Regarding CentOS Project shifts focus to CentOS Stream:

My following statements will pigeon-hole both Fedora and CentOS as being a-certain-thing when they are really nuanced and multi-faceted. Fedora is way ahead of RHEL... and RHEL was usually freezing on a version of Fedora and then building on it for a year to a year and a half before it became RHEL and by that time, Fedora had kept on moving with 3 more releases. So while Fedora is (again in a single aspect) the proving ground for new technologies... it led by alot.

CentOS has always been a lagging follower of RHEL... as it rebuilt from RHEL sources and it usually took them time to figure out the build requirements to get as close as possible... as again... RHEL building a distro over 12+ months... different packages had different build requirements because they were made at different periods of time... and figuring those out, in a few cases, can be difficult.

So Red Hat has had a dilemma (from my perspective, I'm not sure if they acknowledge this as being an issue or something by-design) over the last couple of releases.... they have taken longer and longer to have a new major release. I think part of that is because of the large number of changes that happen in Fedora so quickly.

By creating CentOS Stream, RHEL wants to shift from being based on Fedora to being based on CentOS which puts CentOS in-front of RHEL rather than behind... but not very far in front. Fedora still plays a role in being where all of the new stuff gets developed and battle-tested before being integrated into CentOS Stream and then being integrated into RHEL.

My guess is that CentOS Stream 8 won't be that radical and that it will serve the needs of most folks who would like to run RHEL but don't want to pay for it... so realistically, I don't think much is going to change from a user's perspective.

There has ALWAYS been the feeling that RHEL and clones were just too old to run once it was several years into its lifecycle. I mean, out of the gate, it is a 1.5+ year old Fedora release (loosely).  There has always been a significant number of people who wanted fresher stuff in EL and with CentOS Stream 8  they should (maybe) actually be happier... although RH has addressed quite a bit of that issue with AppStreams (aka "modularity").

I also got the perception, although I can't really point to any specific data to support it, that CentOS was overtaxed trying to support BOTH CentOS 8 and CentOS 8 Stream.  Another perception was that EL8 just hasn't had the uptake of previous new releases... and more folks are sticking with EL7 for longer, again without any real data to prove that... but I think it is a fairly common perception on the #centos channel on their Freenode IRC channel.

SL (Scientific Linux) decided NOT to do EL8 because they said CentOS was doing such a good job that they didn't need to duplicate the effort. This announcement changes that, so maybe SL will change its mind. If they don't there is also Oracle EL, which they give away for free, and you only have to pay for it if you want support... although I haven't looked at their terms. If no existing related EL clone picks up the slack, surely one or more communities will spring up to do so. It will be routed around if needed.

Red Hat has also discovered it quite hard to explain the relationship between Fedora, CentOS and RHEL (a Penrose Triangle?)... and I think this change actually alters the relationships in such a way that makes it much more understandable.

Of course there are those who are crying foul... often folks who have called many fouls in the past, many of which have turned out to be inconsequential.  We'll have to see how this pans out, but I'm actually optimistic and think the change can potentially lead to a few unanticipated benefits.  Will I have to eat my words?

For now though, a big THANK YOU to Red Hat and the members of the CentOS community for all of the hard work they have put in in the past and what they'll be doing in the future.  I often tell people I run Red Hat-based distros and some tell me they do not... and I'll take the opportunity to comment on how Red Hat contributes so much to the mainline Linux kernel every release cycle (~9-12% or so) as well as sponsors dozens and dozens of core FOSS projects that are used by everyone... that (almost) everyone who runs Linux, is using Red Hat... just perhaps indirectly.

In this screencast I show how to build a podman image using the Fedora 33 base image to include httpd, mariadb, openssh-server as well the XFCE desktop environment with a sampling of desktop applications.  I then make and run a container with the image and show you how to connect to it with ssh, http, and X2Go.  Oh, and I do all of it as a regular user... as a rootless container.  The POWER of podman.  Obviously watch it in full-screen or download. Enjoy!

For information on how to convert a podman container into a systemd service flle that can be managed with systemctl... even as a user service... see this fine video: Managing Containers in podman with systemd Unit Files

Here's a fine article by the master (Dan Walsh) that discusses rootless containers for anyone who might want more info.

CentOS 8 only provides the GNOME Desktop.  What if you want XFCE?  EPEL has it.  What if you want to access it remotely?  x2goserver is your friend.  What if you are on a Digital Ocean Droplet and don't have any swap?  Use zram swap.  Enjoy.

BTW, the same recipe works with Fedora... just using stock repos. zram-swap is going to be on by default in Fedora 33... but probably not in the Digital Ocean Droplet image.

I wonder what the final price of this is?

This documentary (Software Wars 2020) was released under a Creative Commons license.  It reminds me of Revolution OS from back in the day.  BTW, I downloaded a 2GB 1080p mp4 version but I re-encoded it to AV1 and OPUS and put it in a .webm container.  Enjoy.

I wonder where I can get the schematic for the Red Hat Tower?  Enjoy!

Understanding the relationships between Fedora, CentOS, and Red Hat can be a little confusing.  This guy does a fairly good job of explaining it.  Enjoy!

According to wikipedia, DevConf.CZ is...

an annual, free, Red Hat sponsored community conference for developers, admins, DevOps engineers, testers, documentation writers and other contributors to open source technologies. The conference includes topics on Linux, Middleware, Virtualization, Storage and Cloud. At DevConf.cz, FLOSS communities sync, share, and hack on upstream projects together in the beautiful city of Brno, Czech Republic.

There were a lot of fantastic presentations at the 2020 conference held back in January... and 212 of have been posted to YouTube.

As a sample, here's Dan Walsh updating us on the State of Container Security.  Enjoy!