Last updated: July 15, 2014
Contents
1. Translations
Translations of these release notes are available for the following languages :
2. Introduction
Hello and welcome to the first CentOS-7 release. CentOS is an Enterprise-class Linux Distribution derived from sources freely provided to the public by Red Hat1.
CentOS conforms fully with Red Hat's redistribution policy and aims to have full functional compatibility with the upstream product. CentOS mainly changes packages to remove Red Hat's branding and artwork.
We have decided not to follow Red Hat's usage of Installation Codes. All 'channels' are available to the System Administrator at time of installation.
For the first time, there is a supported upgrade path from CentOS-6 to CentOS-7. This path is only supported from the latest version of CentOS-6 (being 6.5 at the time of writing) to the latest version of CentOS-7. For more information on
the upgrade procedure please take a look at
this page. The tools needed for this functionality are still being tested and will be released at a later time. If you can help with the testing, please see this CentOS-Devel mailing listthread.
Please read through the other sections before trying an install or reporting an issue.
3. Install Media
Various installation images are available for installing CentOS. Which image you need to download depends on your installation environment. All of these images can either be burned on a DVD or dd’ed to an USB memory stick.
If you are unsure which image to use, pick the DVD image. It allows selecting which components you want to install.
Live media images are also available, both for Gnome and KDE desktop environments. These allow you to test out CentOS by booting from the DVD or USB stick. The third livecd image uses Gnome, and as the livecd name implies, it is small enough
to fit on a CD. This image does not contain libreoffice. You can also install CentOS to your hard disk from the live media images, but please note that what gets installed on your hard disk is exactly the same as you see when using the live media. For more
flexibility in selecting which packages you want to have installed, please use the DVD image.
The netinstall image can be used for doing installs over network. After booting the computer with the netinstall image, the installer will ask where it should fetch the packages to be installed.
The everything image contains all the packages that are available for CentOS-7, including those that are not directly installable from the installer. If you want to install those other packages, you must mount the install media on your installed
system after the installation, and copy or install the packages from there. For most users installing from the DVD image and then installing the other packages with ”yum install <packagename>” instead is probably easier.
4. Verifying Downloaded Installation Images
Before copying the image to your preferred installation media you shouldcheck the sha256sum of the downloaded installation images.
sha256sum x86_64: ee505335bcd4943ffc7e6e6e55e5aaa8da09710b6ceecda82a5619342f1d24d9 CentOS-7.0-1406-x86_64-DVD.iso 745a0a4a02147d8371b87dd09d402c7dc5fddc609caa7af44bc7b004de78c58a CentOS-7.0-1406-x86_64-Everything.iso df6dfdd25ebf443ca3375188d0b4b7f92f4153dc910b17bccc886bd54a7b7c86 CentOS-7.0-1406-x86_64-NetInstall.iso 89ef9fb1c5564ccbbbcc223369cea8bcebc84bb28464db812fe01b775f8cf779 CentOS-7.0-1406-x86_64-livecd.iso 2e926343f55903060bb453d0d1d21158d92a623c21ad5f820cfa8f97095888bf CentOS-7.0-1406-x86_64-GnomeLive.iso 2157f276efbfc6ae2e037c29092a065628ba8598fe4c2c9b2473b3a5cd5b9abd CentOS-7.0-1406-x86_64-KdeLive.iso
5.
Major Changes
As with every first major Release most of the packages have changed and have been updated to more recent versions. It would exceed the scope of this document to list them all. Most notable changes are:
- Kernel updated to 3.10.0
- Support for Linux Containers
- Open VMware Tools and 3D graphics drivers out of the box
- OpenJDK-7 as default JDK
- In Place Upgrade from 6.5 to 7.0 (as already mentioned)
- LVM-snapshots with ext4 and XFS
- Switch to systemd, firewalld and GRUB2
- XFS as default file system
- iSCSI and FCoE in kernel space
- Support for PTPv2
- Support for 40G Ethernet Cards
- Supports installations in UEFI Secure Boot mode on compatible hardware
More information can be found
here or
here.
6. Deprecated Features
- None, as this is the first release of CentOS-7.
7. Known Issues
A list of known upstream issues can be found
here.
-
Many people have complained that Ethernet interfaces are not started with the new default NetworkManager tool/have to be explicitly enabled during installation. SeeCentOS-7
FAQ#2. - The installer needs at least 406MB of memory to work. On systems with less memory then 406MB the installation will terminate with a fatal error. 512MB is the minimum memory requirement for CentOS-7.
