Description:

CentOS is an enterprise Linux distribution based on freely available source packages available from Red Hat(r), Incorportated. While not affiliated with Red Hat, Inc., the CentOS Project conforms with Red Hat's redistribution policy and aims to be 100% binary compatible. CentOS primarily changes packages to remove upstream vendor branding and artwork.

Each CentOS version is supported for 7 years (by means of security updates). A new CentOS version is released every 2 years and each CentOS version is regularly updated (every 6 months) to support newer hardware.

Currently, there are 5 different supported CentOS releases: CentOS-6 is based on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6, CentOS-5 is based on RHEL5, CentOS-4 is based on RHEL4, CentOS-3 is based on RHEL3, and CentOS-2 is based on RHAS2.1. Although there are some differences, for purposes of comparison, CentOS most closely resembles RHEL AS distributions.

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