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Correct me if I'm wrong, but the way I read this, CentOS Stream will still serve as a stable clone of RHEL just as it always has. The rolling distro will be tag

by teilo 6y ago

Correct me if I'm wrong, but the way I read this, CentOS Stream will still serve as a stable clone of RHEL just as it always has. The rolling distro will be tagged at a certain point in time for a RHEL release, and you can still choose to use that state as your production base, and be locked at that tag. Presumably there will be a CentOS Stream 9 tag that you can use for production. The difference will be that CentOS will lead rather than follow the RHEL release. I think the doom and gloom is a misunderstanding.

kbenson 6y ago
From https://www.centos.org/centos-stream/ https://www.centos.org/centos-stream/ CentOS Stream Continuously delivered distro that tracks just ahead of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) development, positioned as a midstream between Fedora Linux and RHEL. For anyone interested in participating and collaborating in the RHEL ecosystem, CentOS Stream is your reliable platform for innovation. That doesn't seem to be what you think it is, at least in my eyes. I'm definitely not looking to run something positioned between Fedora and RHEL. There's already enough updates every month (including multiple kernel updates a month sometimes) that it's hard to keep the fleet updated. I definitely don't need stuff ahead of RHEL where I can assume I'm a bit of a guinea pig to test out the coming RHEL update.
- teilo 6y ago
  From the FAQ https://centos.org/distro-faq/ https://centos.org/distro-faq/ : "Q6: Will there be separate/parallel/simultaneous streams for 8, 9, 10, etc? "A: Each major release will have a branch, similar to how CentOS Linux is currently structured; however, CentOS Stream is designed to focus on RHEL development, so only the latest Stream will have the marketing focus of the CentOS Project. "Because RHEL development cycles overlap, there will be times when there are multiple code branches in development at the same time.This allows users time to plan migrations and development work without being surprised by sudden changes. "Specifically, since the RHEL release cadence is every 3 years, and the full support window is 5 years, this gives an overlap of approximately 2 years between one stream and the next." Also from Q2: "We will not be producing a CentOS Linux 9, as a rebuild of RHEL 9. Instead CentOS Stream 9 fulfills this role. (See Q6 below regarding the overlap between concurrent streams.)" So it sounds to me like my assumption is correct: There will be separate streams reflecting each RHEL release. Read the whole FAQ. This is not what people think it is.
  - kbenson 6y ago
    I'm not sure if you don't understand how RHEL/CentOS point releases and bugfixes work, or if you're reading something in the FAQ I'm not. Right now, in RHEL 8.2, if a package needs a bug fix, it will be back-ported so that you get the fix in the existing running version of that package that was shipped in 8.2. On point releases, RHEL (and thus CentOS) may choose to back-port a feature, functionality, or choose to update the version of the package that is running to a newer version that has those features or functionality (or to bring it in-line with back-patches, I assume). When you update to a new point release, this gives you a single large update set that you can test to make sure functions well in your infrastructure. There have been points in the past where changes in point releases have required us to make changes to our configs or setup to deal with the RHEL/CentOS's point release changes (even though it's supposed to be rare, it happens, but it's mostly contained to these big testable update sets). CentOS mirrored this exactly, because it mirrored RHEL. Now CentOS is going to do something different, and these updates that would be relegated to point releases look like they are going to come down continuously. While not as problematic as something like Fedora, this is still something that groups specifically chose CentOS to avoid. It's nice that Red Hat is offering something to allow people to get fixes and features sooner than at point release times, but to switch CentOS to only providing that is extremely problematic to the very large community that expects otherwise, supported CentOS, and has done both since prior to Red Hat hiring some of the main CentOS developers and effectively controlling the project, and is notably different than what CentOS has always traditionally attempted to provide.
lutorm 6y ago
It seems that if you do that, you will not get any updates, including security updates?
- StillBored 6y ago
  Yah, it sounds that way. Rolling forward to the head is required to get the most recent security updates. Which isn't that far away from how centos works today. With rhel you get security updates for the point releases (8.1,8.2,etc) for a while after the new point release comes out. With centos, the day that the newer version drops, they don't tend to roll security updates into the older ones.
  - teilo 6y ago
    These are not frozen releases. They are parallel streams that each get their own CVE updates from the corresponding RHEL release.
- teilo 6y ago
  Not true. Q4: How will CVEs be handled in CentOS Stream? A: Security issues will be updated in CentOS Stream after they are solved in the current RHEL release. Obviously, embargoed security releases can not be publicly released until after the embargo is lifted. While there will not be any SLA for timing, Red Hat Engineers will be building and testing other packages against these releases. If they do not roll in the updates, the other software they build could be impacted and therefore need to be redone. There is therefore a vested interest for them to get these updates in so as not to impact their other builds and there should be no issues getting security updates.
Thaxll 6y ago
Absolutly not, it's going to be the Fedora version of RHEL. Pretty clear: "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." Of course no one want to run CentOS Stream because it's going to be broken / unstable, completely the opposite of what CentOS is.
- nemetroid 6y ago
  Fedora is the Fedora version of RHEL. Are you saying that CentOS Stream is going to be directly equivalent to Fedora?
  - unethical_ban 6y ago
    That's what it sounds. Maybe Fedora/CentOS/RHEL :: Dev/Test/Prod
  - bonzini 6y ago
    Fedora is (up to) years ahead of RHEL, and periodically forked. CentOS stream is up to a few months ahead of RHEL, and developed from the same Fedora fork that RHEL is.
    - dralley 6y ago
      RHEL isn't strictly a fork of Fedora, it's usually a hybrid of two Fedora versions with some custom work on top.
_-david-_ 6y ago
It used to be Fedora -> RHEL -> CentOS with the addition of CentOS stream it was becoming Fedora -> CentOS Stream -> RHEL -> CentOS now what it is Fedora -> CentOS Stream -> RHEL

