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CentOS Linux 6.8 Released (softpedia.com)
An anonymous reader writes: CentOS team is pleased to announce the immediate availability of CentOS Linux 6.8 and install media for i386 and x86_64 Architectures. Release Notes for 6.8 are available here. Softpedia writes: "CentOS Linux 6.8 arrives today with major changes, among which we can mention the latest Linux 2.6.32 kernel release from upstream with support for storing up to 300TB of data on XFS filesystems. The VPN endpoint solution implemented in the NetworkManager network connection manager utility is now provided on the libreswan library instead of the Openswan IPsec implementation used in previous release of the OS, and it looks like the SSLv2 protocol has been disabled by default for the SSSD (System Security Services Daemon), which also comes with support for smart cards now." In addition, the new release comes with updated applications, including the LibreOffice 4.3.7 office suite and Squid 3.4 caching and forwarding web proxy, many of which are supporting the Transport Layer Security (TLS) 1.2 protocol, including Git, YUM, Postfix, OpenLDAP, stunnel, and vsftpd. The dmidecode open-source tool now supports SMBIOS 3.0.0, you can now pull kickstart files from HTTPS (Secure HTTP) sources, the NTDp (Network Time Protocol daemon) package has an alternative solution as chrony, SSLv3 has been disabled by default, and there's improved support for Hyper-V.
2.6.32 differs so much from modern kernels that trying to cherry-pick fixes leads to anything but stability. I wouldn't touch such a kernel with a 0.015 furlong pole.
The creatures outside looked from Alt-Right to Antifa; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
I guess you haven't seen the amount of patches atop RH's kernels. They backport loads of features which were never coded with ancient kernels in mind. These backports are not tested by anyone but RH's internal kernel guys -- as opposed to a large community testing mainstream kernels.
No one says you should run 4.6 in production yet, let's have it season for a bit. But running kernels without mainstream maintenance is not wise. I'd understand them if they cherry-picked just security and bug fixes -- but they pick lots of random crap.
The creatures outside looked from Alt-Right to Antifa; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
CentOS/RedHat major releases have a 10-year life span. Debian is 5 years for LTS and Ubuntu is 4 years. For my uses that is a significant difference.
Red Hat guarantees the API and ABI compatibility of their kernels for years
why:
https://access.redhat.com/articles/rhel-abi-compatibility
They've been doing it for a decade - and are more trusted than any other Linux OS
https://www.redhat.com/en/about/trusted
I think they've got this covered
There are plenty of things not certified to run on CentOS7/RHEL7.
Also, at the risk of massive flamage - systemd.
Two very good reasons to keep on upgrading CentOS6.
I had to install it this morning by typing ''yum update'', it told me that it was going to install 855 MB and prompted me ''Is this ok [y/N]'' -- notice a default answer of no.
This is yet more evidence that RedHat/CentOS is behind the time and not following recent industry practice of bamboozling their users into installing the latest version of the OS whether they want to or not. Should I downgrade to Microsoft Windows so that I can become as exasperated as some of my friends ?