There's a whole family of Red Hat Enterprise Linux variants, each with its own users. So, what's the right one for you? It depends on your needs:
Lately, I've noticed a lot of confusion about Red Hat's Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) and related distros, such as AlmaLinux OS, Oracle Linux, and Rocky Linux. In addition, there are Red Hat's own RHEL variants, CentOS Stream and Fedora. Mea culpa. It is confusing. Let me help straighten things out.
[...] many people used a community RHEL distro called Community Enterprise Operating system (CentOS) instead of Oracle Linux. Founded by Gregory Kurtzer, this was the most successful of the early RHEL clones. Indeed, CentOS proved to be far more popular than RHEL in such critical markets as web servers.
[...] So, first, [Red Hat] adopted CentOS in 2014. CentOS continued on its free license way, while Red Hat hoped it could persuade CentOS users to become RHEL customers. It didn't work out.
So, in late 2020, Red Hat changed CentOS from being a stable RHEL clone to being a rolling Linux release distro, CentOS Stream. In addition, the plan was that while Red Hat would continue to support the older CentOS 7 release until at least June 30, 2024, the newer CentOS 8 version, instead of being supported until 2029, would run out of support at the end of 2021.
That went over like a lead balloon with the hundreds of thousands of CentOS users.
The article goes on to explain how two leading Linux developers, CloudLinux founder and CEO Igor Seletskiy, and CentOS founder and CIQ CEO Gregory Kurtzer, decided to create their own RHEL clones, namely AlmaLinux and Rocky Linux:
The idea here, Kurtzer said, is that "Open-source projects should not be subject to corporate control or business agendas. What makes a successful open source project isn't having a single individual behind it or even having a massive company behind it; what makes it successful is having many individuals and many companies all supporting and managing it collectively, in line with shared interests.
I've been migrating my CentOS servers over to Rocky Linux and the process has been relatively painless. Additionally, the OS is named in the NIST Implementation Under Test List. Most libraries and modules can be found on pkgs.org. What has been your experience with migrating away from CentOS?
Previously:
Related Stories
Demonstrating you can make money from Linux and open-source software, Jim Whitehurst, Red Hat's president and CEO credits "enterprises increasingly adopting hybrid cloud infrastructures and open source technologies" for driving the company's strong results:
For the full 2016 fiscal year, Red Hat's total revenue was $2.05 billion, up 15 percent in US dollars year-over-year, or 21 percent measured in constant currency. Subscription revenue for the full fiscal year was $1.8 billion, up 16 percent in US dollars year-over-year, or 22 percent measured in constant currency. Subscription revenue in the full fiscal year was 88 percent of total revenue.
[...] Looking ahead for its 2016 FY Red Hat expects to see between $2.380 billion to $2.420 billion. At this rate, Red Hat should easily become the first $3 billion open-source company.
From the press release:
IBM (NYSE:IBM) and Red Hat (NYSE:RHT), the world's leading provider of open source cloud software, announced today that the companies have reached a definitive agreement under which IBM will acquire all of the issued and outstanding common shares of Red Hat for $190.00 per share in cash, representing a total enterprise value of approximately $34 billion.
Blog posting from Red Hat President and CEO Jim Whitehurst.
Last year RedHat announced the early EOL of CentOS 8. In 2019 they introduced their plans for CentOS Stream:
CentOS Stream was introduced in 2019 as a rolling release version of CentOS. In the previously mentioned release cycle, it found its place between Fedora and RHEL, testing future minor releases.
However, RHEL made changes to the initial plan, deciding to halt any future CentOS releases. CentOS 8 has been declared the last downstream release that will be supported until December 2021. Therefore, instead of its previously announced EOL in 2029, its life cycle has been cut by eight years.
RHEL will not release any new CentOS distributions, only CentOS Stream.
Naturally, the stability of CentOS Stream cannot compete with CentOS releases. As it will work midstream in the release cycle, it is bound to be less stable than the RHEL distribution it precedes.
