CentOS Hyperscale is CentOS targetted towards enabling CentOS Stream deployment on large-scale infrastructures and facilitating collaboration on packages and tooling. It is being built by a group of engineers from Facebook, Twitter, and other hyperscalers, by making optional changes to CentOS Stream to better suit the Linux distribution to their internal needs.

CentOS Hyperscale packages can be accessed by installing the package centos-release-hyperscale through the usual dnf command.

sudo dnf install centos-release-hyperscale

This release package will pull in epel-release, as EPEL is a prerequisite for Hyperscale. It is also recommended to enable PowerTools (which is itself a prerequisite for EPEL).

sudo dnf config-manager --set-enabled powertools

A minimal container image based on the Hyperscale SIG repos and packages is available on Quay.io and can be used via Docker or Podman.

CentOS Stream 8

podman run -a stdin,stdout,stderr -t quay.io/centoshyperscale/centos:stream8

CentOS Stream 9

podman run -a stdin,stdout,stderr -t quay.io/centoshyperscale/centos:stream9

CentOS Hyperscale Kernel

The CentOS Hyperscale Kernel is currently maintained in the CentOS experimental repository. This kernel is based on the CentOS Stream 9 kernel and tries to follow it as closely as possible, while enabling additional features such as btrfs and Kernel Live Patching. In turn, the CentOS Stream 9 kernel is based on the upstream RHEL 9 kernel sources, which is where the RHEL 9 kernel is developed and maintained. The Hyperscale kernel is built for both CentOS Stream 8 and CentOS Stream 9 from the same sources

CentOS Hyperscale Container Images

The Hyperscale containers for both CentOS Stream 8 and CentOS Stream 9 are publicly hosted at Quay.

You can now confidently continue to use CentOS 7 till June 2028! CentOS 7 security updates end in June 2024. TuxCare, an innovator in enterprise-grade cybersecurity for Linux, has announced that they’ll be offering an Extended Lifecycle Support for CentOS 7 until June 2028.

TuxCare said, “An Unsupported Operating System is a Ticking Time Bomb. Organizations often need to use Linux distributions or languages after the manufacturer ends security support – but cybercriminals continue to look for and exploit vulnerabilities after these products reach end of life (EOL). With TuxCare’s Extended Lifecycle Support, you can continue to use these systems for up to 4 years past the end-of-life date while we provide you with automated vulnerability patches that don’t require reboots or downtime.“

TuxCare already offer ELS for CentOS 6, CentOS 8, Ubuntu 16.04 and Oracle Linux 6.

Extended Lifecycle Support services provide updated security patches for:

• The Linux kernel
• Common shared libraries like glibc, openssh, openssl, and zlib. httpd, mysql, php.
• Userspace packages.
• Other packages, including: acl, acpid, at, attr, audit, authconfig, basesystem, bash, bc, blktrace, bridge-utils, busybox, bzip2, crash, cyrus-imapd, cyrus-sasl, db4-utils, device-mapper, dhclient, dhcpv6, dmidecode, dos2unix, dovecot, ed, gcc, gd, gdb, glib2, groff, info, Iptstate, logrotate, lslk, lvm2, makedev, nfs4-acl-tools, nfs-utils, nspr, ntp, opensp, pam, perl, procmail, procps, python, rcs, rds-tools, rhnlib, rsync, rsyslog, setroubleshoot, setserial, setup, sos, stunnel, tzdata, vim, wget, yum-metadata-parser, yum-rhn-plugin

CentOS Stream is as popular a laptop/desktop Operating System as much as it is a Server based one. And when it comes to working on your personal machine, you’d always love to work on a GUI instead of on terminal. CentOS Stream itself comes with multiple GUIs including KDE & GNOME.

In this article, lets learn how to setup KDE also known as K Desktop Environment on CentOS Stream.

