Hello, friends. In this post, we will show you how to migrate from CentOS 8 to CentOS Stream quickly. This tutorial is quite simple but it will be useful for many people due to the latest events.
As we know, the end of the year 2020, in the Linux world, was marked by the death of CentOS 8 as we know it. Of course, this death will not be consummated until December 2021 but it has opened many questions in the world of servers.
From that date, we will be invited to leap CentOS stream and the development model that has given us so much joy will disappear. That is, there will be no CentOS 9. And CentOS Stream will be a kind of Red Hat Beta.
For desktop users the change may not seem negative, or it may even seem positive because CentOS Stream will have more updates and newer packages. However, in the server environment where CentOS dominates along with Debian there is no need for new packages, but rather for a stable and supported static development model for many years.
So, in this tutorial you will learn how to make the leap that sooner or later many will have to make.
How to migrate from CentOS 8 to CentOS Stream
The process is really simple but many system packages are updated so keep this in mind.
Open a terminal and log in as a root user or a user using sudo.
Install the package that allows you to make the jump to CentOS Stream
dnf install centos-release-stream CentOS Linux 8 - AppStream 4.6 kB/s | 4.3 kB 00:00 CentOS Linux 8 - AppStream 12 MB/s | 6.3 MB 00:00 CentOS Linux 8 - BaseOS 94 kB/s | 3.9 kB 00:00 CentOS Linux 8 - BaseOS 19 MB/s | 2.3 MB 00:00 CentOS Linux 8 - Extras 43 kB/s | 1.5 kB 00:00 CentOS Linux 8 - Extras 238 kB/s | 8.6 kB 00:00 Dependencies resolved. Package Architecture Version Repository Size Installing: centos-release-stream x86_64 8.1-1.1911.0.7.el8 extras 11 k Transaction Summary Install 1 Package Total download size: 11 k Installed size: 6.6 k Is this ok [y/N]:
Then, change the CentOS 8 repositories to CentOS Stream
dnf swap centos-{linux,stream}-repos
CentOS-Stream - AppStream 25 MB/s | 6.4 MB 00:00
CentOS-Stream - Base 15 MB/s | 2.4 MB 00:00
CentOS-Stream - Extras 103 kB/s | 7.0 kB 00:00
Dependencies resolved.
Package Architecture Version Repository Size
Installing:
centos-stream-release noarch 8.4-1.el8 Stream-BaseOS 21 k
replacing centos-linux-release.noarch 8.3-1.2011.el8
replacing centos-release-stream.x86_64 8.1-1.1911.0.7.el8
centos-stream-repos noarch 8-2.el8 Stream-BaseOS 19 k
Removing:
centos-linux-repos noarch 8-2.el8 @BaseOS 26 k
Transaction Summary
Install 2 Packages
Remove 1 Package
Total download size: 40 k
Is this ok [y/N]:
At the end, it carries out the migration by executing the following command:
dnf distro-sync
At the end you can verify the system change by running:
cat /etc/centos-release
And you’ll get a screen output like this:
CentOS Stream release 8
So, enjoy it.
