[CentOS] Is EPEL compatible with Stream?

Mon Jan 4 15:19:52 UTC 2021
Gordon Messmer <gordon.messmer at gmail.com>

On 1/4/21 3:05 AM, Leon Fauster via CentOS wrote:
>
> I would expect broken update paths. Also after EOL of CentOS Linux but
> not sure if they plan a new "playground" repo:
>
> EPEL-NEXT ... see here:
>
> https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/epel-devel@lists.fedoraproject.org/thread/WCFRJJ3JJFTGD6UMX7WOMCS4F2EVUM5X/ 
>
>
> https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/epel-devel@lists.fedoraproject.org/thread/LI5MCJEXHLNSZ5UQHFIHGZVPSKCMFWEU/


Those threads probably aren't relevant to *users* of EPEL, just to 
package managers.  EPEL packages are intended for RHEL installation 
targets.  CentOS Stream won't necessarily be an appropriate build root 
for an RHEL installation target, since it may provide ABIs before 
they're available in RHEL.

CentOS Stream in this context is interchangeable with RHEL X.(Y+1).  
RHEL X.(Y+1) is backward compatible with previous releases, but previous 
releases aren't necessarily forward compatible with X.(Y+1).  Therefore, 
using the currently available release of RHEL as a build root for the 
next release will generally yield usable packages, but using X.(Y+1) may 
yield packages that aren't usable on RHEL's currently available 
release.  But X.(Y+1) should run packages from either build root, so 
CentOS Stream users shouldn't typically have any problems with EPEL, 
regardless.