
CentOS 7 potential release - lpinca
http://seven.centos.org/2014/07/seeding-for-potential-release/
======
ck2
Even this article title says "POTENTIAL" release. I am not even sure it is
signed?

They are still doing QA, it will be a week or two before GA

Before you rush to 7.0 after 6.5 - things you are going to have to learn
because they change everything:

    
    
       systemd replaces init.d
       grub2 replaces grub
       xfs is now default over ext4 filesystem
    

( _many, many people dislike systemd, it is somewhat anti-linux in nature_ )

No more easy editing/understanding grub.conf

No more easy to edit/understand /etc/init.d (systemctl instead)

No more text log files for system log (journalctl instead)

Watch out for default XFS filesystem instead of EXT4 because it is slower in
real world use for databases, etc.

Red Hat claims RHEL7 is 11-25% faster than RHEL6, I am not convinced at all, I
think they are referencing a stock setup for 6 vs 7, but I don't know anyone
that runs things stock without tuning. Wait for independent benchmarks.

CentOS 6.x will be supported until 2020

If you want a 3.x kernel for CentOS 6.x, try the ELrepo repository, they do
builds for both mainline and longterm 3.x kernel releases.
[http://elrepo.org/tiki/kernel-lt](http://elrepo.org/tiki/kernel-lt)

If you want newest GCC for CentOS 6.x try the CERN repo for devtoolset
[http://linux.web.cern.ch/linux/devtoolset/](http://linux.web.cern.ch/linux/devtoolset/)

ps. there is currently no way to upgrade a 6.x install "in place" to 7.x,
though Red Hat has migration tool and CentOS folks say they will look at doing
the same - but like I said, don't be in a rush to early adopt 7.x

pps. RHEL7 notes are a way to explore what else is new:
[https://access.redhat.com/documentation/en-
US/Red_Hat_Enterp...](https://access.redhat.com/documentation/en-
US/Red_Hat_Enterprise_Linux/7/)

~~~
nodata
_No more easy editing /understanding grub.conf_

True, the grub2 config is horrible.

 _No more easy to understand /etc/init.d_

It's a bit more complicated, but not too bad:

Instead of "/etc/init.d/thing restart" you type "systemctl restart thing"

Instead of chkconfig --list, you type "systemctl list-dependencies"

Writing the equivalent script with systemd is much cleaner with less hacks,
particularly for launching as different users and doing locking.

 _No more text log files for system log (journalctl instead)_

By default. It's fine once you get the hang of the new syntax:

journalctl --since=today --follow

 _Watch out for default XFS filesystem instead of EXT4 because it is slower in
real world use for databases, etc._

Depends on the workload. Speed is only one part of it. For some benchmarks by
phoronix see
[http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=linux_315...](http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=linux_315_hddfs&num=1)

~~~
ck2
I'll wait for more benchmarks to be certain but this database test of the 3.10
kernel (which 7 uses) of XFS vs EXT4 is not promising:

[http://openbenchmarking.org/prospect/1305166-UT-
FILESYSTE20/...](http://openbenchmarking.org/prospect/1305166-UT-
FILESYSTE20/fd501a41a2adcc643acc832de94444f9fd7d9678)

~~~
jerven
A 160 GB disk is not a real comparison for enterprises. XFS really starts to
perform better on disks 1Tb as well as 8 cores and above. EXT4 really starts
to creak when moving to filesystems that are 16TB and above. Something that is
going to be common in the 7 years that Cent-OS 7 is around.

Of course with the amount of backports of patches that any RedHat kernel has
the comparison to mainline version numbers is almost useless :(

For my workload the performance difference is 15% better for XFS than EXT4 on
the same 3Tb of SSD with the same workload.

------
nodata
Site seems down, but an aggregator has a mirror (see the second entry):
[http://planet.centos.org/](http://planet.centos.org/)

\----

copy/paste if that goes down too:

hi,

At this point we have a set of images that we consider release grade, pending
final testing, we will move to release these unless a major blocker is
reported.

folks with bandwidth to spare are encouraged to help seed these images via
torrents, here are the urls to hit:

[http://mirror.centos.org/centos/7/isos/x86_64/CentOS-7.0-140...](http://mirror.centos.org/centos/7/isos/x86_64/CentOS-7.0-1406-x86_64-DVD.torrent)

[http://mirror.centos.org/centos/7/isos/x86_64/CentOS-7.0-140...](http://mirror.centos.org/centos/7/isos/x86_64/CentOS-7.0-1406-x86_64-GnomeLive.torrent)

[http://mirror.centos.org/centos/7/isos/x86_64/CentOS-7.0-140...](http://mirror.centos.org/centos/7/isos/x86_64/CentOS-7.0-1406-x86_64-KdeLive.torrent)

[http://mirror.centos.org/centos/7/isos/x86_64/CentOS-7.0-140...](http://mirror.centos.org/centos/7/isos/x86_64/CentOS-7.0-1406-x86_64-livecd.torrent)

[http://mirror.centos.org/centos/7/isos/x86_64/CentOS-7.0-140...](http://mirror.centos.org/centos/7/isos/x86_64/CentOS-7.0-1406-x86_64-NetInstall.torrent)

[http://mirror.centos.org/centos/7/isos/x86_64/CentOS-7.0-140...](http://mirror.centos.org/centos/7/isos/x86_64/CentOS-7.0-1406-x86_64-Everything.torrent)

\- KB

~~~
AlexMax
It's quite sad, in my opinion, that this is halfway down the page while yet
another beating of the dead horse that is the systemd flam^H^H^H^H discussion
is the most visible comment thread. Thank you for posting this.

