Using Centos Long term

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john2018
Posts: 43
Joined: 2018/02/17 19:09:47

Using Centos Long term

Post by john2018 » 2018/02/17 19:39:27

Hi

I use centos 6 as my browsing desktop and a server and am now considering moving all my
business equipment to a Linux distro away from windows. (Win10 was the final
nail in the spyware coffin here)

I noticed that the closure date between centos 4 and centos 5 was just 4 years
(or have I miss-understood?)
I would expect the life of an OS to be at least 10 years and an enterprise one
significantly longer.

Are there any specific age related commitments either to centos or red-hat
as this would make things a bit more comfortable.

Also there is a lot of new tech being released on motherboards these
days - is the support for that well funded at red-hat to provide fairly
quick implementations and centos feed through do you know?

I ask because some of my applications (PCB design for instance) benefit
greatly from the newer technologies coming through (faster buses - SSD on board
USB 3.1 GPU's etc.) and I'm about to upgrade some hardware too.
(Intel also have a new fast bus apparently)

I know this may be a bit vague to respond to but I'd welcome some
feedback even if its just at "gut feeling" level if its from a centos developer. (Or other insider)

Also an idea of life left in Centos 7 would be good.

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TrevorH
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Joined: 2009/09/24 10:40:56
Location: Brighton, UK

Re: Using Centos Long term

Post by TrevorH » 2018/02/18 00:13:09

Up until CentOS 5 the distro was supported for 7 years but during the lifetime of el5, Redhat announced that both it and CentOS 6 would be supported for 10 years from the release date. That also applies to CentOS 7. So CentOS 6 expires in 2020 and CentOS 7 in 2024, 10 years after the release of each of them. However, for about the last 3 years of the distro, only critical security vulnerabilities are fixed (unless there's a big paying customer who leans on RH!).

https://access.redhat.com/support/policy/updates/errata is for RHEL but since CentOS is built from the source released by RH we inherit that. CentOS does not have the extended support periods available to RHEL users (you can pay for an EUS/AUS subscription and still get fixes for RHEL5 for example).
The future appears to be RHEL or Debian. I think I'm going Debian.
Info for USB installs on http://wiki.centos.org/HowTos/InstallFromUSBkey
CentOS 5 and 6 are deadest, do not use them.
Use the FAQ Luke

john2018
Posts: 43
Joined: 2018/02/17 19:09:47

Re: Using Centos Long term

Post by john2018 » 2018/02/18 18:38:11

Thank you Trevor.

That makes the path much clearer for me.
It looks like it will pay me to upgrade everything to Centos 7
(My hardware investment will be a bit painful but I'm buying for long term.)
I expect there's quite a few changes from V6 -

I think I'll do browser first - then remote server then office kit.
The browser is an easy backup/restore but the remote server could
be a problem - its a self managed remote VPS - I guess I'll need to pay the provider
for some hand holding/rebooting perhaps - fortunately uptime wont be critical.

I found what little comment I can find for the upgrade but if you - or anyone
knows of any big changes/issues I'd welcome a heads up before starting.
I don't want the office kit online one second longer than it has to be so if there
are links to downloads that may not be obvious - or means of offline upgrading
I'd appreciate any info.

thanks again

PS - perhaps an irritating question sorry but I should ask - do we have an ETA for Centos 8 yet?

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