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Rocky Linux: A CentOS replacement by the CentOS founder

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Re: Rocky Linux: A CentOS replacement by the CentOS founder

#181

Post by deckard1 »

chousuke wrote: post #122
unethical_ban wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Arguably, no one should be running a server that long in 2020. I would say a better reason is that while both are Linux distributions, they are distinct dialects and ecosystems. It isn't impossible to switch, but for institutions that have complex infrastructure built around the RHEL world, it is a lot of work to convert.

It's not really about running servers for 10 years. It's about having a platform to build a product on that you can support for 10 years. RHEL software gets old over time, but it's still maintained and compatible with what you started on. Consider an appliance that will be shipped to a literal cave for some mining operation. Do you want to build that on something that you would have to keep refreshing every year, so…

The "don't touch it if it's not broken" philosophy is fundamentally at odds with an internet-connected machine.

You either need to upgrade or unplug (from the internet).

There are still places out there that are running WindowsNT or DOS even. Because they have applications which simply won't run anywhere else or need to talk to ancient hardware that runs over a parallel port or some weird crap like that. These machines will literally run forever, but you wouldn't connect it to the internet. Your hypothetical cave device would be the same.

Upgrading your OS always carries risk. Whether it's a single yum command or copying your entire app to a new OS.

Besides, if you're on CentOS 8 then wouldn't you also be looking at Docker or something? Isn't this a solved problem?

Re: Rocky Linux: A CentOS replacement by the CentOS founder

#182

Post by [deleted] »

paul_f wrote: post #56
nasalgoat wrote: post #35

The branding here I think is a big issue. The name "Rocky Linux" sounds too homebrew and unprofessional. CentOS sounds Enterprise-ish. I find it hard to believe any corporate client would take it seriously.

I've never had to explain why we use GoDaddy as our domain registrar. I don't think Rocky Linux will be a problem.

[deleted]

Re: Rocky Linux: A CentOS replacement by the CentOS founder

#183

Post by goodpoint »

tmoravec wrote: post #16
mmrezaie wrote: post #3

I am really interested to know why should anyone go with this when Debian or Ubuntu LTS exist. The two later have not changed their policies in the last decade, and they have a clear path for upgrading. CentOS was always a clear choice for device drivers support, but I never understood the stability claims.

Debian offers around three years of support. Ubuntu LTS around five. Both pale in comparison with Red Hat and, by proxy, CentOS.

This is false. Debian provides LTS with a 5-years timespan. [1]

And there is even commercial support for Extended LTS now [2]

Also, it's worth noticing that Debian provides security backports for a significantly larger set of packages and CPU architectures than other distributions.

[1] https://wiki.debian.org/DebianReleases

[2] https://wiki.debian.org/LTS/Extended

Re: Rocky Linux: A CentOS replacement by the CentOS founder

#184

Post by bonzini »

nps1 wrote: post #90

The next CentOS will be where the core developers who are actually contributing to project will move. However, branding does matter if you want enterprise following. Rocky does sound unprofessional.

Core developers and infrastructure is moving to CentOS Stream. However the software that is running on said infrastructure is all open source.

Re: Rocky Linux: A CentOS replacement by the CentOS founder

#185

Post by unethical_ban »

NotHereNotThere wrote: post #135
unethical_ban wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Arguably, no one should be running a server that long in 2020. I would say a better reason is that while both are Linux distributions, they are distinct dialects and ecosystems. It isn't impossible to switch, but for institutions that have complex infrastructure built around the RHEL world, it is a lot of work to convert.

OK I'll bite.. How would I run our SAP ERP apps/databases without "running servers that long"?

Of course there are use cases, but _ideally_, most workloads are staged, deployed, and backed up in such a way that it is a documented, reproducible procedure to tear down an instance of a server, rebuild, and redeploy services.

And while it may be cumbersome or cause some downtime or headaches if that isn't the case, I find the very need of doing it once every 1-3 years forces your hand to get your shit together, rather than a once per decade affair of praying you migrated all your scripts manually and that everything will work, as your OS admins threaten your life because audit is threatening theirs.