------
peterwwillis
If I were a large enterprise I'd reconsider CentOS. RedHat's lack of a
commitment to the customer's experience in favor of RH's personal design
preferences smacks of Oracle-ism. Anything they develop they immediately force
on their users, and you have to just accept it rather than use it optionally.
It's less easy to get away from those kind of changes versus something more
open like ubuntu/debian (and I have no love for debian). And then there's the
whole secret kernel patches and backported "features"... Then again i'm a
dirty hippie who prefers Slackware, so maybe i'm too Linux-libertarian for
today's enterprises.

~~~
SEJeff
Care to elaborate?

Systemd has a few nice features that I (as a systems admin of thousands of
servers) really like such as:

    
    
        - simple "init script" like upstart, so magical or crappy shell scripts from vendors are a thing of the past. A standardized unit file
    
        - Ulimit support natively as part of the format
    
        - Limiting via memory/disk/cpu cgroups to contain buggy apps (hello mysql!)
    
        - Process restarting so tools like supervisord, monit, runit, etc are no longer necessary
    
        - It can _always_ stop an errant daemon as it uses control groups to do so, sysv init was sometimes buggy in this regard
    
        - Private /tmp (via filesystem namespaces), limiting system calls a service can run, tcp wrappers, read only parts of the filesystem (like /etc) are all trivial to add to any legacy service such as bind or sendmail and a supported part of the systemd unit file definition.
    

RHEL/CentOS 7 also include some super nice things like the new abrtd for
centrally reporting any application coredump/kernel issue, pacemaker/crm for
high availability clusters, and just a lot newer linux userspace. (yay for du
-hsc | sort -h | tail)

As an _actual_ user who uses RHEL/Debian/etc on bare metal at scale, I really
see nothing but awesome in RHEL7. It is just like I see awesome in Fedora 20
or in the latest Ubuntu/Debian. The Linux ecosystem has massively grown. Now
we have a serious engineering company putting a lot of resources into
supporting a new operating system. I'd love to see some of the technical
reasons you have the opinion you do.

~~~
peterwwillis
I'm not going to turn this thread into a debate over the merits of individual
contributions to CentOS. All i'm saying is whatever RH develops gets shoved
into their distro with seemingly no regard to the customer. It's not just that
they're adding new tools, they're also forcing you to use them.

The nice thing to do for your customers is to make new technology _optional_ ,
and provide alternatives for people who have 10+ year old infrastructure that
they don't want to spend 2 years upgrading because it's now full of legacy
systems. But RH not only shoves anything they want down your throat, half the
time they're not transparent about the changes taking place, and you just have
to hope nothing breaks your apps (kernel as an example, but userland package
changes are similar).

~~~
SEJeff
RHEL6 is supported until 2020[1]

[1]
[https://access.redhat.com/support/policy/updates/errata/](https://access.redhat.com/support/policy/updates/errata/)

------
facorreia
Looks like a release candidate.

> At this point we have a set of images that we consider release grade,
> pending final testing, we will move to release these unless a major blocker
> is reported.

~~~
leog7
the site is not loading what's new besides upgrades?

~~~
facorreia
That page was just a list of links to download the images for testing.

------
netcraft
looking forward to trying systemd, hope it isn't too much of a learning curve.

Looking at: [http://tecadmin.net/red-hat-enterprise-
linux-7/#](http://tecadmin.net/red-hat-enterprise-linux-7/#) \- will HAProxy
come with centos 7?

~~~
SEJeff
It honestly isn't. The documentation is really good if you know how to use
google.

~~~
pling
Until its your network gatewayb appliance that is down and then you're
fucked...

NEVER rely on Google for documentation or GNU info as that's probably not
installed on your server.

This sort of scenario is where *BSD win every time.

~~~
SEJeff
The man pages are also available for every systemd app.

~~~
pling
Ok my bad there. Last time I looked there were no manpages.

~~~
SEJeff
No worries, upvoted. Knowlege ++

------
Mojah
A few mirrors already have the full version, so if the site is offline, you
can - for instance - grab one from a Belgian hoster;
[http://centos.mirror.nucleus.be/7/](http://centos.mirror.nucleus.be/7/)

------
atoponce
I guess the server is getting slammed, as I cannot get to the main page.

------
infocollector
Where is the ARM version? Anyone knows?

------
lpinca
Title updated.

