5 ms·

SUSE Offers Lifeline to Stranded CentOS Users with Liberty Linux Lite

61 points by CrankyBear 2y ago

tchbnl 2y ago
Ignoring that I've never heard of this site, this "news" article is just a straight up ad. Might as well find a direct link from SUSE at this point.
- e12e 2y ago
  Yes: https://www.suse.com/news/New-suse-liberty-linux-lite/ https://www.suse.com/news/New-suse-liberty-linux-lite/
pyuser583 2y ago
Is there a decent history on what happened to CentOS? It’s kind of scary how such an important and mainstream distro evaporated.
- NewJazz 2y ago
  It's still around, but the whole point of the distro has shifted. The history section of CentOS's Wikipedia article gets into it pretty well I think.
- LeFantome 2y ago
  CentOS went from being a “bug for bug” clone of RHEL to being upstream of RHEL ( the place RHEL gets branched from ). That means you can no longer use CentOS as a 100% clone of RHEL that allows you to avoid paying for RHEL if what you need is exactly RHEL. CentOS Stream is still available and still does everything RHEL does ( more really since the software will be newer ) but no longer guarantees bug-for-bug compatibility with RHEL. So it is a real alternative if you just want the functionality but not an option if what you really require is guaranteed compatibility. SUSE is offering a 100% bug-for-bug RHEL compatible distro along with commercial support. It costs $25 per server with a $2500 minimum spend.
donmcronald 2y ago
> $25 per server/instance per year Yes! > with a minimum $2,500 investment required Noooo! Why does it always seem like the tech industry hates small businesses?
- neverartful 2y ago
  Big corporations have a ton of dead weight that they have to pay for somehow.
- pkaye 2y ago
  Maybe someone can clone this repo and give it to everyone else for free since it's open source software?
- yayr 2y ago
  if you want a free version of the Suse stack there is leap https://get.opensuse.org/leap https://get.opensuse.org/leap I think for personal use or very small businesses that should be good enough. It is also quite straightforward to switch between leap and SLES and back if you decide to switch your support setup.
  - brnt 2y ago
    Leap is a dead end though.
    - atiedebee 2y ago
      How so? 15.6 was just released
      - brnt 2y ago
        It was released after community pushback on 15.5 being the last. Then they are now calling something Leap 16, but it hasnt much tot do with Leap: https://www.theregister.com/2024/01/17/opensuse_confirms_leap_16/ https://www.theregister.com/2024/01/17/opensuse_confirms_lea...
junaru 2y ago
Whats so special about Centos 7? Just migrate to Almalinux and elevate up to 9 [1]. The only big difference that comes to mind is openssl3. [1] https://wiki.almalinux.org/elevate/ELevating-CentOS7-to-AlmaLinux-9.html https://wiki.almalinux.org/elevate/ELevating-CentOS7-to-Alma...
- NewJazz 2y ago
  I think it's the last release you can cling to old ifcfg scripts or whatever they are called. But yeah. Just update your shit.
- LeFantome 2y ago
  The whole point is wanting to shift the support burden to the distro provider. They have to maintain a consistent environment while also upgrading the security and hardware compatibility. That gives you those advantages without having to update your application. I agree that people should be moving on from CentOS 7 by now and also agree that Alma is a great target. Alma is shooting for binary compatibility with RHEL without just blindly recompiling the RHEL sources. They start with CentOS Stream just like RHEL does.
- creshal 2y ago
  A lot of businesses are stuck with old systems they can't "just" update to a new OS version because everyone who knew why the system exists and what weird quirks it has, has long left the company. Alma 9 comes with ABI-incompatible upgrades to postgres/java/mysql/libc/literally every library you could possibly depend on, which is rough on in-house software that nobody wants to fund ongoing maintenance for. It just tends to hit RHEL/CentOS harder than other distros because they're considered "enterprise" and thus get used more by the sort of dysfunctional companies who manage themselves into dead ends.

61 points by CrankyBear 2y ago

Ignoring that I've never heard of this site, this "news" article is just a straight up ad. Might as well find a direct link from SUSE at this point.

e12e 2y ago
Yes: https://www.suse.com/news/New-suse-liberty-linux-lite/ https://www.suse.com/news/New-suse-liberty-linux-lite/

pyuser583 2y ago

Is there a decent history on what happened to CentOS? It’s kind of scary how such an important and mainstream distro evaporated.

NewJazz 2y ago
It's still around, but the whole point of the distro has shifted. The history section of CentOS's Wikipedia article gets into it pretty well I think.
LeFantome 2y ago
CentOS went from being a “bug for bug” clone of RHEL to being upstream of RHEL ( the place RHEL gets branched from ). That means you can no longer use CentOS as a 100% clone of RHEL that allows you to avoid paying for RHEL if what you need is exactly RHEL. CentOS Stream is still available and still does everything RHEL does ( more really since the software will be newer ) but no longer guarantees bug-for-bug compatibility with RHEL. So it is a real alternative if you just want the functionality but not an option if what you really require is guaranteed compatibility. SUSE is offering a 100% bug-for-bug RHEL compatible distro along with commercial support. It costs $25 per server with a $2500 minimum spend.

donmcronald 2y ago

> $25 per server/instance per year Yes! > with a minimum $2,500 investment required Noooo! Why does it always seem like the tech industry hates small businesses?

neverartful 2y ago
Big corporations have a ton of dead weight that they have to pay for somehow.
pkaye 2y ago
Maybe someone can clone this repo and give it to everyone else for free since it's open source software?
yayr 2y ago
if you want a free version of the Suse stack there is leap https://get.opensuse.org/leap https://get.opensuse.org/leap I think for personal use or very small businesses that should be good enough. It is also quite straightforward to switch between leap and SLES and back if you decide to switch your support setup.
- brnt 2y ago
  Leap is a dead end though.
  - atiedebee 2y ago
    How so? 15.6 was just released
    - brnt 2y ago
      It was released after community pushback on 15.5 being the last. Then they are now calling something Leap 16, but it hasnt much tot do with Leap: https://www.theregister.com/2024/01/17/opensuse_confirms_leap_16/ https://www.theregister.com/2024/01/17/opensuse_confirms_lea...

junaru 2y ago

Whats so special about Centos 7? Just migrate to Almalinux and elevate up to 9 [1]. The only big difference that comes to mind is openssl3. [1] https://wiki.almalinux.org/elevate/ELevating-CentOS7-to-AlmaLinux-9.html https://wiki.almalinux.org/elevate/ELevating-CentOS7-to-Alma...

NewJazz 2y ago
I think it's the last release you can cling to old ifcfg scripts or whatever they are called. But yeah. Just update your shit.
LeFantome 2y ago
The whole point is wanting to shift the support burden to the distro provider. They have to maintain a consistent environment while also upgrading the security and hardware compatibility. That gives you those advantages without having to update your application. I agree that people should be moving on from CentOS 7 by now and also agree that Alma is a great target. Alma is shooting for binary compatibility with RHEL without just blindly recompiling the RHEL sources. They start with CentOS Stream just like RHEL does.
creshal 2y ago
A lot of businesses are stuck with old systems they can't "just" update to a new OS version because everyone who knew why the system exists and what weird quirks it has, has long left the company. Alma 9 comes with ABI-incompatible upgrades to postgres/java/mysql/libc/literally every library you could possibly depend on, which is rough on in-house software that nobody wants to fund ongoing maintenance for. It just tends to hit RHEL/CentOS harder than other distros because they're considered "enterprise" and thus get used more by the sort of dysfunctional companies who manage themselves into dead ends.