CentOS Linux’s future is CentOS Stream – yes, you have heard it correctly. This is the exact announcement from Rich Brown, community manager of CentOS.
In 2021, CentOS will be shifting focus from CentOS Linux to CentOS Stream, a midstream between Fedora and RHEL. This announcement garnered a lot of negative reactions in the comments section and all over social media and blogs.
Along with this, the support for CentOS 8 will end at the end of 2021, cut short from the actual end date – 31st May 2029. This end of support forces users to switch to CentOS stream as early as possible.
If you plan to upgrade from CentOS 7 to CentOS 8, you can skip or avoid upgrading to CentOS 8 as CentOS 7 will get support until 2024.
Though you may like it or not, we have to migrate our systems from CentOS 8 to CentOS stream one day. So, follow the below procedure to migrate from CentOS 8 to CentOS stream without any struggle.
Update CentOS 8 (Optional)
Bring up your system to the latest release of CentOS 8 (v8.3.2011) and then proceed to upgrade.
dnf update -y
Reboot the system to complete the update.
reboot
Check the OS version post-reboot.
cat /etc/centos-release
Output:
CentOS Linux release 8.3.2011
Convert from CentOS 8 to CentOS Stream
Install the CentOS Stream release package on your system. This package places the CentOS Stream repository configuration in the /etc/yum.repos.d directory.
dnf install centos-release-stream -y
Output:
CentOS-8 - AppStream 1.4 MB/s | 6.2 MB 00:04
CentOS-8 - Base 489 kB/s | 2.3 MB 00:04
CentOS-8 - Extras 2.4 kB/s | 8.1 kB 00:03
CentOS-8 - PowerTools 616 kB/s | 2.0 MB 00:03
Google Cloud SDK 5.0 MB/s | 23 MB 00:04
Google Compute Engine 2.3 kB/s | 7.4 kB 00:03
Dependencies resolved.
===================================================================================================================
Package Arch Version Repository Size
===================================================================================================================
Installing:
centos-release-stream x86_64 8.1-1.1911.0.7.el8 extras 11 k
Installing dependencies:
centos-gpg-keys noarch 1:8-2.el8 BaseOS 12 k
centos-linux-release noarch 8.3-1.2011.el8 BaseOS 22 k
replacing centos-release.x86_64 8.0-0.1905.0.9.el8
centos-linux-repos noarch 8-2.el8 BaseOS 20 k
Transaction Summary
===================================================================================================================
Install 4 Packages
Total download size: 64 k
Downloading Packages:
(1/4): centos-gpg-keys-8-2.el8.noarch.rpm 11 kB/s | 12 kB 00:01
(2/4): centos-linux-repos-8-2.el8.noarch.rpm 18 kB/s | 20 kB 00:01
(3/4): centos-linux-release-8.3-1.2011.el8.noarch.rpm 20 kB/s | 22 kB 00:01
(4/4): centos-release-stream-8.1-1.1911.0.7.el8.x86_64.rpm 139 kB/s | 11 kB 00:00
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Total 27 kB/s | 64 kB 00:02
Running transaction check
Transaction check succeeded.
Running transaction test
Transaction test succeeded.
Running transaction
Preparing : 1/1
Running scriptlet: centos-gpg-keys-1:8-2.el8.noarch 1/1
Installing : centos-gpg-keys-1:8-2.el8.noarch 1/5
Installing : centos-linux-release-8.3-1.2011.el8.noarch 2/5
Installing : centos-linux-repos-8-2.el8.noarch 3/5
Installing : centos-release-stream-8.1-1.1911.0.7.el8.x86_64 4/5
Obsoleting : centos-release-8.0-0.1905.0.9.el8.x86_64 5/5
warning: /etc/yum.repos.d/CentOS-PowerTools.repo saved as /etc/yum.repos.d/CentOS-PowerTools.repo.rpmsave
Running scriptlet: centos-release-8.0-0.1905.0.9.el8.x86_64 5/5
Verifying : centos-gpg-keys-1:8-2.el8.noarch 1/5
Verifying : centos-linux-release-8.3-1.2011.el8.noarch 2/5
Verifying : centos-release-8.0-0.1905.0.9.el8.x86_64 3/5
Verifying : centos-linux-repos-8-2.el8.noarch 4/5
Verifying : centos-release-stream-8.1-1.1911.0.7.el8.x86_64 5/5
Installed:
centos-release-stream-8.1-1.1911.0.7.el8.x86_64 centos-gpg-keys-1:8-2.el8.noarch
centos-linux-release-8.3-1.2011.el8.noarch centos-linux-repos-8-2.el8.noarch
Complete!
Run the below command remove the CentOS 8 repository configurations from the /etc/yum.repos.d directory.
dnf swap centos-{linux,stream}-repos -y
Output:
Dependencies resolved.
===================================================================================================================
Package Arch Version Repository Size
===================================================================================================================
Installing:
centos-stream-release noarch 8.4-1.el8 Stream-BaseOS 21 k
replacing centos-linux-release.noarch 8.3-1.2011.el8
replacing centos-release-stream.x86_64 8.1-1.1911.0.7.el8
centos-stream-repos noarch 8-2.el8 Stream-BaseOS 19 k
Removing:
centos-linux-repos noarch 8-2.el8 @BaseOS 26 k
Transaction Summary
===================================================================================================================
Install 2 Packages
Remove 1 Package
Total download size: 40 k
Downloading Packages:
(1/2): centos-stream-release-8.4-1.el8.noarch.rpm 18 kB/s | 21 kB 00:01
(2/2): centos-stream-repos-8-2.el8.noarch.rpm 16 kB/s | 19 kB 00:01
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Total 18 kB/s | 40 kB 00:02
Running transaction check
Transaction check succeeded.
Running transaction test
Transaction test succeeded.
Running transaction
Preparing : 1/1
Running scriptlet: centos-stream-repos-8-2.el8.noarch 1/1
Installing : centos-stream-repos-8-2.el8.noarch 1/5
Installing : centos-stream-release-8.4-1.el8.noarch 2/5
Obsoleting : centos-release-stream-8.1-1.1911.0.7.el8.x86_64 3/5
Obsoleting : centos-linux-release-8.3-1.2011.el8.noarch 4/5
Erasing : centos-linux-repos-8-2.el8.noarch 5/5
Running scriptlet: centos-linux-repos-8-2.el8.noarch 5/5
Verifying : centos-stream-release-8.4-1.el8.noarch 1/5
Verifying : centos-linux-release-8.3-1.2011.el8.noarch 2/5
Verifying : centos-release-stream-8.1-1.1911.0.7.el8.x86_64 3/5
Verifying : centos-stream-repos-8-2.el8.noarch 4/5
Verifying : centos-linux-repos-8-2.el8.noarch 5/5
Installed:
centos-stream-release-8.4-1.el8.noarch centos-stream-repos-8-2.el8.noarch
Removed:
centos-linux-repos-8-2.el8.noarch
Complete!
Synchronize the installed packages to the latest available versions.
dnf distro-sync -y
This action would take some time to complete, and it depends on the speed of the internet connection. Wait for the update to complete.
Reboot the system post-migration.
reboot
Validate the OS release after reboot.
cat /etc/centos-release
Output:
CentOS Stream release 8
Conclusion
Most of us have not witnessed CentOS Stream in the production environment. So, this announcement may force us to look for other options that can provide a stable release like Rocky Linux, a community-driven, enterprise-ready Linux from the founder of the CentOS project (No ETA for a release) or Oracle Linux.
