CentOS 8.x CentOS Project Shifts Focus To CentOS 8 Stream Effectively Ending CentOS 8 In 2021

CentOS Project has announced some major news in that they're effectively cutting short CentOS 8's lifecycle from May 2029 to December 2021 next year and moving their focus to CentOS 8 Stream release as a development and continuous delivery ground for Redhat 8+ nightly updates Updates in CentOS 8 Stream will become what you see eventually as Redhat Errata updates for Redhat 8+. The gist of it is we're moving away from CentOS 8 stable certainty in development to CentOS 8 Stream with uncertainty. For this thread I've setup a shortcut URL you can use at https://community.centminmod.com/centos8stream/

• CentOS Project shifts focus to CentOS Stream – Blog.CentOS.org
• CentOS Stream is Continuous Delivery – Blog.CentOS.org
  
• FAQ: CentOS Stream Updates
  
• CentOS Linux 8 will end in 2021 and shifts focus to CentOS Stream - nixCraft
• CentOS 8 Ending Next Year To Focus Shift On CentOS Stream - Phoronix
• Redhat expanding the Redhat Developer Program with more free access to Redhat Enterprise Linux for some usage cases by February 2021.

Other commentaries on Hacker News and Reddit and other forums

• CentOS Linux is dead—and Red Hat says Stream is “not a replacement”
  
• CentOS Project shifts focus to CentOS Stream | Hacker News
• https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/k95dt7/centos_project_shifts_focus_to_centos_stream/
• https://www.reddit.com/r/CentOS/comments/k94pfk/centos_project_shifts_focus_to_centos_stream/
• https://www.reddit.com/r/CentOS/comments/k99z28/centos_founder_gregory_kurtzer_to_start_new/
• Cloud Linux is planning to release a Cloud Linux 8 OS for CentOS 8 users in 2021 free of charge with support until 2029. Was first named Project Lenix but now renamed to AlmaLinux
• Rocky Linux Reddit community has been created now too https://www.reddit.com/r/RockyLinux/ and Discourse forum Rocky Linux Discourse - Update: Rocky Linux folks posted a December 2020 update as to their progress, plans and status

They've effectively pushed production stable users who desire traditional stability in CentOS 7 long term stable (LTS) releases away from CentOS 8 to paid Redhat 8 Enterprise Linux licensing. While folks who can live on the edge a bit can move from CentOS 8 to CentOS 8 Stream which would have newer versions of the software which CentOS traditionally have been slow to release.

Centmin Mod could have a home on CentOS 8 Stream as it effectively does some of this already i.e. using Nginx Mainline development branch and not Nginx stable with Nginx 1.19.x, Nginx using GCC versions 8/9 newer than CentOS 7 provided GCC 4.8.5 and PHP versions taken direct from PHP source rather than CentOS distro provided. CentOS 7 Rsync 3.2.3 planned is also another example. It could even make it easier for Centmin Mod as newer latest versions of software could potentially be available in CentOS 8 Stream that wouldn't be in CentOS 8 stable and that would me less work for me in either compiling by source or building custom RPMs. But some folks usage requirements do require stable long term release and CentOS 8 stable release is noww ending abrutly next year instead of 2029.

Though we may see some new collaborators for CentOS 8 Stream development in the form of Intel and Facebook too

Too earlier for my thoughts on what this means for Centmin Mod's CentOS 8 compatibility development outlined here. CentOS 8.3 has already started by renaming some of the repositories which will break existing folks automation and scripted CentOS 8 installations according to CentOS 8 Stream developer on Twitter and here.

CentOS 6 was EOL last month on November 2020 so no more updates and CentOS 7 has full updates until end of this year 2020 with maintenance updates until June 30th, 2024. While CentOS 8 listed lifecycle has been updated to December 2021 next year.

Interesting that in the CentOS Project blog post comments, the original CentOS founder is calling on making a new Linux OS distribution to fill the end of CentOS 8.

Would that be good or bad. Cause if a new rebuild of RHEL to replace CentOS 8 stable comes to life, I can see in future all if not most previous CentOS 8 developers and RPM maintainers may focus on this new replacement OS and then CentOS 8 Stream might not get the development focus it needs too. So might be a wait and see process right now. CentOS 7 has until June 30th, 2024 anyway so another 4 years.

From FAQ: CentOS Stream Updates there will not be a CentOS 9 version anymore.

There maybe a low cost Redhat version in future too

Centmin Mod & CentOS 8 Future

My thoughts are evolving as I get more info on this CentOS 8 EOL announcement. So bookmark and watch this thread for updates as time goes by.

As at December 12, 2020

Fortunately, CentOS 7 is maintained until 2024. I started this thread for this to share my thoughts and plans and CentOS 8 news as it comes with my Centmin Mod members and info gathered so far we know

1. Redhat has stated it will not block it’s source rpms or others from rebuilding from their sources so Rocky Linux and other rebuild projects can go ahead
2. Cloud Linux Q1 2021
3. CentOS 8 Stream is not a replacement for CentOS 8. But CentOS 8 Stream isn’t as buggy as folks make it out to be as it’s already tested twice, once internally and once via public t_functional test suite before stuff lands in CentOS 8 Stream and CentOS 8 Stream is only a rolling release for major versions and not minor versions. Basically, CentOS 8 Stream will become a continuous delivery stream that takes in Redhat nightly updates and will eventually become the Redhat Errata updates for Redhat 8+ OS.
4. Cloud Linux and Rocky Linux are reaching out to each other to collaborate hopefully too.

