Goodbye CentOS?

[whmcsguru]

From the CentOS blog

The future of the CentOS Project is CentOS Stream, and over the next year we’ll be shifting focus from CentOS Linux, the rebuild of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), to CentOS Stream, which tracks just ahead of a current RHEL release. CentOS Linux 8, as a rebuild of RHEL 8, will end at the end of 2021. CentOS Stream continues after that date, serving as the upstream (development) branch of Red Hat Enterprise Linux.

Meanwhile, we understand many of you are deeply invested in CentOS Linux 7, and we’ll continue to produce that version through the remainder of the RHEL 7 life cycle.

CentOS Stream will also be the centerpiece of a major shift in collaboration among the CentOS Special Interest Groups (SIGs). This ensures SIGs are developing and testing against what becomes the next version of RHEL. This also provides SIGs a clear single goal, rather than having to build and test for two releases. It gives the CentOS contributor community a great deal of influence in the future of RHEL. And it removes confusion around what “CentOS” means in the Linux distribution ecosystem.

When CentOS Linux 8 (the rebuild of RHEL8) ends, your best option will be to migrate to CentOS Stream 8, which is a small delta from CentOS Linux 8, and has regular updates like traditional CentOS Linux releases. If you are using CentOS Linux 8 in a production environment, and are concerned that CentOS Stream will not meet your needs, we encourage you to contact Red Hat about options.

It looks like they're trying to turn CentOS into a Fedora like system??? Seems rather stupid if you ask me (not that anyone did). Turning an established OS into a 'beta' area is just asking for problems.

Curious to see how cPanel is going to react to this and what they're going to do, since they've been all CentOS since, well, almost forever now.

Thoughts?

 

[Hostinit]

What will we end up using? Centos Stream is not stable so it's out of the question to use in hosting servers. Precious time wasted by cPanel to make cPanel work with Centos 8. If Centos is not stable anymore, many would shift to Ubuntu. Need a good control panel for Ubuntu. So there is an open opportunity for developers. But keeping a control panel work on Ubuntu systems is tough work too I guess.

And what will be the future of CloudLinux?

 

[whmcsguru]

And what will be the future of CloudLinux?

As I understand it, CL isn't built off of CentOS, but of RHEL source, sooo that shouldn't be an issue. Their response is to keep an eye on the blog where they'll make some sort of an announcement.

 

[bigredseo]

On the bright side, they said they'll continue supporting CentOS 7 through the life cycle - so that's 2024 (and possibly longer if they extend as they have in the past).

I'm not a fan of beta software, but I guess it'll depend on how far "just ahead" actually means. If it's past through all the release candidates and it enters production a few weeks before the final RHEL, that's probably OK. Then patch in post.

I don't see people taking the license jump and getting RHEL (we had a few dozen RHEL before swapping to CentOS - I was happy to be free of the license fee

 

[easyhostmedia]

The trouble with software like CentOS. It is no good on its own. they can update it as many times as they like to make it safe and secure, but it relies on other software like cPanel to update its own software to become compatible with new versions on CentOS. But when something like Centos is free for users, it still has to generate and income to pays its staff which will come from investors and advertisers, but we all know the challenges many businesses has faced this year with many closing for good. Maybe centOS has lost too much revenue this year to make it viable.

 

[John @ S4]

The biggest winner in terms of users is going to be Ubuntu you would imagine.

Interesting announcement that Gregory Kurtzer, the original founder of CentOS, has announced that he will start a new RHEL compatible distro, essentially CentOS 2.0 which will be called Rocky Linux.

 

[InfusedHosting]

I think COVID has really affected the majority of large companies and its a shame. I've used Centos since we first started back in 2007, never really touched other Linux operating systems like Ubuntu, Fedora and Debian so will probably wait and see what the future holds.

 

[easyhostmedia]

The biggest winner in terms of users is going to be Ubuntu you would imagine.

Interesting announcement that Gregory Kurtzer, the original founder of CentOS, has announced that he will start a new RHEL compatible distro, essentially CentOS 2.0 which will be called Rocky Linux.

Did you also note that he was saying that a very basic version would be free, but you would need to subscribe to other features.

 

[John @ S4]

Did you also note that he was saying that a very basic version would be free, but you would need to subscribe to other features.

I didn't notice that actually, I haven't had a chance to read much about it yet at all to be honest. I did notice on the discourse: Here that they were talking about creating a foundation and there was mention of financial support but I didn't dive much deeper.

 

[easyhostmedia]

I didn't notice that actually, I haven't had a chance to read much about it yet at all to be honest. I did notice on the discourse: Here that they were talking about creating a foundation and there was mention of financial support but I didn't dive much deeper.

