Stream 1905 users need to take action after install

If you have used any of the current 1905 CentOS Stream iso images to perform an install then you are currently at risk of missing patches, including those that may fix security vulnerabilities.

A problem has been discovered with the current CentOS Stream 1905 iso images. Under at least some circumstances and possibly all CentOS Stream installs will neglect to install the centos-release-stream package which should provide access to the CentOS Stream specific dnf repositories. The effect of this is that the initial will pick up all the latest Stream packages as they are at install time but these will never have been updated since that install. You are potentially missing patches that are in the 8.0.1905 BaseOS/AppStream/PowerTools/extras repos because your currently installed packages are at a higher version number already.

Fortunately the remedy is easy : dnf install -y centos-release-stream and then dnf update

The problem will be fixed in the upcoming 8.1 when it is released. Only those people who use the 1905 media are affected.

Presenting CentOS Stream

Today, CentOS Stream is available based on CentOS Linux 8 software packages the project has been building over the summer combined with the latest Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 8 development kernel. You can read the release announcement here.

CentOS Stream will be a rolling-release Linux distro that exists as a midstream between the upstream development in Fedora Linux and the downstream development for Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL). It is a cleared-path to contributing into future minor releases of RHEL while interacting with Red Hat and other open source developers. This pairs nicely with the existing contribution path in Fedora for future major releases of RHEL.`

Over the coming months, the CentOS Project and Red Hat Engineering plan to begin updating the packages in CentOS Stream to reflect the in-progress development toward the next minor release of RHEL. This, for the first time, makes the CentOS Project a part of the RHEL platform development cycle.

During this period, and with community support, Red Hat and the CentOS Project will develop the processes necessary to help CentOS Stream evolve rapidly to serve the needs of current and future CentOS distro users and to enable developers in new and interesting ways, all while helping to contribute to the broader platform.

In the past there was no way to contribute to the upstream via the CentOS Project. That changes with CentOS Stream -- you can make stronger, more direct connections to the operating system developers of the Fedora Project, reducing the feedback loop into the distro creation itself. Bringing the diversity of all developer voices to the room when RHEL is being planned and created.

During the introduction and build-out of CentOS Stream, we want to make sure we’re helping CentOS distro users however you need it. Come join the conversation and help us create the future.

Why create CentOS Stream?

With Red Hat’s help, the CentOS Project created a framework for Special Interest Groups (SIGs) to develop and expand in each of their respective technical areas. This approach works well enough, but causes a fairly substantial package churn for everyone around the time a new minor version is released. With CentOS Linux as a strict downstream from RHEL, each minor point release brings large upgrades to multiple areas of the distribution, often resulting in weeks of delays and compatibility problems for the SIGs as they rebuild against the updated packages, having had little-to-no visibility of the change delta. CentOS Stream will help address these issues.

First, it eliminates the need for mass rebuilds of the distribution and SIG contents. Because the updates change from a mass batch-style to a stream of developmental packages as they happen, the updates are more frequent, but less world-altering in that packages will change a few at a time, rather than the 600-700 packages that update all at once.

Second, because this is a path to deliver patches and changes to the RHEL development packages, the community will have a chance to weigh in on features and fixes by submitting pull requests, adding comments, and participating in discussions about use cases before the features land in RHEL. This change will give the community a way to test and contribute to the RHEL process in a way that wasn’t previously available.

Last, and especially useful across the open source development ecosystem, this new method will provide layered projects built atop CentOS Stream, such as Ansible, oVirt, and RDO, and the SIGs that shepherd that work, a way to publicly develop against what’s coming in RHEL, rather than scrambling to catch up, or waiting months for a platform they can use in various public CI infrastructures.

Install Media

For initial release a DVD ISO is available.

Various installation images will eventually be available for installing CentOS Stream. Which image you need to download depends on your installation environment. All of these images can either be burned on a DVD or dd’ed to an USB memory stick.

If you are unsure which image to use, pick the DVD image. It allows selecting which components you want to install and contains all packages that can be selected from the GUI installer.

Verifying Downloaded Installation Images

Before copying the image to your preferred installation media you should check the sha256sum of the downloaded installation images.