First, update your system to have all the latest packages, so we don’t have any conflicts come up…

sudo dnf upgrade --refresh -y

Next, if not already done, install the EPEL (Extra Packages for Enterprise Linux) repository which provides a set of additional packages for CentOS Stream

sudo dnf install \
    https://dl.fedoraproject.org/pub/epel/epel-release-latest-9.noarch.rpm \
    https://dl.fedoraproject.org/pub/epel/epel-next-release-latest-9.noarch.rpm

Now go ahead and install the latest version of KDE, which is KDE Plasma at the time we are writing this post and reboot your machine

sudo dnf groupinstall "KDE Plasma Workspaces" -y
sudo reboot

Once you restart your machine, you’ll return to the login screen. Here in the bottom right corner, you’ll be able to choose the desktop environment you’d login to. Now go ahead and login and start using the new KDE desktop environment and share your comments!

OKD Streams, the Community Distribution of Kubernetes that powersRed Hat OpenShift, has launched a fully open source release pipeline that the community can participate in, to help support and manage the release cycle ourselves. The OKD Community is now able to build and release stable builds of OKD 4.12 on CentOS Stream CoreOS which hereon we are calling OKD Streams.

An OKD Stream refers to a build, test, and release pipeline for any configuration of OKD, the open source kubernetes distribution that powers OpenShift. It is the first of many OKD Streams that will enable developers inside and outside of Red Hat to easily experiment with and explore Cloud Native technologies.

The new OKD Streams are built using Tekton pipelines, which makes it easier to explore building many different kinds of pipelines. Tekton is a Continuous Deployment (CD) system that enables admins to run tasks and pipelines in a composable and flexible manner. This new pipeline approach enables builds that can be customized via parameters, even the tasks within the pipeline can be exchanged or moved around. Add your own tasks. They are reusable templates for creating your own testable stream of OKD. Run the pipelines on any infrastructure, including locally in Kubernetes using podman, for example, or you can run them on a vanilla Kubernetes cluster.

For more information you can use the resources below…

OKD.io

CoreOS Installer

CentOS has announced that CentOS 9 Stream Appliances will soon be available via KIWI on the CentOS-Infra repository.

What is KIWI?

KIWI is one of the most popular command line utility to build Linux system appliances. KIWI had recently phased out its legacy code and has now come up with KIWI NG (Next Generation) with the release of v9.x, which is now stable and ready to be used for live projects.

KIWI NG can create images in ISO, PXE as well as Vagrant formats.

What is a CentOS 9 Stream Appliance?

An Appliance is a ready to use image of any Operating System (CentOS 9 Stream in this case) which can be used in any Workstation environment, Cloud, Vagrant or any other type of containers.

The need for Appliances of any Operating System arises due to the additional needs of Cloud or Containerised environments, where one would need API access between the Cloud or Container managers, including RedHat’s own OpenShift Container Orchestrator and the OS for being able to manage the workflow of the Operating System right from the management consoles.

The work for the first stable release of the CentOS 9 Stream Appliance is in progress and one can checkout the same on the CentOS Community Build Service Staging Repository.

Where are the legacy CentOS Appliances?

The legacy CentOS Appliances can still be accessed at the CentOS Virtualization Appliances repository.

CentOS has released its new visual brand identity with the launch of its brand new logo.

After the formation of CentOS Stream, multiple Special Interest Groups (SIGs) were formed, with each group taking on a particular responsibility. One such group is the CentOS Artwork SIG. The CentOS Artwork SIG uses the CentOS Brand to connect all the visual manifestations the CentOS Project is made of and, this way, it provides visual recognition among similar projects available on the Internet.

This was the culmination of the Design Contest that CentOS had, running 2021 through 2022. The main theme of the contest was Improving CentOS Symbol Contrast, Size and Meaning.

Read more about the new CentOS Brand.

AWS has recently announced the public preview of its next version of Amazon Linux. Amazon linux 3, codenamed AL2022, brings in improvements in design, security, stability and performance over its predecessor Amazon Linux 2.

Starting with AL2022, Amazon will launch a major version of its Amazon Linux every two years and each version will be supported for five years, with quarterly updates via minor releases and use the latest software for their applications. Starting, Amazon Linux 3, they have finally introduced the ability to lock to a specific version of the Amazon Linux package repository giving customers control over how and when they absorb updates.