I don't think anyone will know until it starts off. Could be like CSE where it is free but you get an option to make a donation as it wont be cheap to maintain any Distro

 

[whmcsguru]

Based on this blog post , it looks like CloudLinux will basically step in where CentOS is now, so it’s not technically “dead”, red hat just killed its own contribution

As we already maintain CloudLinux OS, we plan to release a free, open-sourced, community-driven, 1:1 binary compatible fork of RHEL® 8 (and future releases) in the Q1 of 2021. We will create a separate, totally free OS that is fully binary compatible with RHEL® 8 (and future versions). We will sponsor the development & maintenance of such OS. We will work on establishing a community around the OS, with the governing board from members of the community.

This makes the most sense. Hopefully he’ll be able to keep both of these distributions up

 

[izumi777]

Most of my servers running web hosting service are based on CentOS. I will surely have quite a hard time to move to other distro.

 

[whmcsguru]

Most of my servers running web hosting service are based on CentOS. I will surely have quite a hard time to move to other distro.

You and about 80% of the hosting industry. Just wait and see what CloudLinux brings out. They are usually pretty good with stuff

 

[HostColor]

CloudLinux started developing a CentOS clone named Lenix. This might be an option.

 

[easyhostmedia]

from CloudLinux

As CloudLinux already maintain CloudLinux OS, we plan to release the Project Lenix - a free, open-sourced, community-driven, 1:1 binary compatible fork of RHEL® 8 (and future releases) in the Q1 of 2021. We will create a separate, totally free operating system (OS) that is fully binary compatible with RHEL® 8 (and future versions). We will sponsor the development & maintenance of such OS. We will work on establishing a community around the OS, with the governing board from members of the community.

Igor Seletskiy, CEO & Founder of CloudLinux Inc.

 

[John @ S4]

Essentially I think that right now there is nothing to panic about. Too many big companies have their entire revenue streams dependent on their being a stable RHEL based distro to let such a thing just stop existing.

Anyone using CentOS 7 still has a few years till end of life and can assess their options during that time, any servers on CentOS 8 have a shorter time frame, but we still are not talking weeks.

The best options at the moment are clearly looking like Project Lenix from CloudLinux, who are planning to make a big investment in it, or possibly RockyLinux (hate the name, I understand it but can't like it however hard I try) which we really need to watch and see what it turns into.

Those are going to be the easiest paths for direct migration, of course there are going to be a lot of other options. Jumping over to Ubuntu is one of them if you are only managing a couple of servers with pretty standard software.

We have a lot of stuff running on CentOS 8 servers but we are just going to see how the options look in 2-3 months before making any real migration plan.

 

[easyhostmedia]

Too many big companies have their entire revenue streams dependent on their being a stable RHEL based distro to let such a thing just stop existing.

That means nothing, they could if they so wish inform users that they are closing down in 2 weeks time and nothing anyone could do about it apart from move to another distro. They could even say they are closing tomorrow and nothing could be done as no one is paying them for CentOS, so have no contract with them.

 

[John @ S4]

That means nothing, they could if they so wish inform users that they are closing down in 2 weeks time and nothing anyone could do about it apart from move to another distro. They could even say they are closing tomorrow and nothing could be done as no one is paying them for CentOS, so have no contract with them.

Yes, in theory they could, but they haven't and it would seem like an incredibly stupid business move on the part of RH if they did, so they are not going to.

So, with things the way they are, we have defined timelines to work within and there are going to be a lot of changes in the possible options over the next couple of weeks or months, I think it is better to see how they pan out than to make any panic jump decisions.

 

[easyhostmedia]

Yes, in theory they could, but they haven't and it would seem like an incredibly stupid business move on the part of RH if they did, so they are not going to.

So, with things the way they are, we have defined timelines to work within and there are going to be a lot of changes in the possible options over the next couple of weeks or months, I think it is better to see how they pan out than to make any panic jump decisions.

better off looking at alternatives now if your not use to other Distros as the change distro involves reformatting servers. if you have a spare server then install a new distro and then migrate a couple of sites to the server with new distro to see how they fair

 

[John @ S4]

better off looking at alternatives now if your not use to other Distros as the change distro involves reformatting servers. if you have a spare server then install a new distro and then migrate a couple of sites to the server with new distro to see how they fair

If you think you are likely to move to a non RHEL distro then I completely agree.

On the other hand, if you think your most likely migration is to Lenix, Rocky, or similar, as I'm fairly certain that it will be, then the migration is going to be much simpler.

We have some server running Ubuntu but most of our servers are running CentOS and we will pick whatever emerges as the best option of a stable opensource RHEL based distro.