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CentOS Linux 6.8 Released (softpedia.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the major-changes dept.

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.

14 of 91 comments (clear)

  1. Re:2.6 by Midnight_Falcon · · Score: 4, Informative

    Considering CentOS 7.x has been out for well over a year...this is just an extending support for the old CentOS 6 line.

  2. Re:2.6 by bobthesungeek76036 · · Score: 2

    They're just following RHEL which announced 6.8 on 5/10...

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  3. Re:2.6.32 kernel? by KiloByte · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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.

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  4. Modernism and Stability by hcs_$reboot · · Score: 2

    CentOS/RedHat motto has always been "stability and security". Nowadays however , I don't think there is much difference with Debian, for instance, in terms of stability/security. Furthermore, for those using the desktop release, RH and CentOS are really behind (eg compared to Ubuntu) in terms of ergonomics, utilities and other applications.

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    1. Re:Modernism and Stability by SkankinMonkey · · Score: 2

      To be fair, they stay behind and backport security fixes for compatibility reasons - mainly enterprise apps that want to ensure they are not going to introduce any breaking changes while staying secure. Their customer isn't the day to day user that wants the latest and greatest.

    2. Re:Modernism and Stability by Phiz · · Score: 5, Interesting

      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.

  5. ignorant idiots on slashdot by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.

    rhel kernels are the most heavily tested kernels available, really you would trust a new kernel with your company's data?

    1. Re:ignorant idiots on slashdot by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

      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

  6. You contradict yourself by raymorris · · Score: 2

    "CentOS 6 is really behind" means that it does not have a bunch of significant recent changes. Which is the definition of stable.

    Has CentOS 6 kept up with recent changes? If so, it's not "really behind". If not, it's stable. Pick one.

    I would say they've done as advertised, they kept it pretty stable. That happens to be what I want right now. If I wanted cutting-edge, I might use Fedora.

    1. Re:You contradict yourself by hcs_$reboot · · Score: 2

      Was said "for those using the desktop release". Desktop wise, there is a huge difference between modern Ubuntu like releases and CentOS. Even Ubuntu 14.04 (2 years old) is way ahead re ergonomics, utilities and other applications. You can keep CentOS or RH, but at least show a bit of fairness.

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    2. Re:You contradict yourself by Antique+Geekmeister · · Score: 2

      > Has CentOS 6 kept up with recent changes?

      CentOS doesn't generally "keep up with changes". They follow changes from RHEL, with a few exceptions like their Xen virtualization project.

      RHEL is kept very standard, with consistent major libraries, kernels, and software versions. They do occasionally publish add-on toolkits, such as additional and upgraded versions of python or gcc in parallel with the main default version. And they are doing some interesting things with the "software collecion" libraries, to provide updated MySQL and python toolkits compatible with older operating systems. But it can be very tricky to publish two major releases of the same softwae in parallel, and RHEL has been careful to keep them separate.

  7. Again, hasn't been changed == remained stable by raymorris · · Score: 3, Insightful

    > there is a huge difference between modern Ubuntu like releases and CentOS. Even Ubuntu 14.04 (2 years old) is way ahead

    I don't necesarily disagree. Let's assume that's right, that Ubuntu has had a lot of updates (changes) and CentOS hasn't. That's what you said, right?

    Of course all that new stuff has new APIs and especially new ABIs. The APIs and ABIs of RHEL 6 haven't changed for six years, so it doesn't have all the new shinies. What do you call it when something doesn't change a lot over time, when it pretty much remains the same? For APIs and ABIs, we call that "stable".

    Notice the word is neither "good" nor "bad", it's "stable", aka unchanging, remaining the same, reliable.

    > but at least show a bit of fairness.

    I can't think of anything more fair than stating a plain, objective fact. RHEL doesn't change the interfaces. They are stable. Love it or hate it, it's a fact. What would be UNFAIR would be to lie and say RHEL doesn't provide a stable environment. That's simply untrue as a factual matter, for the sense of the word "stable" that matters for software maintainence.

  8. Re:2.6 by dbIII · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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.

  9. Where is the auto install pop up ? by Alain+Williams · · Score: 2, Interesting

    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 ?