I wrote a goodbye for my CentOS Stream sites that I think I posted on the Fediverse on Oct. 4, 2023.

I never posted it to this blog, and of the two mirrored CentOS Stream of Consciousness blogs I was running, only this one (on the tilde.institute server) remains. I think it provides a bit of closure and context to post it here as well:

Oct. 4, 2023⌗

I turned off the cron jobs today for my two sites that monitor new packages in #CentOS Stream 8 and 9. That means no more new entries.

I’m not sure what changed in the CentOS-supplied XML that is messing up the output, but I don’t think it’s worth it for me to hunt that down and try to fix the Python that turns the XML into HTML (and thanks once again to Rich Bowen for writing and sharing the Python code that made everything possible).

I haven’t used CentOS Stream in a long while. All this happened before Red Hat pulled RHEL source code access from downstream rebuilders.

I’m not sure if Rocky Linux and AlmaLinux are relying on Stream to supply packages. But I’m grateful that both independent projects are trying to figure out how to supply their users with enterprise Linux systems that are as up-to-date and secure as possible.

Really and truly, I hope CentOS Stream the distribution(s) and the CentOS community are doing well.

I came into the CentOS community with guns blazing about late security patches, and I needed to try a different way.

I will leave my CentOS sites up for now but will probably take them down soon. Building them — from the Hugo configuration to the server build scripts — was fun for me, but I don’t think anybody needs or wants them.

I’d rather just write about enterprise — and regular — Linux (and I will aim to save the few posts from the beginning of the CentOS sites that I did write).

(The words above were written in October 2023. Those below were written Jan. 21, 2024)

Jan. 21, 2024⌗

It’s an exciting world in Linux these days, both on the server and the desktop, and a lot has happened since this site “went dark.” Not all good.

I struggle with my participation – even as a user – in the Red Hat/Fedora/enterprise Linux world. It’s hard to trust CentOS. When I was using the distro, an unwritten (and barely spoken) “rule” of CentOS Stream seemed to be “just trust us (and don’t ask a lot of questions).”

I sincerely apologize to all the Red Hat employees who didn’t like what I had to say, or the way I said it.

I even apologize those who blocked me across multiple social media sites. (I clearly needed to vote with my feet much sooner than I did.)

I’ve gotten over the fact that almost nobody cared about how timely the updates to CentOS Stream were (or were not). I could never tell if it was due to a lack of users, general apathy, or willful denial.

I know that CentOS Stream has made some strides since this blog “ended.” I applaud all of it. I really do.

At this point, I don’t know what’s going on in CentOS Stream, and I’m unaware of anybody who writes about the project (and especially about how secure and up-to-date it is) on even an irregular basis.

Right now I run a couple of AlmaLinux servers. Alma is a great project with a great community. I recommend both Alma and Rocky Linux to those who want to run a RHEL-like enterprise system (or thousands of them).

I use Fedora Silverblue on my laptop. It’s solid and innovative. And the Fedora team – including all the dedicated Red Hat employees on it – is top-notch.

All I ever wanted was for CentOS to be like Fedora in terms of community and technical excellence. Maybe I was naive. Yeah I was.