Community Enterprise Operating

System
 which stands for Community Enterprise
Operating System, is the result of a group of
open source contributors and users working
together to develop Linux solutions that are
freely available to users who do not require a
great deal of commercial support to achieve
their goal
 CentOS dedicated servers were designed
based on Red Hat's product, Red Hat
Enterprise Linux. Although the Red Hat Linux
server is made entirely of free and open
source software, it is only distributed to the
public in binary form (including CD-ROM and
DVD-ROM) at a fee paid by subscribers.
However, Red Hat does release its source
code for its product under the terms of the
GNU General Public License.
 Sothe use of the code for the creation of the
CentOS Linux distribution is an entirely valid
and acceptable practice. The distribution of
CentOS products completely complies with
Red Hat's redistribution policy.
 The CentOS server is almost identical to the
Red Hat product except that it is modified to
remove all Red Hat branding and artwork.
CentOS and its Linux solutions are not in any
way affiliated with or supported by Red
Hat, Inc.
 Red Hat Enterprise Linux is available only
through a paid subscription service that
provides access to software updates and
varying levels of technical support. The
product is largely composed of software
packages distributed under open source
licenses, and the source code for these
packages is made public by Red Hat.
 CentOS developers use Red Hat's source code
to create a final product very similar to Red
Hat Enterprise Linux. Red Hat's branding and
logos are changed because Red Hat does not
allow them to be redistributed
 CentOS is available free of charge. Technical
support is primarily provided by the
community via official mailing lists, web
forums, and chat rooms. The project is not
affiliated with Red Hat and thus receives no
financial or logistical support from the
company; instead, the CentOS Project relies
on donations from users and organizational
sponsors.
 The CentOS dedicated Linux servers and
distributions are developed by a team of core
developers who are supported by a user
community comprised of system
administrators, network
administrators, enterprise
users, managers, core Linux
contributors, and Linux enthusiasts all over
the world.
 CentOS products were designed with the goal
of providing organizations and individuals
with Linux products to help them achieve
success in activities like dedicated Linux
server hosting and dedicated server web
hosting. In an effort to meet this goal,
CentOS is committed to:
 Creating solutions that are easily maintained.
 Usable for the long-term in production
environments.
 A user and package maintainer friendly
environment.
 Supporting the core for the long-term.
 Actively working toward the development of
additional solutions.
 A strong community infrastructure.
 An open management policy.
 An open business model.
 Commercial support through its partner
vendors, like Vault Networks.
 CentOS version numbers have two parts, a
major version and a minor version. The
major and minor version numbers
respectively correspond to the major version
and update set of Red Hat Enterprise Linux
from which the source packages used to
build CentOS are taken. For example, CentOS
4.4 is built from the source packages from
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 update 4.
 Sincemid-2006, starting with version 4.4
(formerly known as Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4.0 update 4), Red Hat has adopted a
versioning convention identical to that of
CentOS, e.g., Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4.5
 CentOS supports the x86 architectures: x86 (32-
bit)
 x86-64 (AMD's AMD64 and Intel's EM64T, 64-bit)
 The following architectures were supported by
CentOS up to version 4:
 IA-64 (Intel Itanium architecture, 64-bit) (beta
support since CentOS 3)
 PowerPC/32 (Apple Macintosh and PowerMac
running the G3 or G4 PowerPC processor) (beta
support since CentOS 3)
 IBM Mainframe (eServer zSeries and S/390) (not
CentOS 5)
 The following two architectures were
 supported or partially supported in CentOS
but
 are not supported upstream:

 Alpha(CentOS 4 only)
 SPARC (beta support since CentOS 3)
ALive CD version of CentOS is available at
mirror.centos.org.

ALive USB of CentOS can be created

manually or with UNetbootin.
 TaoLinux was another prominent distribution
derived from Red Hat Enterprise Linux. Its
primary developer announced in June 2006
that Tao would be retired and rolled into
CentOS development. Migration via 'yum
update' was available to Tao users, providing
a relatively painless migration path to the
CentOS release. This helped prevent Tao
users from becoming "orphaned" by their OS.
 InJuly of 2009, it was reported that CentOS's
founder, Lance Davis, had disappeared in
2008. Davis had ceased contribution to the
project but continued to hold the
registration for the CentOS domain and
PayPal account. In August of 2009, the
CentOS team reportedly made contact with
Davis and obtained the centos.info and
centos.org domains.