Hello everyone. It's been a while since we had a status update. I noticed that there is a little update on the web forum that hasn't been relayed very prominently. This is a message from web forum moderator Alan Bartlett: Re: When will CentOS 5.6 be out? Here follows the synopsis of my latest discussion with Karanbir in the early hours of this morning (UTC, Tuesday March 22, 2011): The 32-bit tree has been with the QA team for some time, all issues that were discovered have been resolved and that tree is considered to be viable. The 64-bit tree is currently being built (using the knowledge gained from the 32-bit build) and will be passed to QA as soon as it is ready. Once QA have the 64-bit tree, both the 32- & 64-bit versions will be transferred to the internal master-mirror -- the logic being that if QA find a 64-bit specific issue, it can be resolved and just the relevant packages updated by rsync. A soon as all boxes are ticked with respect to the tree, then the ISO image can be prepared. This, in turn, will be passed to QA. Once that has been verified, the ISO images will be transferred to the internal master-mirror. With everything in place internally, the last waiting phase begins as the public mirror sites start to receive the trees and ISO images. Finally the "switch will be flicked" (or, if your prefer, the "button will be pressed") and an announcement will then be made on the CentOS-announce mailing list. https://www.centos.org/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?viewmode=flat&order=DESC&topic_id=29685&forum=53 There is no corresponding message for 6.0, although there is a similar post from February 19th: Re: When will CentOS 6 be out? I begin this announcement with my personal apology to all who are reading this. A while ago, I had a short conversation with Karanbir [Singh] with regards to the current status of the CentOS 5.6 build. He provided me with some information in relation to both the C-5.6 & C-6.0 build processes and asked me to write it up for public consumption via the Announcement forum. Due to various personal issues, coupled with the need to replace the main disk drive in my usual (desktop) workstation, the posts to the Announcement forum slid down the ToDo list. I aim to rectify that now. In the (boxed) text that follows, KB's words appear in italics. My linking works are bracketed in the normal font: [thus]. [Although the CentOS 5.6 build is taking priority, CentOS] 6.0 is slowly moving along. Many people consider it [to be] paused [but] it's not. It's not moving [at] full steam [ahead] but ticking along nicely. [It may be available to the QA team] within three weeks [but] as you know, slippage can happen at any stage. So we try not to commit to a schedule [because people will undoubtedly plan around it. The time-frame for CentOS] 6.0 might slip with even minor issues. [In conclusion, I would not expect to see CentOS 6.0 released until late March or early April. So the advice is not to formulate plans based on my guestimate but, instead, hope for the best whilst being prepared for the worst.] https://www.centos.org/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?viewmode=thread&topic_id=25878&forum=53&post_id=126452 (Obviously the italics don't translate to ASCII, but the []s are correct.) And this was folowed three days later with: Yesterday (Tuesday February 22, 2011), I received a status update from Karanbir regarding the progress of CentOS 6.0 and he has asked me to post it to this thread. Quote: 6.0: Due to time issues, I'm not updating the Audit Status page [1] at the moment. However there has been movement on the CentOS 6 build-front. I think I'll leave updating that page until 4.9 and 5.6 are out of the door. -- Matthew Miller mattdm at mattdm.org <http://mattdm.org/>