Amazon Linux is a Linux distribution targetted and optimized for use in the Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) environment of Amazon Web Services. It uses the same Yum repository for updates using the RPM files like the Fedora, CentOS and Redhat family of Linux.

While earlier versions of Amazon Linux, 1 and 2 were built upon CentOS, since the movement of CentOS also to the upstream of Redhat development with CentOS Stream, now, both CentOS Stream 9 and Amazon Linux use Fedora Project as their upstream, with CentOS stream also becoming the upstream for the eventual major build of Redhat.

While Amazon Linux 3 is still to offer support for ARM processors, CentOS 9 Stream has support across the processor variates including x86_64, aarch64 and ppc64le.

As a final note, we can just add that both, Amazon Linux 3 as well as CentOS 9 Stream have the stable and well tested Linux Enterprise Kernel, are both free and targetted towards Enterprises and Server side installs. While Amazon Linux 3 is well suited for EC2 instances, similar to CentOS 9 Stream, you can download Amazon Linux 3 on your local machines using VirtualBox or VMWare.

Download Amazon Linux 3 for VMWare

Download Amazon Linux 3 for VirtualBox

Download CentOS 9 Stream for VMWare

Download CentOS 9 Stream for VirtualBox

To start with RedHat is most known for its association with RedHat Enterprise Linux and is the primary sponsor of Fedora Project and CentOS Stream along with many other open source projects. Redhat Inc. was acquired by IBM in 2019 and is now operated as an independent subsidiary of IBM.

Why would the same company want to maintain 3 Linux operating systems?

To start with, all the 3 of these Linux distributions use the RPM (Redhat Package Manager) packages. Most of the packages can be used interchangebly amongst these Linux distributions. So in order to understand the basic difference between them, we need to first understand the difference between a community distribution (commonly called as distro) and an enterprise distribution.

Community vs enterprise distro

Linux as we all know is a free and open source operating system. Which means anybody who understands it well enough can develop features into a distro and add it to the repository for it to become a part of the upcoming release. This ensures that you always have the bleeding edge features in community based distro. However, it does come with a drawback, that the new features may not have been tested well, so an updated would be soon on its way. This causes stability issues from an enterprise perspective. Enterprises prefer to have fixed periodic update cycles with a long term support (LTS). This is where comes the enterprise Linux distro. Enterprise Linux distros are tested with wider audience, features are stabilised and only then are added to the final release.

Fedora release cycle

Fedora Linux falls under the category of community Linux distro. They have a release cycle of around 6 months with the support for the current version being valid till a month after the release of the next version.

CentOS Stream release cycle

CentOS release cycle matches with that of Redhat releases. The major version number matches that of the major release of Redhat, while the minor version number being the actual release update. Starting with CentOS Stream, it is now an upstream Linux distro to Redhat.

Redhat release cycle

Redhat is a commercial enterprise linux distro with fixed release and support cycles. Red Hat releases a new point version of a particular series every year and a major version after approximately 5 years. It offers 10-year life cycle support so you can better support long-term apps.

Upstream vs Downstream distro

The development and release cycle of a Linux distro can be compared also whether it is upstream to Redhat or downstream to Redhat.

The bleeding edge upstream is Fedora. Fedora matures into CentOS stream. CentOS Stream is a “continuously delivered distro that tracks just ahead of Red Hat Enterprise Linux development, positioned as a midstream between Fedora and Redhat distros. With CentOS only recently moving to upstream releases to Redhat, it will be worth keeping a watch on how often do the releases happen in CentOS Stream.

Since in upstream, CentOS Stream lies between Fedora and Redhat, it is expected to have releases more often than Redhat, however lesser often as compared to Fedora. CentOS Stream 9 releases will give a better picture towards this.

And then there are downstream distros which were launched after Redhat announced the change in the stance of CentOS from the earlier downstream distro to upstream, from its CentOS Stream. These distros are Rocky Linux (by the founder of CentOS Project) and Alma Linux (from the house of CloudLinux). They are also gaining wide spread popularity, as they track close to Red Hat Enterprise Linux, are as stable as Red Hat Enterprise Linux and are free to use.