Guess I am fortunate that Centmin Mod’s CentOS 8 compatibility developments were still a work in progress while waiting on EPEL 8 to reach package parity with EPEL 7 CentOS 8.x - Centmin Mod CentOS 8 Compatibility Worklog. My thinking was what would be worse than release CentOS 8 support only for end users to find EPEL 8 packages that end users rely on not being available. But didn’t think there would be a worse case, CentOS 8 EOL in 12 months at end of 2021 !

Centmin Mod did at once stage work/develop/test for Oracle Linux 6 compatibility ages ago, but with CentOS 7 release, focus was back on CentOS 7.x.

So now I believe we have 3 contenders

• Oracle Linux 8
• Cloud Linux 8 https://blog.cloudlinux.com/announcing-open-sourced-community-driven-rhel-fork-by-cloudlinux 1
• Rocky Linux 8.3+ which already steaming ahead https://forums.rockylinux.org/ 2

cPanel and other web hosting panels, probably would go Cloud Linux route and rest of community would support Rocky Linux. cPanel has already posted the plans on their own blog Cent OS 8 End-of-Life Announcement | cPanel Blog and will support continued CentOS 8 development, Cloudflare Linux 8, Rocky Linux 8.3+ and also start a cPanel Ubuntu LTS release version.

But ultimately what broke is end users trust in CentOS. So guess that will drive folks to these 3 contenders. After all what good is there in control panels developing and support an OS where the actual end users and even distro package developers don’t have the demand and/or trust in?

Guess I need to build an CentOS 8 rsync 3.23 RPM too for faster data transfers between distro/servers like I did for CentOS 7 https://community.centminmod.com/th...-with-xxhash-zstd-support-for-centos-7.20768/ - going be alot of data moving in the future LOL

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Yeah it's wait and see but the original CentOS founders call on interesting is apparently growing dramatically on his Slack channel - a lot of folks interested are signing up. So that is a possibility too.

Actually, from what I read CentOS 8 Stream will sit between Fedora and Redhat after 2021 so it wouldn't be as bleeding edge as Fedora in the overall scope, but CentOS 8 Stream will be newer than whatever Redhat's stable release. So really need to wait and see.

For Centmin Mod, CentOS 7 is still around until 2024 so there is some time to wait and see. Realistically, looks like in future Centmin Mod development could be for CentOS 8 Stream/Oracle Linux 8 for the public masses. But I might start doing a private test of a version for Ubuntu as an option for myself right now (wouldn't have time to provide support for it publicly as I only release stuff I am willing to provide some support for).

 

First case of breaking scripts automated/scripted CentOS 8 compatibility for DirectAdmin due to renaming of CentOS 8.3+ YUM repo names install on Centos 8.2 - Package requirements (oniguruma) were not met

 

Former CentOS Founder has already setup a Github repo for Rocky Linux with intentions to be a CentOS alternate and rebuild against Redhat like before https://twitter.com/nixcraft/status/1336554585352105984

Github repo at hpcng/rocky

So will be interesting to see how this develops too

As to the name

With CentOS's announcement, the worse part is they've broken the trust end users had in them. That is hard to get back. So Rocky Linux could have a lot of folks backing it!

 

Does Debian support LXD LXD - Debian Wiki ? Haven't checked. When I played with Ubuntu and LXD containers it was fun so that's one aspect I'd factor in.

Guess depends on how many developers CentOS pissed off with this announcement and to what extent

True, they are probably making less with Covid maybe some companies are cancelling RHEL subscriptions and were planning to move to CentOS to save $$$?

Definitely such Ubuntu/Debian version would be private for quite a while as I have no intention in dividing my spare time even more providing support for such at the beginning though.

 

Oh I'd never use containers for actual Centmin Mod components themselves i.e. container for each piece of software. But being able to install Centmin Mod within LXD container might be nice from limited tests I did with
Nginx HTTP/2 HTTPS Benchmarks for Centmin Mod vs Easyengine vs Webinoly vs VestaCP vs OneInStack

 

Yeah not for Centmin Mod core software components at least.

Looks like Cloud Linux folks are stepping up to the plate too Page 3 | The end of CentOS | Web Hosting Talk

Alot of my clients already use Cloud Linux's KernelCare for rebootless Kernel updates

 

Yeah that is one thing to keep in mind - especially for Centmin Mod which does use some packages from EPEL as well as REMI YUM repos.

 

+1 on that

Rocky Linux Reddit community has been created now too https://www.reddit.com/r/RockyLinux/ And Discourse forum Rocky Linux Discourse

 

Yup Cloud Linux probably the one I'd be leaning towards. They also have CageFS product CloudLinux - Main | New template

Always wanted to see if I could leverage and use CageFS for Centmin Mod