CentOS - Jan 2021 - CentOS Stream suitability as a production webserver

> On Jan 5, 2021, at 6:22 PM, Gordon Messmer <gordon.messmer at
gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> On 1/5/21 3:39 PM, Valeri Galtsev wrote:
>> And as someone mentioned, these other distributions have long great
record of system upgrade from one release to another. CentOS has no record (and
probably no upgrade engineered yet). In that respect CentOS Stream is way
behind...
> 
I do not like ?creative editing? that changes what I said, this is the only
reason I reply. Here is my original full phrase:

And as someone mentioned, these other distributions have long great record of
system upgrade from one release to another. CentOS has no record (and probably
no upgrade engineered yet). In that respect CentOS Stream is way behind Debian
(and clones) LTS.
> 
> In that respect, CentOS Stream is identical to CentOS.
> 
I was not comparing CentOS Stream with CentOS (former 10 year life cycle
system), I was comparing CentOS Stream with Debian (and clones) LTS. And my
comparison was about the fact that Debian (and clones) LTS have proven known to
work through several releases easy way to in place upgrade from one release
version to next one (for that matter FreeBSD is the same and too has since
forever known trouble free way to in place upgrade to next major release
version).

CentOS never had in place upgrade, and I for one would insist it will be
improper to expect that. CentOS Stream, that didn?t go through even a single in
place major release upgrade, can not sport having that, and only after two such
upgrades happen trouble free for the whole community of CentOS Stream users,
only then CentOS Stream will be on the same level with Debian and clones. This
is regular simple truth of life: if you want, psychology is such that only after
this NEW, DIFFERENT, system: CentOS Stream, goes through a couple of releases,
with easy in place upgrades, only then the trust of common folk like humble
sysadmin (meaning here myself), who does not consider oneself any sort of expert
is operating systems, only then the trust will be of the same level as trust
currently is to Debian (LTS or regular, and clones), or to FreeBSD, as far as
easy in place upgrade to next release is concerned.

I know, CentOS team are great bright people, so knowing that and writing what I
had to write above gives me extra pain. But that is the reality, and how users
will value CentOS Stream couple of release cycles down the road when compared to
Debian LTS, we will see. After long good record of trouble free upgrading (and
other things that may rightfully or wrongfully trouble people now) there may be
another factor, like huge collection of software Debian has in their repository,
which may put some weight after all other comparison factors become equal.
CentOS did beat all (excluding commercial MS Windows) by 10 year life cycle. Now
that that is gone, CentOS (with Stream in name) stopped being unique, and people
will mention huge choice of software collections in Debian and clones,
comparably huge macports for MacOS (sorry about mentioning commercial system)
and same huge FreeBSD port collection.
> 
>> Not to mention other potentially problematic areas as no package
version rollback, compatibility (potential) with EPEL
> 
> 
> CentOS Stream will be compatible with EPEL to the same extent that new
point releases are compatible with EPEL.
> 
I understand that your hard work will insure it WILL be compatible, trouble free
etc. But the same psychology factor is why I mentioned that. Trust will come
only a couple of releases down the road.

We are sure CentOS team will keep doing great job on this absolutely different
system CentOS Stream is, and if this new system couple of release down the road
will be in similar demand as Debian (and clones) will be, - we will see. As I
perceive it now, Debian (and clones), all other factors equal, will have much
larger collection of packages that they have in their repositories as additional
comparison factor.



And once again:

Huge thanks to brilliant hard working CentOS team for all you gave us during
last couple of decades.

Valeri

- CentOS user for almost decade and a half, who moved servers (but only servers)
to FreeBSD about 8 years ago.
> The vast majority of interfaces in RHEL (and Stream) are guaranteed stable
within a major release, and only a small number of interfaces that aren't. 
It's possible that one of the latter interfaces might change, in which case
you'd expect yum to not update the dependency until EPEL's packages have
been rebuilt:
> 
> https://access.redhat.com/articles/rhel-abi-compatibility#Appendix
> 
> 
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On 1/5/21 6:30 PM, Valeri Galtsev wrote:
> I was not comparing CentOS Stream with CentOS (former 10 year life cycle
system), I was comparing CentOS Stream with Debian (and clones) LTS.

The original message came from a CentOS user who asked "is the change a 
non-issue for my use-case?"

So, I'd have to ask you how Debian is relevant to that question.

As I said, in terms of upgrade from one major version to another, CentOS 
Stream and CentOS are identical.? If CentOS was suitable, then the 
change to CentOS Stream is a non-issue in the context of major version 
upgrades, because the change to CentOS Stream has no material impact on 
that concern.

The question being asked is not "what operating system should I use",
to
which discussion of Debian or FreeBSD might be relevant, it's "will the
change to CentOS Stream impact my current processes?"? Comparisons to 
Debian or FreeBSD are non-sequiturs in the context of this conversation.