CentOS
CentOS (/ˈsɛntɒs/, from Community Enterprise Operating System; also known as CentOS Linux) 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). In January 2014, CentOS announced the official joining with Red Hat while staying independent from RHEL, under a new CentOS governing board.
GNOME Shell as the default desktop environment in CentOS 8.3 | |
| Developer | The CentOS Project (affiliated with Red Hat) |
|---|---|
| OS family | Linux (Unix-like) |
| Working state | Discontinued |
| Source model | Open source |
| Initial release | 14 May 2004 |
| Final release | |
| Marketing target | Servers, desktop computers, workstations, supercomputers |
| Update method | Release Candidate |
| Package manager | dnf (command line); PackageKit (graphical); .rpm (binaries format) |
| Platforms | x86-64, ARM64, and ppc64le |
| Kernel type | Monolithic (Linux kernel) |
| Default user interface | Bash, GNOME Shell |
| License | GNU GPL and other licenses |
| Succeeded by | CentOS Stream, AlmaLinux, Rocky Linux |
| Official website | centos |
The first CentOS release in May 2004, numbered as CentOS version 2, was forked from RHEL version 2.1AS. 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. CentOS 8 was released on 24 September 2019.
In December 2020, Red Hat unilaterally terminated CentOS development in favor of CentOS Stream, a distribution positioned upstream of RHEL. In response, one of the CentOS founders (Gregory Kurtzer) created the Rocky Linux project as a successor to the original mission of CentOS. In March 2021, Cloud Linux (makers of CloudLinux OS) released a new RHEL derivative called AlmaLinux.