6 ms·

CentOS 8.2.2004 Released

45 points by gtirloni 6y ago

hyperation 6y ago
Coincidentally, same version number as Windows 10's latest update. :)
techntoke 6y ago
The only reason people use CentOS is so they don't have to pay for RHEL licensing for all their servers. There are so many better options for Linux distros.
- closeparen 6y ago
  AFAIK the only reason people pay for RHEL licensing is they want commercial support. If you just like the distro, then CentOS is perfect. (I do prefer Debian but that's mainly from getting started with Linux on Ubuntu).
- gramakri 6y ago
  What do you recommend? And why?
- loop0 6y ago
  If you want stability on bare metal servers without having to pay the RedHat license then CentOS is the way to go. I've using to work with lots of bare metal servers and we used to run debian on everything until we started to have issues with kernel panics on machines we used with xen. We changed a few machines to CentOS and never looked back, in a spam of a few months we migrated all servers to CentOS and had much less stability issues. Not to say that debian isn't very stable as well, but RedHat puts money and effort into making their distro run on various enterprise level hardware.
- emidln 6y ago
  I use CentOS because it is Fedora with a slightly slower upgrade cycle. I've been using Fedora since it was called Red Hat Linux and I paid for a boxed set of CDs. Stability is nice.
- c0nducktr 6y ago
  I mean, yes, that's clearly the intention behind the distribution. As someone who works with RHEL everyday, why wouldn't I choose CentOS for my personal projects? What would you recommend instead for servers? Debian?
- noja 6y ago
  False dichotomy. I use CentOS because RHEL is the best Linux distro for me AND I don't have to pay for it.
  - noisem4ker 6y ago
    What makes RHEL the best distro for you?
    - redis_mlc 6y ago
      CentOS/Redhat used to be a classic Unix server version (up to around CentOS 6) and most sysadmins using it didn't care about alsa/pulseaudio/X/Gnome/usb/hotplug. systemd changed that, and CentOS is pretty weird now. Ubuntu was a notebook-focused end-user distro. Not sure what it is in 2020. If you never used early Linux or Unix distros, then Ubuntu might seem normal and you wouldn't notice the differences that I'm referring to. People pay for Redhat if they're using commercial software and want support, like ERP software. The reason for that is since Linux doesn't have an Application Binary Interface (ABI) standard, commercial vendors can only support specific versions. Top500 cluster owners were pissed when Redhat started charging per server and wouldn't give them a break, despite operating clusters of thousands of cookie-cutter servers. I forget if I wrote a post on how shitty Linux is compared to any other OS, but the missing ABI and horrific help/man/info situations would be top of the list. (You know if you're a linux expert and not a fanboi when you can list 10 things that linux completely sucks at.)
    - noja 6y ago
      It's stable, supported for ages, they backport security fixes, they have a decent kernel team.
- AHTERIX5000 6y ago
  There aren't too many choices if you need to deploy something important in the most boring, reliable and maintainable fashion. I'm not a "fan" of CentOS like I'm not a fan of Toyota Hilux vehicles but both have their merits.
  - mikece 6y ago
