CentOS Stream 9 Released – Download DVD ISO Images

CentOS Stream is regarded as a continuous-delivery distribution by Red Hat developers. It serves as RHEL’s next point release. Think of it as the security checkpoint for any package that wants to be granted an audience under RHEL 9.

For instance, such packages that want to be RHEL-oriented must pass through a series of tests and checks and then push to the CentOS Stream OS environment. These tests and checks are either manual or automated. This platform ensures that packages meet stringent RHEL standards.

Therefore, a typical CentOS Stream system and package update are equivalent to an unreleased RHEL OS minor version. The purpose of assigning CentOS Stream such an attribute is to progressively make it as stable as RHEL.

In summary, when a system package or update meets the stability standards of Red Hat after passing through stringent tests, CentOS Stream first accommodates them before an RHEL nightly build is created.

What’s New in CentOS 9 Stream?

With the official release of the CentOS Stream 9 no longer a premonition, it is time to address what this continuous-delivery Linux OS distribution brings to the table.

The release of CentOS 9 Stream gives us the confidence to compare it with the discontinued CentOS distribution as polar opposites. CentOS prioritized the theme of OS stability making it difficult to speed up old-to-new packages release upgrades.

On the contrary, the cutting-edge ambition of CentOS Stream gifts its users with the latest dependable software versions.

Let us address some of its top features.

GNOME 40 Desktop

With GNOME 40 as your CentOS Stream desktop environment, the overall user interaction and performance index are improved. For instance, once you click on the Activities button, from your Desktop environment, you will now be associated with a horizontal flow instead of a very vertical flow.

There is also some added flexibility to the user interaction experience such that you can click on Show Applications whilst the Activities overflow is open to trigger the Applications overview to open.

Returning back to the Activities overview will simply require clicking Show Applications again. Such Desktop navigation flexibility makes the user experience better.

PHP 8.0

For OS users with projects or activities tied to this scripting language, PHP 8.0 is a game-changer with better features and optimization footprints like JIT, match expression, attributes, named arguments, nullsafe operator, and constructor property promotion, and union types. PHP 8.0 also boasts of improvements in error handling, type system, and consistency.

Python 3.9

The release highlights Python 3.9 as another reputable scripting programming language including new syntax features like additional union operators to dict (PEP 584), standard collections type hinting generics (PEP 585), and decorators’ relaxed grammar restriction (PEP 614). You will also be surprised by new built-in features, new library modules, interpreter improvements, and new standard library features.

MariaDB 10.5

For users aligned with database-related projects, you will benefit from MariaDB 10.5 implemented features like ColumnStore, Binaries named MariaDB, INET 6 Data Type, Amazon S3 Storage Engine, and Privileges Made More Granular.

Nginx 1.20

Your web documents will get better handling and performance thanks to Nginx’s Connection Limiting and HTTP Request Rate enhancements. Also, you will be dealing with a new auth_delay directive and additional PROXY Protocol Variable.

GCC 11.2

The general features associated with this optimizing compiler include profile-driven optimization improvements, link-time optimization improvements, inter-procedural optimization improvements, and new command-line options.

Download CentOS Stream 9 ISO Images

CentOS 9 Stream is only available as a DVD ISO format for its full installation. Depending on the computer architecture you are using, download it from either of the Links below.

We can now confidently put CentOS 9 Stream to the test to see what it has to offer.