The Great OS Replacement: How to Find the Best Linux Distribution
The Great OS Replacement: How to Find the Best Linux Distribution
Choosing the optimal Linux distribution requires research and forethought. Not because Linux is difficult. Rather than that, the Linux operating system provides an almost infinite number of distributions that address both general computing needs and specific requirements for enterprise, small and medium-sized businesses, and personal use.
However, for enterprise and business users, one popular choice has fallen out of favor as CentOS 8 approaches its end-of-life as a supported platform. However, as is customary with Linux infrastructure, adequate replacements are available.
The CentOS community is refocusing its efforts on the Stream fork as a replacement for the CentOS sponsors' direction change. One major point of contention among CentOS users is that the CentOS community's rolling releases may not meet the infrastructure or organizational needs of the majority of businesses.
A rolling release is a Linux distribution that is regularly updated from top to bottom, as Thilo Huellmann, CEO of Levity AI, explained. Everything, including user-space applications, the kernel, and daemons, is perpetually new.
“This release style eschews traditional upgrades, such as major updates once a year and minor updates every six months or so, in favor of constantly keeping an installed distribution current,” he told LinuxInsider.
The vast majority of Linux distributions employ a non-rolling upgrade cycle. Often, an automated upgrade script will perform all of the necessary new installations for you, including transferring your applications, content, and settings. Those that do not necessitate the user reinstalling new content or restoring backup files.
Choosing the best Linux distribution for your business requires consideration of a number of variables and factors. Investing the time to truly understand each offering, what it can accomplish for your business, and where implementation may cause friction is critical to a successful migration to Linux or a different Linux platform.
More on the CentOS Debacle
If your business is dependent on CentOS 7, Timothy Robinson, CEO of InVPN, noted that you do not need to rush into an upgrade or switch to another distro just yet. Red Hat will continue to sponsor and maintain CentOS 7 for the duration of the Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 (RHEL 7) lifecycle.
RHEL was developed by Red Hat for use in commercial enterprises. CentOS is a non-commercial, community-maintained distribution based on Red Hat Enterprise Linux. The community version is intended to serve as a free testing ground for features that may eventually be included in RHEL.
“With CentOS 8, you're screwed. It will be updated by Red Hat only until the end of 2021. CentOS 8 users had hoped for support until 2029. That will not happen immediately,” Robinson told LinuxInsider.
CentOS Stream is not a replacement for CentOS. That new distribution is not meant to be a replacement for CentOS Linux. According to Red Hat, CentOS Stream is a DevOps-friendly, continuous integration and continuous delivery (CI/CD) Linux.
“That is acceptable if that is what you require. However, CentOS is not the best fit for the majority of businesses,” Robinson cautioned.
They require a rock-solid Linux server to host their websites and LAMP applications. Before making a snap decision, consider how you intend to use CentOS in the future. CentOS Stream may be a better fit for your requirements than you initially believed, he advised.
Dooming Decision, Perhaps
According to Eric McGee, senior network engineer at TRG Datacenters, CentOS's future is bleak if IBM/Red Hat continues to support this new platform. This is not a situation in which a fork will be beneficial.
“Even if someone forks CentOS Stream in order to create a server distro with the same reliability as CentOS 8, they will be unable to add Red Hat Enterprise Linux's distinct flavor,” he told LinuxInsider, describing the decision as a death knell for CentOS.
While that may sound doomsday, McGee explained that CentOS was chosen for two primary reasons. One, it is extremely stable; two, it leverages RHEL.
“Both of which are lost with the installation of CentOS Stream. This decision, I'm assuming, will result in a mass migration of CentOS users to Ubuntu Server. This was a monumental error. Hopefully, IBM/Red Hat will reconsider before CentOS perishes,” he added.
Vetting the Options
Red Hat's announcement that it would shift its focus away from CentOS Linux and toward CentOS Stream comes just ahead of a recent RHEL update. To put it mildly, CentOS users were not pleased, according to Veronica Miller, a cybersecurity expert at VPNoverview.
This means that funding will be available for CentOS 7 until June 30, 2024. Red Hat may offer extended life cycle support for RHEL and CentOS 7, but this has not been decided yet.
“They are appropriate for tying. That is because CentOS has been used by millions of people as a reliable point of distribution for servers, virtual machines, and appliances,” Miller explained to LinuxInsider.
That user list is also not trivial. CentOS Linux is used by some of the world's largest companies, including Disney, GoDaddy, Rackspace, Toyota, and Verizon. Several large technology companies use CentOS to develop products. Among them are GE, Riverbed, F5, Juniper, and Fortinet, she noted.
What would these and other businesses that rely heavily on CentOS do? They intend to investigate alternative Linux distributions.
According to a poll conducted by CloudLinux, 60.5 percent of CentOS users are awaiting the release of a fork. Additionally, according to Miller, 16.7 percent are considering Debian Linux, 12.4 percent are considering Ubuntu, and 10.4 percent are considering openSUSE.
Canonical's Ubuntu distribution is another popular choice among enterprise Linux users — and has a sizable following among non-business Linux users.
In Miller's conversations with Linux executives, Ubuntu is mentioned more than any other Linux distribution. Given that Ubuntu is the most widely used server and cloud operating system, this is unsurprising.
“RHEL and Amazon Linux are two additional distributions that have been frequently mentioned. Additionally, developers, system administrators, and technicians are more likely to advocate for CentOS forks,” she explained.
Thinking Linux Scale
When considering the business case for Linux, Justin Reock, chief evangelist at OpenLogic by Perforce, suggested that you should first consider the size of the business. Is this an enterprise or a highly acquisitive business with a large number of servers and data centers and possibly a multi-cloud solution?
“When it comes to scale, you really need what we call a prize class Linux distribution, and there are actually only a few that are mainstream,” he told LinuxInsider.
Ironically, his preferred Linux distribution in this case is Red Hat Enterprise Linux/CentOS. Enterprises have gravitated toward these products due to what Linux is, he explained.
“Linux is not a singular entity. It's the Linux kernel, followed by a slew of open-source software that is curated by a community and contributes to the overall experience of the operating system, as well as further development,” Reock explained to LinuxInsider.
Ubuntu is encroaching on that territory, he added. However, the company's DNA was not built for scale from the start.
“Canonical was undoubtedly a company that catered to startups and smaller businesses, and the desktop Linux distribution also performed admirably. I am not implying that they did not perform admirably. They performed admirably in those markets,” he continued, noting that the Suse Linux distributions are extremely popular among businesses and enterprises in Europe and Asia.
“I believe Suse threw down the gauntlet to OpenShift and Red Hat, indicating that they are prepared to enter some of these other markets with this cloud-native illustration technology. Thus, in the enterprise-class, you really only have three options,” explained Reock.
Linux Mint is his preferred distribution for small and medium-sized businesses. The distro features a stripped-down interface that is more universal and ideal for multi-user environments.
Then there are the newcomers. Numerous them are more suitable for business because they are Red Hat derivatives aimed at the midsize business market.
The Rolling vs. Annual Update Quandary
Returning to Levity AI's Huellmann and the issue of rolling versus non-rolling Linux updates, he believes rolling releases are a viable option, particularly if you want to always have the most recent versions of the applications you use — with a caveat.
“The disadvantage of rolling releases is that they do not allow for nearly the amount of testing that a point release does. This could result in a loss of stability — the operative word being 'could,'" he said.
To that end, Huellmann maintains older versions of certain applications on his systems, similar to how point releases are maintained. The software application may be critical to his day-to-day work.
He wishes to avoid introducing a new release that may not be as stable as promised in those instances.
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