-
Installing CentOS-7 to a VirtualBox virtual machine in UEFI mode on an encrypted file system does not work properly. The installed system will not show the prompt for the volume passphrase, unless the kernel command line is modified. See
the
bug report for more details. - If your screen resolution is 800x600 or lower, parts of the images shown at the bottom during install are clipped.
-
The EULA file in the root directory of the .iso images has an incorrect statement saying these images should only be used for testing. Thecorrect
updated EULA can be found from /usr/share/centos-release/EULA on the installed system. -
VMware Workstation/VMware ESXi allow to install two different virtual SCSI adapters: BusLogic and LsiLogic. However the default kernel from CentOS-7 does not include the corresponding driver for any of them thus resulting in an unbootable
system if you install on a SCSI disk using the defaults for CentOS Linux. If you select 'Red Hat Enterprise Linux' as OS, the paravirtualized SCSI adapter is used, which works. -
Commonly used utilities such as ifconfig/netstat have been marked as deprecated for some considerable time and the 'net-tools' package is no longer part of the @core group so will not be installed by default. Usenmclic c up ifname $interface
to get your network up and running and use yum to install the package if you really need it. Kickstart users can pull in the net-tools package as part of the install.
8. Fixed Issues
- None in this release.
9. Packages and Applications
9.1.
Packages modified by CentOS
- abrt
- anaconda
- apache-commons-net
- basesystem
- chrony
- compat-glibc
- dhcp
- firefox
- glusterfs
- grub2
- httpd
- ipa
- kabi-yum-plugins
- kernel
- kexec-tools
- libreport
- ntp
- openssl098e
-
PackageKit
- perl-Module-Load-Conditional
- plymouth
- redhat-rpm-config
- shim-signed
- sos
- subscription-manager
- system-config-date
- xulrunner
- yum
9.2.
Packages removed from CentOS that are included upstream
- Red_Hat_Enterprise_Linux-Release_Notes-7-*
- redhat-access-gui
- redhat-bookmarks
- redhat-indexhtml
- redhat-logos
- redhat-release-*
- subscription-manager-migration-data
9.3.
Packages added by CentOS that are not included upstream
- centos-bookmarks
- centos-indexhtml
- centos-logos
- centos-release
10. Sources
All CentOS-7 sources are now hosted at git.centos.org.
Source RPMs will also be published in the vault:
-
OS:
http://vault.centos.org/centos/7.0.1406/os/Source/SPackages/
-
Updates:
http://vault.centos.org/centos/7.0.1406/updates/Source/SPackages/
-
Extras:
http://vault.centos.org/centos/7.0.1406/extras/Source/SPackages/
-
CentOSPlus:
http://vault.centos.org/centos/7.0.1406/centosplus/Source/SPackages/
11. How to help and get help
As a CentOS user there are various ways you can help out with the CentOS community. Take a look at ourContribute page for further information on how to get involved.
11.1. Special Interest Groups
CentOS consists of different
Special Interest Groups (SIGs) that bring together people with similar interests. The following SIGs already exist:
-
Artwork - create and improve artwork for CentOS releases and promotion
-
Promotion - help promoting CentOS online or at events
-
Virtualization - unite people around virtualization in CentOS
And we encourage people to join any of these SIGs or start up a new SIG, e.g.
- ARM, PPC and i386 port - help with porting CentOS to other architectures
- Hardware compatibility - provide feedback about specific hardware
- RPM Packaging - contribute new useful RPM packages
- Translation - help translating the documentation, website and Wiki content
11.2. Mailing Lists and Fora
Another way you can help others in the community is by actively helping and resolving problems that users come up against inthe mailing lists
andthe fora.
11.3. Wiki and Website
Even as an inexperienced CentOS user we can use your help. Because we like to know what problems you encountered, if you had problems finding specific information, how you would improve documentation so it becomes more accessible. This kind
of feedback is as valuable to others as it would have been to you so your involvement is required to make CentOS better.
So if you want to help out and improve our documentation and Wiki, register on the Wiki or subscribe to thecentos-docs mailing
list.
12. Further Reading
The following websites contain large amounts of information to help people with their CentOS systems :
-
Upstream release notes and documentation :
https://access.redhat.com/documentation/en-US/Red_Hat_Enterprise_Linux/