Hi everyone,

Red Hat went nuclear yesterday and killed centos. Rocky Linux might rise from those ashes but I can't take that risk.
I have old software I need to run and the nice 10y support window with backporting was really nice to my employer.

Ideas for alternative distro will be welcome. I'm looking for stability, Support for old libraries and frameworks and 5y+ support window.

Thanks

Edit:
Currently on my list: Ubuntu server LTS.
No longer on my list:
* Slackware - no clear EOL
* OpenSUSE Leap - 18 month to EOL. Might change with 15.3 at July 2021.
* Oracle Linux - I don't trust them to keep it free.

Oracle Linux is based on RHEL much like CentOS is/was. So should be about the same experience.
https://www.oracle.com/linux/

There is the possibility that Scientific Linux will be resurrected. IIRC the main reason it was stopped was because it was basically duplicating the work being done with CentOS.

See for example https://listserv.fnal.gov/scripts/wa...E;11d6001.1904

1 members found this post helpful.

I visited the CentOS website and it says that CentOS is shifting over the next year to something called "CentOS Stream," which, as near as I can tell, will be sort of a RHEL testing. An excerpt:

My web site runs on a CentOS VPS provided by my hosting provider, and I know of other hosting providers who rely heavily on CentOS. I wonder how this will affect their businesses and their customers.

My understanding is that CentOS Stream will be to RHEL what Debian Testing is to Debian Stable roughly speaking. As such it will not really be anything like what CentOS is today. So after CentOS7 EOL people will need to use something else. The people who are really up the creek are those that had already committed to using CentOS8.

That's my understanding too. We've stopped the plans to upgrade to centos 8 and 8.3.

Oracle probably uses centos. No reason for duplicate job there. Also Oracle only provides latest versions of packages on their free tier. So Oracle is not on my list.
Currently I'll check Ubuntu Server LTS, OpenSUSE Leap and maybe Slackware. More distros will be welcome.

There's a thread in the CentOS forum about the change:
https://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/centos-111/centos-project-shifts-focus-to-centos-stream-4175686578

I don't consider them duplicates, since this is discussing alternatives whilst that is discussing the action, but posting the link so people interested can check both.

Here's a Distrowatch search for active server-oriented distros based on RHEL with Fixed LTS releases.

At time of posting CentOS is the only result.

Relaxing the LTS requirement brings up some others, but none that instill any feeling of trust.
Relaxing the active status requirement instead brings up discontinued Fermi Linux and dormant Scientific Linux.

A resurrection of Scientific Linux might be nice, but so far I only see expressions of hope from users - nothing from past/potential maintainers?

Another possible alternative would be Springdale Linux, formerly known as PUIAS. If and when they fully roll out the 8.3 version, that is.

Debian stable has some sort of (limited) LTS support.

Debian has a manpower problem. Therefore it's hard to trust them with production servers.
Springdale seems like a one man show. Am I wrong?

I'm not sure I consider it a possible alternative.

1. It took them a year to rename from PooeyAss.
2. Its website is Trac.
3. Its mailing list appears to be a private Google Group... hrm, ok it lets you view the list if you "join" with a dummy email address

Here's the link to their discussion: https://groups.google.com/g/springda.../c/Wv1Y23Ky1-I
(If it doesn't work go here first http://springdale.math.ias.edu/wiki/MailingList and "join" with anything@mailinator.com - no need to check the inbox)


That thread includes mention of Rocky Linux - a new project started by someone who claims to be a CentOS founding member (but another message on the above thread seems to dispute that).
Anyway, there's a bunch of others involved, so might be worth keeping an eye on.

Cannot say much about Springdale, beyond that it's being developed at two locations, Princeton University and the Institute for Advanced Study, so it should be at least a two-man show.

But if Debian has a manpower problem then Ubuntu might have it even more. Canonical fully supports only a small fraction of Debian packages in their main and restricted repositories leaving the bulk from the universe repository supported on a best-efforts basis. I personally would trust Debian more than Ubuntu, update-policy-wise.

What Debian lacks is money needed to be certified by big hardware and software vendors. So if you use some enterprise-class software it may be tested and certified for Ubuntu, but almost certainly not for Debian. This was mostly non-issue for CentOS because the latter was nearly identical to RHEL, so almost anything that ran on RHEL would have run on CentOS equally well. But Ubuntu differs from Debian in more substantial ways.

I know about rocky. I'll help them if I can. But I can't gamble on their vision only.
Springdale doesn't offer community support. I've sent it to Rocky Linux team. They might be able to use it as a reference.

The Institute for Advanced Study is part of Princeton. They've some other universities that also use it.

Debian and Ubuntu: I thought that Ubuntu is just testing some of debian packages and adds them to their own repos. Unless I'm wrong?

Sure, but if you're still on CentOS 7 there's enough time to see if/how the Rocky team prove themselves when 8 is EOLed.


Use what as a reference? If Rocky consists of CentOS contributors, one would hope they already know RHEL well enough without needing to refer to Springdale. :/



?!?

They are different.