CentOS 4.9 released

Almost exactly two weeks after the release of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 4.9, the CentOS project has completed CentOS 4.9. The RHEL clone was released relatively soon after its RHEL equivalent because, like the original, CentOS hasn't provided any updated installation images; such images are typically made available for minor releases, sometimes also called service packs, of RHEL and CentOS.

This is due to the age of the RHEL 4 family, as Red Hat plans to discontinue the regular support for this distribution in February 2012 – seven years after RHEL 4.0 was first introduced. However, the Linux distributor has recently emphasised again that the Extended Lifecycle Support (ELS) option will allow RHEL customers to purchase three further years of support.

Meanwhile, the CentOS project is working to clone RHEL 5.6, which was released in mid-January – developers in CentOS circles have said that CentOS 5.6 should be released before the end of next week unless major new problems appear. The project then plans to tackle CentOS 6. The latest major release had to stand back because the project prioritised the release of updates for those who use versions from early series of CentOS.

Some related background information can be found in the article "CentOS 5, RHEL 5.6, and security updates", recently published on LWN.net. The article also mentions that CentOS sometimes delays the release of non-critical security fixes when Red Hat has just issued a new minor release and the CentOS developers are working on cloning it.

See also:

• Controversy surrounds Red Hat's "obfuscated" source code release, a report from The H.

(crve)