RedHat has just announced the release of CentOS Stream 9:
CentOS Stream is a continuous-delivery distribution providing each point-release of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL). Before a package is formally introduced to CentOS Stream, it undergoes a battery of tests and checks—both automated and manual—to ensure it meets the stringent standards for inclusion in RHEL. Updates posted to Stream are identical to those posted to the unreleased minor version of RHEL. The aim? For CentOS Stream to be as fundamentally stable as RHEL itself.
To achieve this stability, each major release of Stream starts from a stable release of Fedora Linux—In CentOS Stream 9, this begins with Fedora 34, which is the same code base from which RHEL 9 is built. As updated packages pass testing and meet standards for stability, they are pushed into CentOS Stream as well as the nightly build of RHEL. What CentOS Stream looks like now is what RHEL will look like in the near future.
CentOS 7 will be EOL in June 2024. If you're running a production environment on CentOS, what are your plans? Move to CentOS Stream? Move to a different platform? Something else?
If you're looking for a new operating system that takes security seriously, but doesn't cause major user headaches, Vanilla OS might be just the ticket:
I've used every flavor of Linux you can possibly imagine -- from the overly simple to the masterfully complex. I've seen just about every gimmick and trick you could throw at an operating system. Finally, there's a new take on Linux that is equal parts heightened security and user-friendly. If that sounds like the combination you've been looking for, read on, my friend.
The first official release of Vanilla OS was recently made available to the masses. I've tested this Linux distribution before and found it to be quite intriguing. So, when the developers announced the full release was ready, you can bet I was anxious to kick the tires.
[...] With the new release, the developers shifted away from Almost to ABRoot. [...] The developers explain it like this:
ABRoot achieves [atomicity] by transacting between 2 root file systems: A and B. Let's make an example. Let's say you want to install a new package. ABRoot will check which partition is the present root partition (i.e A), then it will mount an overlay on top of it and perform the transaction. If the transaction succeeds, the overlay will be merged with the future root partition (i.e B). On your next boot, the system will automatically switch to the new root partition (B). In case of failure, the overlay will be discarded and the system will boot normally, without any changes to either partition.
The article goes on to talk about Smart Updates and Sub Systems.
Related: RHEL and its Linux Relatives and Rivals: How to Choose
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Thexalon on Tuesday December 13, @11:39AM (11 children)
Often, the answer is "none of the above", and picking a non-Red-Hat-based distro. I can say from experience that building custom DEBs is much easier than building RPMs, for instance.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by stormreaver on Tuesday December 13, @01:55PM (3 children)
My company ran RHEL a long time ago, when it was still just Redhat 3, 4, and 5 (my labeling might be off). It was a pain in the ass to maintain. We saw the writing on the wall when 5 required a license key, and started migrating to Debian. We've been using Debian for many years now, and have been extremely happy with it. Maintaining it is a cakewalk. We would never consider using another Redhat derivative.
(Score: 1) by recourse on Wednesday December 14, @08:02AM (2 children)
Do you use any lifecycle mgmt for your debian servers? Something to maintain updates/patching?
We use ansible but I'm always interested in what someone else uses.
(Score: 2) by fab23 on Wednesday December 14, @03:06PM
Ansible may be fine for doing configuration adjustments on multiple systems. But for regular security updates it is best to install 'apticron' and configure it to send email when there is something to update or even risk in doing automatic updates and restart of daemons.
(Score: 2) by stormreaver on Wednesday December 14, @03:27PM
Our server management personnel handle that, and I've been out of server management for quite some time, so I'm not aware of the details. What I know is that servers are regularly updated as new major versions are released.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by digitalaudiorock on Tuesday December 13, @02:46PM (1 child)
Often the answer is "nothing with systemd", let alone anything from the ass-hats who invented that travesty. Our company used to deliver our product on a CentOS 6 VM, but after systemd we switched to a VM running Devuan. That's been a stellar choice for a lean headless server with non of that BS.