You can read more about whether to opt for CentOS Stream, Rocky Linux or AlmaLinux before making up your mind for your next installation.

Back in 2019, Redhat had announced that they will be changing their sponsorship for CentOS Linux distribution from December 2021. CentOS Stream would be an upstream development platform designed for CentOS community members.

Rocky Linux

Rocky Linux is a community enterprise operating system led by Gregory Kurtzer, founder of the CentOS project after RedHat decided to switch to CentOS Stream. One reason it is also called the unofficial successor to the CentOS Project.

Rocky Linux continues to keep the original charm of CentOS to be the stable downstream build of Redhat. It is taken as a drop-in replacement of CentOS being a 100% bug-for-bug fork.

What does Rocky Linux mean to the CentOS users?

It means that you can continue to expect the same stable Enterprise Linux build that one would be used to while using CentOS, on Rocky Linux as well, since it continues to be the downstream build of Redhat. It means that Rocky Linux will continue to follow the RedHat release cycle and release after a stable release of Redhat.

AlmaLinux

AlmaLinux, like Rocky Linux, is also a community enterprise operating system led by CloudLinux. CloudLinux has been in the Linux distribution, by the same name, offers a commercial linux distribution targeted towards the web hosting industry.

When Redhat announced the change in the sponsorship of the CentOS Project from being downstream to upstream CentOS Stream project, AlmaLinux was the first one to come up with a replacement for CentOS.

What does AlmaLinux mean to the CentOS users?

AlmaLinux is also a drop-in replacement for CentOS and unlike its parent company’s CloudLinux, it will continue to remain a free and open source Linux distribution.

Final Thoughts

The choice of whether you would go for CentOS Stream or Rocky Linux or AlmaLinux depends on what is your use case?

If you love having bleading edge features of a new enterprise operating system, which still have been tested more than a Fedora Linux and don’t mind getting operating system updates more often. Then CentOS Stream would be a good choice.

If you rather have a stable, well tested operating system with specific timelines of the releases/updates, then Rocky Linux or AlmaLinux should be the way to go.

Amongst Rocky Linux or AlmaLinux, as of today, there truely is hardly any difference, while not ruling out how far they end up differing as the time passes and newer releases of enterprise linux get released.

Both come with the backings of past experience. While Rockly Linux is from the very people who founded and led the CentOS Project, AlmaLinux is from the company who was able to see the features that were missing in the whole of Redhat, Fedora, CentOS environment, specifically from the web hosting industry stand point and actually build them up as part of their CloudLinux commercial offering.

To understand what is kmod and why do we need it, we first need to understand what is an OS (Operating System) and what is a Kernel.

What is an OS?

OS or Operating System as the name goes, is a system which on one side interacts with other softwares and services installed on the system in order to give you, the user, the information/output that you have requested and on the other side, interacts with the GUI (Graphical User Interface), which is taking inputs from the end user as well as delivering output for the end user, in a human understandable format.

What is a Kernel?

Kernel is the heart of an OS. It is the one which bridges the software to the hardware. It is the central component which coordinates the functionality between an application and the hardware. It decides the priority of the application, which application should be executed by GPU and which by the CPU, which data should sit on the RAM and which should sit on the disk.

So what is kmod?

A simple definition is, it is the library which helps the applications control the kernel modules.

Let’s explain this better…

A machine can consist of different type of hardware. Some may have CPU, some GPU, some both. Some may have a HDD, some SDD, some NVMe some a combination of them. Some may be connected to the network, some connected to the printer, some others might be connected to both, while some others may not be connected to either.

Now as we have read earlier, it is the Kernel that manages the coordination between the software and the hardware. However, every machine doesn’t have every hardware, nor does every software need all the hardwares. So the libraries for each hardware (also known as drivers) are modularised in a kernel so that not all the modules need to be loaded and unnecessarily bloat the machine. kmod helps the applications load only the necessary kernel modules while the machine is running.

How to install centos-release-kmods?

Using dnf

sudo dnf -y install centos-release-kmods

Using yum

sudo yum -y install centos-release-kmods