by teilo 6y ago

kbenson 6y ago

From https://www.centos.org/centos-stream/ https://www.centos.org/centos-stream/ CentOS Stream Continuously delivered distro that tracks just ahead of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) development, positioned as a midstream between Fedora Linux and RHEL. For anyone interested in participating and collaborating in the RHEL ecosystem, CentOS Stream is your reliable platform for innovation. That doesn't seem to be what you think it is, at least in my eyes. I'm definitely not looking to run something positioned between Fedora and RHEL. There's already enough updates every month (including multiple kernel updates a month sometimes) that it's hard to keep the fleet updated. I definitely don't need stuff ahead of RHEL where I can assume I'm a bit of a guinea pig to test out the coming RHEL update.

teilo 6y ago
From the FAQ https://centos.org/distro-faq/ https://centos.org/distro-faq/ : "Q6: Will there be separate/parallel/simultaneous streams for 8, 9, 10, etc? "A: Each major release will have a branch, similar to how CentOS Linux is currently structured; however, CentOS Stream is designed to focus on RHEL development, so only the latest Stream will have the marketing focus of the CentOS Project. "Because RHEL development cycles overlap, there will be times when there are multiple code branches in development at the same time.This allows users time to plan migrations and development work without being surprised by sudden changes. "Specifically, since the RHEL release cadence is every 3 years, and the full support window is 5 years, this gives an overlap of approximately 2 years between one stream and the next." Also from Q2: "We will not be producing a CentOS Linux 9, as a rebuild of RHEL 9. Instead CentOS Stream 9 fulfills this role. (See Q6 below regarding the overlap between concurrent streams.)" So it sounds to me like my assumption is correct: There will be separate streams reflecting each RHEL release. Read the whole FAQ. This is not what people think it is.
- kbenson 6y ago
  I'm not sure if you don't understand how RHEL/CentOS point releases and bugfixes work, or if you're reading something in the FAQ I'm not. Right now, in RHEL 8.2, if a package needs a bug fix, it will be back-ported so that you get the fix in the existing running version of that package that was shipped in 8.2. On point releases, RHEL (and thus CentOS) may choose to back-port a feature, functionality, or choose to update the version of the package that is running to a newer version that has those features or functionality (or to bring it in-line with back-patches, I assume). When you update to a new point release, this gives you a single large update set that you can test to make sure functions well in your infrastructure. There have been points in the past where changes in point releases have required us to make changes to our configs or setup to deal with the RHEL/CentOS's point release changes (even though it's supposed to be rare, it happens, but it's mostly contained to these big testable update sets). CentOS mirrored this exactly, because it mirrored RHEL. Now CentOS is going to do something different, and these updates that would be relegated to point releases look like they are going to come down continuously. While not as problematic as something like Fedora, this is still something that groups specifically chose CentOS to avoid. It's nice that Red Hat is offering something to allow people to get fixes and features sooner than at point release times, but to switch CentOS to only providing that is extremely problematic to the very large community that expects otherwise, supported CentOS, and has done both since prior to Red Hat hiring some of the main CentOS developers and effectively controlling the project, and is notably different than what CentOS has always traditionally attempted to provide.

lutorm 6y ago

It seems that if you do that, you will not get any updates, including security updates?

StillBored 6y ago
Yah, it sounds that way. Rolling forward to the head is required to get the most recent security updates. Which isn't that far away from how centos works today. With rhel you get security updates for the point releases (8.1,8.2,etc) for a while after the new point release comes out. With centos, the day that the newer version drops, they don't tend to roll security updates into the older ones.
- teilo 6y ago
  These are not frozen releases. They are parallel streams that each get their own CVE updates from the corresponding RHEL release.
teilo 6y ago
Not true. Q4: How will CVEs be handled in CentOS Stream? A: Security issues will be updated in CentOS Stream after they are solved in the current RHEL release. Obviously, embargoed security releases can not be publicly released until after the embargo is lifted. While there will not be any SLA for timing, Red Hat Engineers will be building and testing other packages against these releases. If they do not roll in the updates, the other software they build could be impacted and therefore need to be redone. There is therefore a vested interest for them to get these updates in so as not to impact their other builds and there should be no issues getting security updates.

Thaxll 6y ago

Absolutly not, it's going to be the Fedora version of RHEL. Pretty clear: "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." Of course no one want to run CentOS Stream because it's going to be broken / unstable, completely the opposite of what CentOS is.

nemetroid 6y ago
Fedora is the Fedora version of RHEL. Are you saying that CentOS Stream is going to be directly equivalent to Fedora?
- unethical_ban 6y ago
  That's what it sounds. Maybe Fedora/CentOS/RHEL :: Dev/Test/Prod
- bonzini 6y ago
  Fedora is (up to) years ahead of RHEL, and periodically forked. CentOS stream is up to a few months ahead of RHEL, and developed from the same Fedora fork that RHEL is.
  - dralley 6y ago
    RHEL isn't strictly a fork of Fedora, it's usually a hybrid of two Fedora versions with some custom work on top.

_-david-_ 6y ago

It used to be Fedora -> RHEL -> CentOS with the addition of CentOS stream it was becoming Fedora -> CentOS Stream -> RHEL -> CentOS now what it is Fedora -> CentOS Stream -> RHEL