The time has finally arrived! We have had to patiently wait for the release of CentOS 8 while others have been enjoying Red Hat’s Enterprise Linux 8.
There are a great number of hosting companies, data centers, and businesses whose Linux specialists rely on CentOS for the day-today tasks the must carry out. According to Datanyze, CentOS holds 15.65% of the market, behind only Ubuntu, with 26.7%. CentOS’s popularity is due to the fact that it is almost identical to Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL). It has all of the RHEL business server advantages that Linux has yet without the associated expense.
If you are completely confident with Linux, there is no issue. That being said, if you aren’t ready to take the responsibility for mistakes, or you prefer to feel reassured that you have sufficient support, RHEL might be the better option for you.
What Are The Benefits Of CentOS 8?
In the first place, Cent=S is built on the 4.18 Linux kernel. This might not be the latest Linux kernel. But like RHEL, CentOS is predominately about providing stability for production systems. Fedora is a great example of Linux distros with wonderful new shiny kernels.
The foundations of the Yum package manager have also had a massive makeover. It’s now based in the DNK, known to some as Dandifies yum. The command-line interface is still the same, as is the API for sysadmin and DevOps integration. The main difference is its speed.
Git 2.18, Mercurial 4.8 and Subversion 1.10 are version control systems offered by CentOS.
Python implemented in now Python 3.6, although this isn’t installed automatically. There is an extremely limited amount of support for Python 2.7. You will also be able to use languages like Node.js 10.1, PHP 7.2, Ruby 2.5, Per 5.26, and SWIG 3.0. The GCC compiler is based n 8.2 and supports the latest C++ standard version. Expect better optimization, new code hardening techniques, and improved warnings, along with new hardware support.
If you are looking for a state-of-the-art developer platform, it’s worth looking at the new rolling release – CentOS Stream. It came out in October and not only has it got the most amazing features, but it is also updated several times a day. It goes without saying that CentOS isn’t suitable for production server systems.
By using CentOS, you will have access to the highly liked database servers including:
- MariaDB10.3
- MySQL 8.0
- PostgreSQL 9.6
- Redis 5
- Apache HTTP Server 2.4
- nginx 1.14
You might be wondering what about Docker, and why wouldn’t Red Hat include it. Fear not, Red Hat has substituted Docker for buidah and podman; its own container tools, which are compatible with existing Docker images.
The default GNOME Shell interface was updated to 3.28 if you are using CentOS ass a desktop. Below this, the default display server is Wayland. If you are loyal to the rather ancient X.Org server, you will still be able to use this as your display server.
The most noticeable change for admin servers is that nftables framework is now iptables and the default backend for firewall daemon uses nftables. You probably won’t see massive changes in your firewall settings but it is worth going over them.
Upgrading to CentOS 8
The source code and the source code RPMS can be found at git.centos.org. If you are already using CentOS, you’ll be able to get the source code with commands: yumdownloader –source <packagename>
If you are looking to upgrade from CentOS7.x, you may come across quite a challenge. So far there is no information on how to carry out an in-place upgrade, however, RHEL supports in-place upgrades.
If you are still running an older version of CentOS be careful. If you have CentOS 6 or any of the previous versions, you will run into trouble trying to upgrade to CentOS 8. There is no rush! You don’t have to upgrade as soon as you finish reading this article. That being said, most companies will start looking at the advantages of CentOS 8 and decide that it is time for an upgrade.