Re: Rocky Linux: A CentOS replacement by the CentOS founder

#186

Post by ignoranceprior »

hnarn wrote: post #124

The fact that a majority of the comments are whining about the name really shows you the worst part about open source: the non-contributing but highly entitled part of the community. If you don’t like the name, launch your own CentOS replacement. There’s no better time than now. If there’s one thing this project does not need right now, it’s armchair marketing experts. If you do care about a viable CentOS replacement…

I'd just like to interject for a moment.

I'm confused why everyone is complaining about the "Rocky" part, which is a nice tribute and sounds pretty decent, when the actual problem is the "Linux" part. It should really be called "Rocky GNU/Linux", or "Rocky GNU+Linux", because the Linux kernel is only one component of a complete GNU-based operating system compatible with the POSIX standard.

Re: Rocky Linux: A CentOS replacement by the CentOS founder

#187

Post by bonzini »

sp332 wrote: post #115
bserge wrote: post #61

Great, another Linux distro... I am trying to use something , but I just can't. Spending my time fixing problems instead of doing actual work is fun, for a while. Every damn time I start this one laptop with Linux, trying to get away from Windows 10, there's something to fix. Oh, the undervolt is not being applied, time to build the whole thing again. Oh, restart causes it to wank the hard drive indefinitely for some…

The solution is not to have one distro for laptop linux, but to use the distro provided by the manufacturer for each.

Right, the one that is full of crap proprietary drivers and therefore cannot be upgraded freely to new versions of the kernel.

Re: Rocky Linux: A CentOS replacement by the CentOS founder

#188

Post by haolez »

kondbg wrote: post #179

Devil's advocate: why should I choose this yet-to-exist distribution over something already existing, such as Oracle Linux? The most common argument (Oracle is evil and litigious. Therefore, using Oracle Linux will result in me being sued) honestly seems like FUD. All RHEL downstream distributions rebuild the same SRPMs that RHEL provides. Doing a quick comparison over some common packages (kernel, httpd, openssl, et…

Oracle Linux might change the rules in the future. It kind of just happened with CentOS :)

Re: Rocky Linux: A CentOS replacement by the CentOS founder

#189

Post by slim »

nasalgoat wrote: post #54
shawnz wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I actually think CentOS sounds pretty unprofessional (although familiar), while Rocky Linux sounds unfamiliar although at least has a meaningful inspiration. I would bet it could come to be equally as esteemed as a product called "CentOS" (or even "Red Hat") eventually.

CentOS is Community Enterprise OS. Enterprise is right in the name. I just imagine going to the big boss and saying, "We're moving to Rocky Linux" is going to be a tougher sell based on the somewhat juvenile nature of someone's first name with a Y on the end of it.

Try "we're moving to Pink Pants Linux"

Re: Rocky Linux: A CentOS replacement by the CentOS founder

#190

Post by em500 »

hnarn wrote: post #124

The fact that a majority of the comments are whining about the name really shows you the worst part about open source: the non-contributing but highly entitled part of the community. If you don’t like the name, launch your own CentOS replacement. There’s no better time than now. If there’s one thing this project does not need right now, it’s armchair marketing experts. If you do care about a viable CentOS replacement…

I share your disappointment. Out of 150+ comments so far, I believe there has not been a single technical comment about the actual work involved in building a version-pinned RHEL clone.

Without any experience myself (beyond some kernel build maybe 10 years ago), I gathered (from https://wiki.centos.org/About/Building_8) that the majority of work involves manually de-branding the RHEL sources. This apparently can't be automated, as it requires human judgement in which packages/files de-branding is required and in which it might actually break something.

Between major version jumps, e.g. from RHEL/CentOS 7->8 there's apparently also lots of work in getting the build environment up to date.

This raises numerous interesting questions, such as:

1. Where do the upstream RHEL sources live? CentOS sources are in https://vault.centos.org/8.3.2011/BaseOS/Source/SPackages/, but where do they get them upstream? I believe they're only available to RHEL subscribers, does this give RH a way to block clones?

2. Where / what are CentOS's actual build scripts / tools? Is there some howto or writeup how to make a CentOS iso (or cloud-image) on my own PC after downloading the source tree?

3. Do CentOS devs go through the entire manual de-branding exercise with every minor/major update? Presumably they are using some sort of automation/scripting/diffing somewhere. Are these processes/tools available or documented anywhere?

I hope at some point someone with some actual knowledge about this can chime in.

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