    You make the comparison to the Hilux... and there are some HUGE fans of the Hilux specifically because it is extraordinarily reliable. Makes me wonder why there isn't a well known "boring, reliable" distro of Debian[1]... would Toyota mind if "Debian Hilux" were to come into being? [1] I'm fairly certain there are distros derived from Debian which could be a "Hilux distro" but they aren't well-known to me.
    - peebz 6y ago
      Isn't Debian Stable the Hilux distro?
      - mikece 6y ago
        Are there LTS releases supported as long as CentOS? (That's not rhetorical -- I honestly don't know.)
        yjftsjthsd-h 6y ago
        No, RHEL/CentOS aim for an absurd 10-year lifecycle, whereas Debian, even with LTS, is aiming for 5 years. Compare https://endoflife.software/operating-systems/linux/centos https://endoflife.software/operating-systems/linux/centos and https://endoflife.software/operating-systems/linux/debian https://endoflife.software/operating-systems/linux/debian for exact figures.
- flamemyst 6y ago
  I used to use Ubuntu for server. Not choosing Debian because of shorter support time and old package. And then Ubuntu botched some updates on their LTS version. Also they automatically start services after installation. I might want to reconfigure stuff before starting services. So here I am, with Centos, reliable updates and if I need exotic application, I ran it under docker or podman.
RedShift1 6y ago
Yay!
rintintone 6y ago
How much more polished is CentOS than Fedora, in practice? I'm about 8 hours into a new Fedora 32 workstation and I dunno if I can take much more of it. Wayland's super crashy (yes I'm on AMD, not Nvidia) as in the whole thing crashing, not just individual apps; some fairly fundamental official packages don't work out of the box (Docker—how do you screw that up so bad that it's simpler to get working on macOS?); and there's lots of general irritation (missing i686 libs for my off-hours gaming—how's there not just a metapackage to install those?) Would CentOS save me? Or am I doomed to end up on spits Win10 and doing my real work in light, disposable Linux VMs?
- vondur 6y ago
  Wayland is kind of buggy, period. If you are looking to do gaming, just give PopOS a look. It's pretty well setup for gaming out of the box.
- petre 6y ago
  Try openSuSE if you want a rpm distro. 15.1 is rock solid and 15.2 is due to be released at the end of June.
- ses1984 6y ago
  Hey, I think you need to learn a little more about what the different distros to be able to pick which one is a good fit for you. Centos follows Red Hat Enterprise Linux as closely as they possibly can. Fedora is more of an unstable distro where new things are tried out that may get into RHEL when they stabilize. I don't think either of them have a goal of working on a very broad range of modern workstations. If you know you specifically want Centos or Fedora to do your work, you should build a workstation (or select a laptop) that you know will work with that distro. Anyway you should rarely be seriously considering both of these at the same time. Either you want stability and you choose between Centos, Debian, or maybe older Ubuntu LTS, or you want to be on the edge and you choose Fedora, or the latest Ubuntu, etc. Also there are other options besides Fedora, Centos, and Windows. Maybe Ubuntu would be a better fit for you.
  - rintintone 6y ago
Koshkin 6y ago
The version number leaves a weird impression.
tinus_hn 6y ago
What is the logic behind this odd version number? I had to check whether this was a 16 year old announcement.

