CentOS

This article is about the discontinued operating system. For the similarly-named but more upstream-focused distribution, see CentOS Stream. For the Polish-Jewish children's-aid society, see CENTOS (charity).

CentOS
GNOME Shell as the default desktop environment in CentOS 8.3
DeveloperThe CentOS Project
(affiliated with Red Hat)
OS familyLinux (Unix-like)
Working stateDiscontinued
Source modelOpen source
Initial release14 May 2004; 20 years ago (2004-05-14)[1]
Final release
  • 8.5.2111[2] (16 November 2021; 3 years ago (2021-11-16)) [±]
  • 7.9-2009[3] (12 November 2020; 4 years ago (2020-11-12)) [±]
Marketing targetServers, desktop computers, workstations, supercomputers
Update methodRelease Candidate
Package managerdnf (command line); PackageKit (graphical); .rpm (binaries format)
Platformsx86-64, ARM64, and ppc64le[a]
Kernel typeMonolithic (Linux kernel)
Default
user interface		Bash, GNOME Shell[4]
LicenseGNU GPL and other licenses
Succeeded byCentOS Stream, AlmaLinux, Rocky Linux
Official websitecentos.org

CentOS (/ˈsɛntɒs/, from Community Enterprise Operating System; also known as CentOS Linux)[5][6] is a discontinued Linux distribution that provided a free and open-source community-supported computing platform, functionally compatible with its upstream source, Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL).[7][8] In January 2014, CentOS announced the official joining with Red Hat while staying independent from RHEL,[9] under a new CentOS governing board.[10][11]

The first CentOS release in May 2004, numbered as CentOS version 2, was forked from RHEL version 2.1AS.[1] Since version 8, CentOS officially supports the x86-64, ARM64, and POWER8 architectures, and releases up to version 6 also supported the IA-32 architecture. As of December 2015, AltArch releases of CentOS 7 are available for the IA-32 architecture, Power ISA, and for the ARMv7hl and AArch64 variants of the ARM architecture.[12][13] CentOS 8 was released on 24 September 2019.[14]

In December 2020, Red Hat unilaterally terminated CentOS development[15][16][17][18] in favor of CentOS Stream 9, a distribution positioned upstream of RHEL.[19] In March 2021, CloudLinux (makers of CloudLinux OS) released a RHEL derivative called AlmaLinux.[20] Later in May 2021, one of the CentOS founders (Gregory Kurtzer) created the competing Rocky Linux project as a successor to the original mission of CentOS.[21]

  1. ^ a b Cite error: The named reference CentOS2Announcement was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  2. ^ CentOS-announce - Announcing the latest release of CentOS Linux 8 (2111)
  3. ^ CentOS-announce - Release for CentOS Linux 7 (2009) on the x86_64 Architecture
  4. ^ Kibet, John (25 September 2019). "CentOS 8 rolls out - Here are CentOS 8 New features". Computing for Geeks. Retrieved 6 October 2019.
  5. ^ "Community Profile–CentOS Project | Open Source Community". community.redhat.com. Retrieved 10 September 2019.
  6. ^ "CentOS Forums - Index page". centos.org. Retrieved 10 September 2019.
  7. ^ "Frequently Asked Questions about CentOS in general: 1. What is CentOS Linux?". centos.org. 12 October 2014. Archived from the original on 12 September 2019. Retrieved 2 November 2014.
  8. ^ "Red hat + CentOS". Red Hat. Retrieved 15 April 2014.
  9. ^ Karanbir Singh (7 January 2014). "CentOS Project joins forces with Red Hat". centos.org. Retrieved 8 January 2014.
  10. ^ "CentOS Governance". centos.org. 2014. Retrieved 8 January 2014.
  11. ^ Karanbir Singh (9 December 2014). "Karanbir Singh: CentOS Linux: A Continuously integrating platform". Archived from the original on 7 November 2021. Retrieved 4 June 2016 – via YouTube.
  12. ^ Singh, Karanbir (19 December 2015). "[CentOS-announce] Release for CentOS AltArch 7 (1511)". Retrieved 24 December 2015.
  13. ^ Perrin, Jim (4 August 2015). "[CentOS-announce] Release for CentOS 7 on AArch64". Retrieved 1 November 2015.
  14. ^ Cite error: The named reference CentOS 8.0-1905 and Streams Release Announcement was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  15. ^ "The killing of CentOS Linux: 'The CentOS board doesn't get to decide what Red Hat engineering teams do'". The Register. 26 January 2021. Retrieved 8 March 2021.
  16. ^ "CentOS Linux is dead—and Red Hat says Stream is "not a replacement"". 10 December 2020.
  17. ^ "Where do I go now that CentOS Linux is gone? Check our list". 11 December 2020.
  18. ^ "Why Red Hat killed CentOS—a CentOS board member speaks". 26 January 2021.
  19. ^ Vaughan-Nichols, Steven J. "CentOS Linux 8 is about to die. What do you do next?". ZDNet. Retrieved 22 December 2021.
  20. ^ Vinogradov, Alexander. "Announcing Open-sourced & Community-Driven RHEL Fork by CloudLinux". cloudlinux.com. Retrieved 28 January 2021.
  21. ^ Anderson, Tim (10 December 2020). "Rocky Linux is go: CentOS founder's new project aims to be 100% compatible with Red Hat Enterprise Linux". The Register. Retrieved 12 December 2020.


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