linux early on -- distribution, usability, application availability -- and then solved them. (Or made strides, anyway.)

It also wasn't shy about marketing and made an effort to have a welcoming community whereas other communities were much less friendly to outsiders.

The free CDs and Canonical's "ground game" in the face of the Red Hat Linux diaspora made it much more successful than other "Debian, but easier" efforts before it.

Re: June 30th, 2024, will bring the End of Life (EOL) of CentOS Linux (2023)

#106
post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> Red Hat’s official stance is that downstream distros like Rocky or AlmaLinux should be basing off of CentOS Stream — that would allow all the EL distributions to contribute and use the same OS base That stance goes contrary to the "everyone benefits" nature of free and open source software. It turns "everyone benefits" into "Red Hat / IBM profits". Why should the community contribute to Red Hat's bottom line if Re…

Your analysis seems to be ignoring all of the work required to create and maintain the CentOS Stream / RHEL distribution in the first place, which is substantial. Prior to CentOS Stream, if you were a CentOS user or maintainer who experienced a bug, your only option was to file a bug on the RHEL bug tracker and wait for a Red Hat employee to fix it for you. It was the Android-esque "throw the code over the wall" mode…

>> Your analysis seems to be ignoring all of the work required to create and maintain the CentOS Stream / RHEL distribution in the first place, which is substantial.

Substantial enough to effectively "close source" RHEL?

Red Hat's changes (https://www.redhat.com/en/blog/red-hats-commitment-open-sour...) effectively converted RHEL from a fully open source Linux distribution to "source available to paying customers only" proprietary product.

The changes are effectively a violation of the GPL by prohibiting customers from distributing RHEL sources through Red Hat's Terms of Service and EULAs:

https://rockylinux.org/news/keeping-open-source-open/

Re: June 30th, 2024, will bring the End of Life (EOL) of CentOS Linux (2023)

#107
post #44
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another suitable option, which has handled the situation of Red Hat source RPM releases[1] quite a bit better imo, is Alma Linux. https://almalinux.org/ Similar goal, but is working more directly upstream with Red Hat[2] as opposed to the (as I last had read) undisclosed and non-open approach that Rocky Linux has taken. 1: https://www.redhat.com/en/blog/furthering-evolution-centos-s... 2: https://almalinux.org/blog/f…

As I understand it, Alma is following the stream release, which is slightly upstream and less stable than RHEL. https://linux.slashdot.org/story/23/07/29/0214234/almalinux-... Rocky and SUSE Liberty Linux aim to be bug-for-bug compatible with RHEL, which has become more difficult.

Alma Linux is getting their source packages from Stream but they are using the exact same versions that are in the current Redhat release.

Re: June 30th, 2024, will bring the End of Life (EOL) of CentOS Linux (2023)

#108
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another suitable option, which has handled the situation of Red Hat source RPM releases[1] quite a bit better imo, is Alma Linux. https://almalinux.org/ Similar goal, but is working more directly upstream with Red Hat[2] as opposed to the (as I last had read) undisclosed and non-open approach that Rocky Linux has taken. 1: https://www.redhat.com/en/blog/furthering-evolution-centos-s... 2: https://almalinux.org/blog/f…

Yeah Alma is a much better option if you care about the behavior and attitudes of the people behind the project. The Rocky people are antagonistic toward Red Hat and view them as somewhat an enemy (which seems so weird to me as without Red Hat, they couldn't possibly exist). They strictly want to take what Red Hat sells and rebuild and distribute it for free. The Alma people on the other hand view themselves as partn…

> They strictly want to take what Red Hat sells and rebuild and distribute it for free.

I think this is an unfair framing. Rather, they want to take all the GPL source code that Red Hat is obligated to make available, and distribute it freely. They believe this is in accordance with both the law and the software license that Red Hat agreed to, when using it as a basis for their business in the first place.

Personally, I don't have a dog in the fight, or a strong opinion on the matter. But we should at least fairly represent each parties position.

Re: June 30th, 2024, will bring the End of Life (EOL) of CentOS Linux (2023)

#109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I fail to see what separates Alma from CentOS Stream at this point I believe that AlmaLinux's approach is in-line with Red Hat's vision for downstream OS-es. Rocky's is not. I think a potential benefit to aligning with Red Hat's approach is that both AlmaLinux and Red Hat will be contributing fixes, improvements, etc. to CentOS Stream -- and any other OS-es that base off of CentOS Stream. And, nothing is preventing…

> I believe that AlmaLinux's approach is in-line with Red Hat's vision for downstream OS-es. Rocky's is not. What is in-line with users' vision?

"users" is such a large category as to be absolutely meaningless. It's kind of like saying "what do Americans think about big tech?"

Re: June 30th, 2024, will bring the End of Life (EOL) of CentOS Linux (2023)

#110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I believe that AlmaLinux's approach is in-line with Red Hat's vision for downstream OS-es. As far as I can tell this is logically incorrect CentOS/Alma are upstream not downstream and red hat's vision of downstream OSes is they don't exist because that takes a nickel out of IBM's pocket.

You're correct, I was referring to AlmaLinux's former status of being downstream of RHEL. Additionally, from Red Hat's perspective, AlmaLinux is still downstream of CentOS Stream (and thus a participant of Red Hat's vision for CentOS Stream[0]). > red hat's vision of downstream OSes is they don't exist because that takes a nickel out of IBM's pocket I think CentOS Stream actually contradicts this because (I would ima…

Technically code-wise we're a downstream of CentOS Stream for the most part, but the end result is more of a hybrid because we're targeting RHEL and can match commits to RHEL commits from stream for a lot of it...so yeah.

Formerly we were just 100% downstream RHEL with none of this nuance, as you mentioned.

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