(Score: 3, Informative) by digitalaudiorock on Wednesday December 14, @03:20PM
Who the fuck would mod this as troll!? It's the fucking truth asshole. Maybe you want to have "lean" "headless" servers where the co-called "init" system is bigger than your fucking kernel, and bloated with attack surface bullshit you don't need on any server, but you can keep that. Knowing that systemd is a piece of shit that flies in the face of everything that's made Unix/Linux successful does NOT make someone a troll. Kindly FOAD.
(Score: 2) by fliptop on Tuesday December 13, @04:30PM
Do other distros have scap tests available for NIST compliance? My clients that bid on gov't contracts need to past NIST certification to be eligible. RHEL and CentOS both have test packages that provide results that can be used to help harden a server.
To be oneself, and unafraid whether right or wrong, is more admirable than the easy cowardice of surrender to conformity
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Opportunist on Tuesday December 13, @05:26PM (3 children)
RHEL is a solid choice if your time (or that of your engineers, respectively) ain't free and you need something that complies with a number of certification requirements without you having to care about it. That's what they're good at. They manage to ship you a system that you can configure to comply with any kind of bullshit some government or customer may require you to comply with.
Other than that, it's way too expensive for way too little benefit.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Tuesday December 13, @11:45PM (2 children)
Pretty much all binary-distro distros solve the "your time ain't free" problem, maybe involving a cron job or something similar. And can drop onto a cloud server or bare-metal hardware with minimum fuss.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by Opportunist on Wednesday December 14, @12:38AM (1 child)
I'm not talking about cron jobs. I talk about compliance with various ISO certification requirements where the distro manufacturer actually guarantees that if you choose to flick that switch to on, the product will conform to the specifications.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Wednesday December 14, @11:29AM
That's why I said "Often": I can think of scenarios where there are specific requirements that RHEL meets and other distros don't. But it's also important to acknowledge that those trying to sell you something will try to get you focused on the smaller choices ("So, do you want this car in red or black?") so you won't think about the bigger choices ("Is there someone else that can sell me a similar car for $5000 less than what this guy is asking for?").
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 13, @11:55AM (2 children)
https://news.fnal.gov/2022/12/fermilab-cern-recommendation-for-linux-distribution/ [fnal.gov]
It seems they picked Alma as their replacement. For me personally? I don't care. I don't think I would be running either.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 13, @12:21PM (1 child)
Thanks for this! I wish I had mod points to mod you up.
(Score: 2) by liar on Tuesday December 13, @06:05PM
Took care of that for you!
Noli nothis permittere te terere.
(Score: 2) by Frosty Piss on Tuesday December 13, @12:37PM (2 children)
RHEL are generally used only by "Enterprise" operations that need absolutely rock sold and most definitely *not* "bleeding edge". I run it on my desktop as I have for years because it's an almost identical setup as the 16 servers I run. Having said this, I'm most definitely not a fan of CentOS Stream and will probably soon migrate to Ubuntu.
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Tuesday December 13, @04:18PM (1 child)
What are your thoughts about Alpine?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday December 13, @04:24PM
,
O.K. to expand on that ^.^ tried using an Alpine based RabbitMQ container, ended up reverting to Ubuntu due to flaky edge case behavior in the Alpine implementation. YMMV, it's small, but do you really need small? What's small buying you?
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 1) by stack on Tuesday December 13, @05:01PM
See title. :-D
(Score: 2) by pe1rxq on Tuesday December 13, @06:36PM
I have been using Slackware since 1996, tried a few others over the years but did not like it.
Work uses redhat, as a regular user it is ok-ish, but a real pain for anything else.
(Score: 0, Troll) by Burz on Wednesday December 14, @12:12AM
1. Make a list of the 7 most popular distros
2. Remove Fedora and CentOS
3. Choose one from list
Easy!