On 21/05/2008 9:24 PM, Kevin McGregor wrote:

If I'm not mistaken, Red Hat just announced Enterprise Linux 5.2. How long might it be before we can expect to see the equivalent CentOS release? And does CentOS provide all of the features of RHEL "Advanced Platform"?

According to the CentOS FAQ, they build from the "upstream" source RPMs for the AS version, and they strive to be as close as possible to the upstream (i.e. no changes to the source RPMs). They try to get individual update RPMs up within 72 hours, and update sets within 2 weeks.

http://www.centos.org/modules/smartfaq/faq.php?faqid=31 http://www.centos.org/modules/smartfaq/faq.php?faqid=11 http://www.centos.org/modules/smartfaq/faq.php?faqid=7

I haven't seen where they announce these new releases, though, so I think you pretty much need to periodically check the mirror sites for updates.

Now, according to Red Hat's announcements, the AS & ES versions have merged into Advanced Platform for RHEL 5, so I'd expect that's what CentOS went with for the source RPMs. So, likely you get all the features except Red Hat's support (and the associated cost). It would be nice if CentOS updated their FAQ, though, as the last entry is almost 2 years old now.

Myself, I use Scientific Linux, which does make a few changes/additions to Red Hat's source RPMs. They were a bit slow to release 5.1 (mid-January), so I don't expect to see 5.2 from them for a little while still.