CentOS is a freely available Linux distribution which is based on Red Hat s commercial Red Hat Enterprise Linux product, and which aims to be 100% compatible.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux is composed entirely of free software and open source software, but is made available in a usable, binary form (such as on CD-ROM or DVD-ROM) only to paid subscribers. As required, Red Hat releases all source code for the product publicly under the terms of the GNU General Public License and other licenses. CentOS developers use that source code to create a final product which is very similar to Red Hat Enterprise Linux and freely available for download and use by the public, but not maintained or supported by Red Hat. While several RedHat Enterprise Linux clones are also derived from RedHat s source, CentOS is the only one that is both free to download and update and current with RedHat s changes (As of 2005).

= History =

In the end of 2003, the first version of CentOS 3, build4-rc0, was launched.

== CentOS 2 ==

On .

== CentOS 3 ==

On March 19, 2004 [http://lists.centos.org/pipermail/centos/2004-March/000015.html CentOS 3.1] (version 3, quarterly update 1) was released.

On September 18, 2004 [http://wwwold.caosity.org/index.phpoption=news&task=viewarticle&sid=34&Itemid=2 CentOS 3.3] (version 3, quarterly update 3), was released for i386 and AMD64 architectures.

[http://www.centos.org/modules/smartfaq/faq.phpfaqid=18 CentOS 3.2] (version 3, quarterly update 2) was never released.

On January 10, 2005 [http://lists.centos.org/pipermail/centos/2005-January/001563.html CentOS 3.4 for i386] (version 3, quarterly update 4) was officially released together with a new CentOS 3.4 [http://www.centos.org/modules/news/article.phpstoryid=52 single server i386 CD] version.

On February 13, 2005 [http://lists.centos.org/pipermail/centos/2005-February/002192.html CentOS 3.4 for ia64 architecture processors] was released.

Also released on February 13, 2005 was [http://lists.centos.org/pipermail/centos/2005-February/002193.html CentOS 3.4 for the s390 architecture], and [http://lists.centos.org/pipermail/centos/2005-February/002194.html CentOS 3.4 for the s390x architecture].

On June 10, 2005 [http://lists.centos.org/pipermail/centos-announce/2005-June/000308.html CentOS 3.5 for i386] was released.

Around October 13, 2005, CentOS 3.6 was released. Unlike other CentOS 3 releases, this release was not announced on the CentOS announce mailing list.

== CentOS 4 ==

CentOS 4.0 is based on Red Hat Enterprise Linux version 4.

On March 1, 2005, [http://www.centos.org/modules/news/article.phpstoryid=71 CentOS 4.0 for the i386 architecture] was released. The CentOS team also released [http://www.centos.org/modules/news/article.phpstoryid=70 CentOS 4.0 for the ia64 architecture] on this day.

On March 9, 2005, the final version, [http://www.centos.org/modules/news/article.phpstoryid=73 CentOS 4.0 for the x86_64 architecture], was released.

On June 12, 2005 [http://lists.centos.org/pipermail/centos-announce/2005-June/000310.html CentOS 4.1 for i386] was released.

On June 17 2005 the version 4.1 of [http://lists.centos.org/pipermail/centos-announce/2005-June/000387.html CentOS for the x86_64 architecture] was released together with the [http://lists.centos.org/pipermail/centos-announce/2005-June/000388.html final version for the ia64 architecture].

On October 12, 2005 [http://lists.centos.org/pipermail/centos-announce/2005-October/000784.html CentOS version 4.2] was released.

= Architectures =

CentOS supports (nearly) all the same architectures as the original Red Hat Enterprise Linux.

*Intel x86-compatible (32 bit). *Intel Itanium (64 bit). *Advanced Micro Devices AMD64 and Intel EM64T (64 bit). *Power PC/32 (Apple Computer Apple Macintosh PowerMac running the G3 or G4 PowerPC processor). *IBM Mainframe (eServer zSeries and S/390).

= Betas =

On February 6 2005 a PPC Beta version of [http://www.centos.org/modules/news/article.phpstoryid=65 CentOS 4 for Beta PPC] was announced. Both CentOS 4.0.rc1 s390(x) and PowerPC builds are in the build process.

=See also=

*List of Linux distributions *Comparison of Linux distributions *RedHat Enterprise Linux clones

= External links =