45 points by gtirloni 6y ago

Coincidentally, same version number as Windows 10's latest update. :)

The only reason people use CentOS is so they don't have to pay for RHEL licensing for all their servers. There are so many better options for Linux distros.

closeparen 6y ago
AFAIK the only reason people pay for RHEL licensing is they want commercial support. If you just like the distro, then CentOS is perfect. (I do prefer Debian but that's mainly from getting started with Linux on Ubuntu).
gramakri 6y ago
What do you recommend? And why?
loop0 6y ago
If you want stability on bare metal servers without having to pay the RedHat license then CentOS is the way to go. I've using to work with lots of bare metal servers and we used to run debian on everything until we started to have issues with kernel panics on machines we used with xen. We changed a few machines to CentOS and never looked back, in a spam of a few months we migrated all servers to CentOS and had much less stability issues. Not to say that debian isn't very stable as well, but RedHat puts money and effort into making their distro run on various enterprise level hardware.
emidln 6y ago
I use CentOS because it is Fedora with a slightly slower upgrade cycle. I've been using Fedora since it was called Red Hat Linux and I paid for a boxed set of CDs. Stability is nice.
c0nducktr 6y ago
I mean, yes, that's clearly the intention behind the distribution. As someone who works with RHEL everyday, why wouldn't I choose CentOS for my personal projects? What would you recommend instead for servers? Debian?
noja 6y ago
False dichotomy. I use CentOS because RHEL is the best Linux distro for me AND I don't have to pay for it.
- noisem4ker 6y ago
  What makes RHEL the best distro for you?
  - redis_mlc 6y ago
    CentOS/Redhat used to be a classic Unix server version (up to around CentOS 6) and most sysadmins using it didn't care about alsa/pulseaudio/X/Gnome/usb/hotplug. systemd changed that, and CentOS is pretty weird now. Ubuntu was a notebook-focused end-user distro. Not sure what it is in 2020. If you never used early Linux or Unix distros, then Ubuntu might seem normal and you wouldn't notice the differences that I'm referring to. People pay for Redhat if they're using commercial software and want support, like ERP software. The reason for that is since Linux doesn't have an Application Binary Interface (ABI) standard, commercial vendors can only support specific versions. Top500 cluster owners were pissed when Redhat started charging per server and wouldn't give them a break, despite operating clusters of thousands of cookie-cutter servers. I forget if I wrote a post on how shitty Linux is compared to any other OS, but the missing ABI and horrific help/man/info situations would be top of the list. (You know if you're a linux expert and not a fanboi when you can list 10 things that linux completely sucks at.)
  - noja 6y ago
    It's stable, supported for ages, they backport security fixes, they have a decent kernel team.
AHTERIX5000 6y ago
There aren't too many choices if you need to deploy something important in the most boring, reliable and maintainable fashion. I'm not a "fan" of CentOS like I'm not a fan of Toyota Hilux vehicles but both have their merits.
- mikece 6y ago
  You make the comparison to the Hilux... and there are some HUGE fans of the Hilux specifically because it is extraordinarily reliable. Makes me wonder why there isn't a well known "boring, reliable" distro of Debian[1]... would Toyota mind if "Debian Hilux" were to come into being? [1] I'm fairly certain there are distros derived from Debian which could be a "Hilux distro" but they aren't well-known to me.
  - peebz 6y ago
    Isn't Debian Stable the Hilux distro?
    - mikece 6y ago
      Are there LTS releases supported as long as CentOS? (That's not rhetorical -- I honestly don't know.)
      - yjftsjthsd-h 6y ago
        No, RHEL/CentOS aim for an absurd 10-year lifecycle, whereas Debian, even with LTS, is aiming for 5 years. Compare https://endoflife.software/operating-systems/linux/centos https://endoflife.software/operating-systems/linux/centos and https://endoflife.software/operating-systems/linux/debian https://endoflife.software/operating-systems/linux/debian for exact figures.
flamemyst 6y ago
I used to use Ubuntu for server. Not choosing Debian because of shorter support time and old package. And then Ubuntu botched some updates on their LTS version. Also they automatically start services after installation. I might want to reconfigure stuff before starting services. So here I am, with Centos, reliable updates and if I need exotic application, I ran it under docker or podman.

RedShift1 6y ago

Yay!

rintintone 6y ago

How much more polished is CentOS than Fedora, in practice? I'm about 8 hours into a new Fedora 32 workstation and I dunno if I can take much more of it. Wayland's super crashy (yes I'm on AMD, not Nvidia) as in the whole thing crashing, not just individual apps; some fairly fundamental official packages don't work out of the box (Docker—how do you screw that up so bad that it's simpler to get working on macOS?); and there's lots of general irritation (missing i686 libs for my off-hours gaming—how's there not just a metapackage to install those?) Would CentOS save me? Or am I doomed to end up on spits Win10 and doing my real work in light, disposable Linux VMs?

vondur 6y ago
Wayland is kind of buggy, period. If you are looking to do gaming, just give PopOS a look. It's pretty well setup for gaming out of the box.
petre 6y ago
Try openSuSE if you want a rpm distro. 15.1 is rock solid and 15.2 is due to be released at the end of June.
ses1984 6y ago
Hey, I think you need to learn a little more about what the different distros to be able to pick which one is a good fit for you. Centos follows Red Hat Enterprise Linux as closely as they possibly can. Fedora is more of an unstable distro where new things are tried out that may get into RHEL when they stabilize. I don't think either of them have a goal of working on a very broad range of modern workstations. If you know you specifically want Centos or Fedora to do your work, you should build a workstation (or select a laptop) that you know will work with that distro. Anyway you should rarely be seriously considering both of these at the same time. Either you want stability and you choose between Centos, Debian, or maybe older Ubuntu LTS, or you want to be on the edge and you choose Fedora, or the latest Ubuntu, etc. Also there are other options besides Fedora, Centos, and Windows. Maybe Ubuntu would be a better fit for you.
- rintintone 6y ago

Koshkin 6y ago

The version number leaves a weird impression.

tinus_hn 6y ago

What is the logic behind this odd version number? I had to check whether this was a 16 year old announcement.