From the official website of CentOS , we can see that there are currently two Linux variants of CentOS, namely CentOS Linux and CentOS Stream.
Let's first understand the relationship between Red Hat, CentOS Linux, CentOS Stream and Fedora.
1) Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is a commercial Linux distribution developed by IBM's Red Hat, which provides server and desktop versions; 2) CentOS
Linux is a downstream community project of RHEL (open source and free), which can also be simple The understanding is that CentOS Linux is a cloned version of RHEL. Generally, CentOS is released a few months after RHEL is released;
3) Before the appearance of CentOS Stream, Fedora was an upstream community project of RHEL, which means that new features or The update first appears in Fedora, and then all or part of these new features or updates will appear in the next version of RHEL. It can also be simply understood that Fedora is the development version of RHEL; 4) In September 2019, Red Hat announced
CentOS Stream. It is a midstream project between the upstream project Fedora and the downstream project RHEL, which can be understood as a RHEL development environment.
Here are two pictures to illustrate the relationship:
Before CentOS Stream appeared:
After CentOS Stream appeared:
CentOS Stream is the upstream public development branch of RHEL, designed for CentOS community members, Red Hat partners, ecosystem developers, and many other groups to learn about the next release of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) faster and easier , and help shape these features.
CentOS Stream provides a clear way for the wider community to contribute to RHEL releases. When Fedora was the only upstream project for RHEL, most developers were limited to contributing to the next major release of RHEL. With CentOS Stream, all developers can contribute new features and bug fixes to minor RHEL releases.
On December 8, 2020, Red Hat announced the following timeline for CentOS Linux and CentOS Stream:
- There will be no CentOS Linux 9 in the future;
- CentOS Linux 8 distribution updates will continue until December 31, 2021;
- CentOS Linux 7 distribution updates will continue until June 30, 2024;
- The CentOS Linux 6 distribution has been updated as of November 30, 2020;
- The CentOS Stream 8 distribution will continue to be updated during the RHEL support phase (EOL: May 31, 2024);
- The CentOS Stream 9 distribution is released in Q2 2021 as part of the RHEL 9 development process (EOL: Estimated 2027, depending on the EOL of RHEL 9's support phase)
Reference:
Comparing CentOS Stream and CentOS Linux
FAQ: CentOS Stream Updates
Relationship between CentOS, CentOS Stream, RedHat, and Fedora