Introducing CentOS Stream 9

Friday, 3, December 2021 Rich Bowen announcement 22 Comments

The CentOS Project is delighted to announce the availability of CentOS Stream 9, the latest major release of the CentOS Stream distribution.

What’s Great About CentOS Stream

CentOS Stream is Continuous

CentOS Stream is a continuous-delivery distribution providing each point-release of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL). Before a package is formally introduced to CentOS Stream, it undergoes a battery of tests and checks—both automated and manual—to ensure it meets the stringent standards for inclusion in RHEL. Updates posted to Stream are identical to those posted to the unreleased minor version of RHEL. The aim? For CentOS Stream to be as fundamentally stable as RHEL itself.

To achieve this stability, each major release of Stream starts from a stable release of Fedora Linux—In CentOS Stream 9, this begins with Fedora 34, which is the same code base from which RHEL 9 is built. As updated packages pass testing and meet standards for stability, they are pushed into CentOS Stream as well as the nightly build of RHEL. What CentOS Stream looks like now is what RHEL will look like in the near future.

CentOS Stream is Community

CentOS Stream is developed through collaboration between the CentOS community and the RHEL engineering team. Although many CentOS Stream contributions derive from Red Hat employees, CentOS Stream thrives on community support. CentOS Stream is a stable, reliable platform for open source communities to expand upon, allowing people from all areas and backgrounds to collaborate in an open environment.

Because CentOS Stream ultimately becomes RHEL, contributors also have an opportunity for their work to influence future builds of RHEL; this makes CentOS Stream an ideal environment for creativity and forward-thinking.

Getting CentOS Stream

CentOS Stream can be downloaded as an ISO from our mirrors and is compatible with 64-bit x86 (x86_64 v2+), 64-bit ARM (AArch64), IBM Z (s390x Z14+), and IBM POWER (ppc64le POWER9+) architectures.

Contribute to CentOS Stream

Community is at the heart of the CentOS Project, and there are many ways you can contribute. A list of areas where you can contribute is available on the CentOS Wiki.

Because CentOS Stream is upstream of RHEL, it offers an ideal environment for applications which are designed be deployed in RHEL. We welcome and encourage contributors from all backgrounds—especially those developing for the post-RHEL production stream—to use CentOS Stream to build, test, and deploy the applications that are special to you and to the greater Linux community.

You can also contribute by joining (or creating) a Special Interest Group (SIG) in an area of your interest. Visit the CentOS Wiki to learn more.

Learn More

CentOS Stream is made for you to make it what you want it to be. To learn more about CentOS Stream 9, visit the CentOS Website: centos.org/stream9

Ed: The article has been updated: An earlier draft of the article was mistakenly initially posted.

22 thoughts on "Introducing CentOS Stream 9"

  1. Ed Leaver says:

    It's a nice webpage and all.... but ISO checksums in the Downloads would be nice. As would be Release Notes.

    1. Kenneth Stailey says:

      You can checksum any EL and/or Fedora ISO using checkisomd5 from the isomd5sum RPM.

      Example:
      $ checkisomd5 --verbose Rocky-8.5-x86_64-minimal.iso

      1. You should never trust built-in checksums for security reasons. Those are just for validating that the ISO burned properly, not that its a valid download rather than a hacked one.

    2. John Call says:

      The MD5/SHA1/SHA256 checksums are available here
      http://mirror.stream.centos.org/9-stream/BaseOS/x86_64/iso/

  2. Dylan Taylor says:

    Wondering if there is an upgrade path from CentOS Stream 8

    1. Andy Cater says:

      No - see the comments happening at LWN.net

    2. Shanoa Ice says:

      No official path is provided so far, but the team which created Almalinux's ELevate tool said that they will add functionality about this.

  3. no name says:

    Are there smaller network install images ??? 9GB DVD install is ridiculous

    1. John Call says:

      I was able to use the "boot" ISO (~750MB) to successfully install CentOS Stream 9. You can download it from a local mirror using this link.
      https://mirrors.centos.org/mirrorlist?path=/9-stream/BaseOS/x86_64/iso/CentOS-Stream-9-latest-x86_64-boot.iso&redirect=1&protocol=https

      The MD5/SHA1/SHA256 checksums are available here
      http://mirror.stream.centos.org/9-stream/BaseOS/x86_64/iso/

  4. Myootnt says:

    If you're looking for a usable primary desktop, don't. My experience in the past 14 hours has been miserable. Install process from USB succeeded by mere luck of having the installation ISO stored on a mountable internal disk. KDE group installation fails to yield working KDE. Xfce group or packages not available. Printer failure to print after automated setup. Firefox crashing on attempting to open additional tabs, even after updating. Switching user in Gnome logged me out instead of maintaining session. This is the most "beta" assembly I have seen in years.

    1. It's quite normal they want that you switch to redhat workstation and not use centos anymore in production

    2. Ajay says:

      Don't listen to this guy, either this is his first Linux rodeo or he is coming straight from windows or Ubuntu...seriously!, Linux has and always will require tinkering and customisation that is the fun of Linux and a FOSS ecosystem. Go use Gentoo or Arch and see if everything works OOTB ha.

      1. James says:

        He is right. KDE does not work. It does not even install without a major hassle.

    3. Ringo Fyre says:

      Filtered by centos - protip: it's a server not a desktop.

  5. Ted K says:

    A money grab is still a money grab no matter how they spin it. All those years of free RnD, code and testing this is how they repay you.

    1. Rich Bowen says:

      We're literally giving RHEL away for free to anyone who asks for it.

  6. downloader says:

    What is the md5 of this? ddb16339658393cd5bcd6a5bbd30d3ca ?

  7. Matej says:

    Hello, where can we find Release Notes?

  8. Evan says:

    Is there a version upgrade from CentOS Stream 8 to CentOS Stream 9?

  9. The best operating system for most server type, so far. Testing to use as a virtualization host with mostly consumer hw. Appreciate, thank you.

  10. Francisco says:

    How migrate from centos stream 8 to 9 and where can I found releaseOS document in pdf

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