# CentOS-Stream-x86_64-boot.iso: 558891008 bytes SHA256 (CentOS-Stream-x86_64-boot.iso) = e38192400212796085b7996f21828aa8f8a72d44b64059572eb8c725e13be4cc # CentOS-Stream-x86_64-dvd1.iso: 8572108800 bytes SHA256 (CentOS-Stream-x86_64-dvd1.iso) = 559715017959f5967d2b9876bd27f46d8a740e1d02f59dfb8fd5e7114dd5cc79 # CentOS-Stream-aarch64-boot.iso: 518795264 bytes SHA256 (CentOS-Stream-aarch64-boot.iso) = eadb6a5cff9441088a8c5a203b4e1568ebd4689be3d08ba523c528760200f142 # CentOS-Stream-aarch64-dvd1.iso: 6340927488 bytes SHA256 (CentOS-Stream-aarch64-dvd1.iso) = d0c1367c42b528ce6735a211c7a6134d4278622362e1dace8c955511f150d3d7 # CentOS-Stream-ppc64le-boot.iso: 565954560 bytes SHA256 (CentOS-Stream-ppc64le-boot.iso) = 2690f6073c2341cc6f8a703b9fdaae2a4e3654fddb036a095ef75d87d2c96cc7 # CentOS-Stream-ppc64le-dvd1.iso: 7637168128 bytes SHA256 (CentOS-Stream-ppc64le-dvd1.iso) = c2fe4cbb239a06fadd0d0ae81b57fa2e5f3cf4ceb2fa582f80a74ca734a982b0

Differences in CentOS Stream from CentOS Linux 8.0.1905

This section of the release notes will soon detail where to see the packages as they are being moved forward to be based on the RHEL minor development tree.

Until then, this section will document key changes between the two distros to begin marking how CentOS Stream is pulling forward of CentOS Linux.

Kernel -- kernel-4.18.0-144.el8

The Linux kernel is the first part of CentOS Stream to move ahead of the upcoming RHEL point release.

Check back here for updates about that kernel as people begin using it.

Update as of Oct 2019: kernel has been updated to 4.18.0-147.6.el8. Update as of Mar 2020: kernel has been updated to 4.18.0-187.el8.

All other release notes

For any packages or systems not discussed in these release notes, refer to the CentOS Linux 8 release notes as primary.

How to help and get help

As a CentOS user there are various ways you can help out with the CentOS community. Take a look at our Contribute page for further information on how to get involved.

Participate in CentOS Stream

Interested in participating in the development of RHEL through CentOS Stream?

Join open source developers in discussing CentOS Stream on the centos-devel mailing list.

Special Interest Groups

CentOS consists of different Special Interest Groups (SIGs) that bring together people with similar interests. The following SIGs already exist (among others):

Artwork - create and improve artwork for CentOS releases and promotion

Promotion - help promoting CentOS online or at events

Cloud - work on the leading-edge of open source cloud technologies

Virtualization - unite people around virtualization in CentOS

And we encourage people to join any of these SIGs or start up a new SIG, e.g.

ARM, PPC and i386 port - help with porting CentOS to other architectures

Hardware compatibility - provide feedback about specific hardware

RPM Packaging - contribute new useful RPM packages

Translation - help translating the documentation, website and Wiki content

Mailing Lists and Forums

Another way you can help others in the community is by actively helping and resolving problems that users come up against in the mailing lists and the forums.

Wiki and Website

Even as an inexperienced CentOS user we can use your help. Because we like to know what problems you encountered, if you had problems finding specific information, how you would improve documentation so it becomes more accessible. This kind of feedback is as valuable to others as it would have been to you so your involvement is required to make CentOS better.

So if you want to help out and improve our documentation and Wiki, register on the Wiki or subscribe to the centos-docs mailing list.

IRC Presence

The CentOS Project maintains a presence on the freenode IRC network as an additional venue for community support and interaction. Please see our IRC wiki article for more information.

Thanks

We thank everyone involved for helping us produce this product and would like to specifically acknowledge the extra effort made by the QA Team. Without them working lots and lots of hours in evenings, nights, weekends and holidays, we couldn't have released this Release in the time we did. A special thanks also goes to the CentOS-community. A more complete list of the contributors to this release can be found at /usr/share/doc/centos-release/Contributors of your new installation.