| CentOS rev's to version 5.4, tries on KVM |
Oct. 23, 2009
 The CentOS project, which has apparently settled a dispute that threatened to lead to a fork, released CentOS 5.4. Reflecting changes made to Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.4, CentOS 5.4 upgrades 266 packages, adds 27, and implements preview versions of the ext4 file-system and KVM hypervisor.
We last checked in with CentOS in late July, reporting on the brouhaha that culminated when team members threatened founder Lance Davis with a project fork unless he became more active in the project and accounted for fund contributions. Shortly thereafter, the project announced that after a meeting with Davis, the majority of issues were resolved, and a working agreement was reached with deadlines for remaining unresolved issues. The CentOS project "is now in control of the CentOS.org and CentOS.info domains and owns all trademarks, materials, and artwork in the CentOS distributions," says the project. In other words, show's over, folks, go on home.
Meanwhile, the project continues about its usual business of updating what is arguably the most popular Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) clone. (Fedora, which recently upgraded to Fedora 12 would not really qualify, as RHEL is based more on Fedora than vice versa.) CentOS is targeted at those who need enterprise-class operating system stability without the cost of certification and support involved with RHEL, with which it claims 100 percent compatibility.
The CentOS project released a version 5.3 maintenance release of the distribution in April, which builds on major changes in version 5.0 in 2007 and version 5.2, from June 2008. These include improved desktop support with Compiz and AIGLX, and the introduction of Sabayon for simplifying user profile construction. Release 5.3 also continued to improve virtualization features introduced in version 5.0, including the integrated Xen hypervisor with Virtual Machine Manager and Libvirt.
Experimenting with KVM virtualization
CentOS 5.4 is based on RHEL 5.4, which was released in August. The key enhancement to RHEL 5.4 was the addition of full support for the KVM (Kernel-based Virtual Machine) hypervisor, which has been implemented in preview form in CentOS 5.4. Other RHEL 5.4 enhancements include cluster improvements, new graphics drivers, laptop docking support, ALSA audio infrastructure, improved Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) enablement, security and tools enhancements, and a host of general Linux kernel improvements.
This new CentOS comes in i386 and x86_64 versions, and for the first time both versions are available in Live CD disks. As a clone of an enterprise-focused platform that is in no hurry to rush to the latest packages, CentOS 5.4's upgrades may seem a bit dated to those familiar with more consumer-focused distros. For example, the release is based on Linux kernel 2.6.18, as opposed to the latest 2.6.30 or 2.6.31 releases.
Other major CentOS 5.4 updates are said to include Apache 2.2, php 5.1.6, GNOME 2.16, KDE 3.5, OpenOffice 2.3, Evolution 2.12, Firefox 3.0, Thunderbird 2.0, MySQL 5.0, and PostgreSQL 8. The release also moves to the ext4 file-system, but only as a technology preview, says the group.
Availability
The CentOS 5.4 announcement may be found here, and the release notes and download links should be here. Some may want to wait until Oct. 26, when it is said that bug fixes released for RHEL 5.4 will be carried over to CentOS 5.4.
-- Eric Brown
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