Hello all,
Over the past month or so, I've been working on producing CentOS images with Hyperscale content and customizations to showcase the technologies we're working on to the broader community. The goal is to make it easier for the community to get started with the technologies we're working on and to encourage collaboration between the SIG and the wider community on the things we're working on.
Today, I'm pleased to announce one of the first deliverables of that effort: experimental live media! The SIG has produced an experimental Hyperscale Workstation Spin that combines CentOS Stream 8 with the Hyperscale SIG content to offer an early preview into some of the work we're doing.
This spin is currently available here:
* ISO: https://ngompa.fedorapeople.org/centos/hyperscale/CS8-HS-WORK-LIVE-LATESTDEV... * SHA512 checksum: https://ngompa.fedorapeople.org/centos/hyperscale/CS8-HS-WORK-LIVE-LATESTDEV...
There are some limitations and known issues, though:
* UEFI boot is not supported. CBS does not support signing kernels such that we can leverage the Secure Boot infrastructure, so UEFI is not supported at all right now. The issue is tracked here: https://pagure.io/centos-infra/issue/307
* The Anaconda installer icon is missing. This will be fixed with the next release of centos-logos. Upstream issue here: https://github.com/CentOS/centos-logos/issues/1
* SELinux denials with systemd-hostnamed and systemd-oomd. This is being investigated, and fixes will become available in a future systemd update provided by the Hyperscale SIG.
* SELinux denials with sssd and useradd. This happens with stock CentOS Stream 8, and is not related to anything we're doing.
* All non-English locales aren't showing up in Anaconda despite all locales being installed. This is being actively investigated and will hopefully be resolved in a future release.
* "dnf upgrade" is broken due to package conflicts with the DNF stack. This is because our custom version of the RPM+DNF stack has not been refreshed to the latest version pushed into CentOS Stream 8. This is ongoing and should be resolved soon.
* VDO is broken. This is a consequence of VDO being an out-of-tree kernel module shipped by Red Hat for RHEL kernels only. The Hyperscale SIG is building its kernels based on the ARK tree that's used by Fedora, and thus lacks support for VDO.
If you find any other issues, we would definitely love to hear about them! We have a dedicated issue tracker for Hyperscale spins where we would appreciate bugs to be reported: https://pagure.io/centos-sig-hyperscale/spin-bugs
The Hyperscale Workstation spin is built on the GNOME desktop. It is my intent to also offer a KDE Plasma flavor once it becomes reasonably possible. This is blocked on KDE Plasma getting rebuilt in EPEL-Next for the updated Qt5 in CentOS Stream 8. Both desktops are capable of leveraging the technologies being developed by the Hyperscale SIG and we intend to use this to showcase that.
We hope you enjoy it as much as I enjoyed making this!
Thanks and best regards, Neal (on behalf of the CentOS Hyperscale SIG)