If we take stability as a parameter, is it safe to match them like this?
- Fedora --> Ubuntu
- CentOS Stream --> Ubuntu LTS
- RHEL --> Debian
I know that CentOS stream is more kind of a rolling release but… feels like an LTS distro in practice… or it is just me?
Edit: adding some context. I am planning to setup a dev machine that I will connect to remotely and would like to babysit very little while having stable and fresh packages. In the Ubuntu world we would go to an LTS release but on the RPM/Dnf world is there any other distro apart from CentOS Stream? And also is CentOS Stream comparable to an LTS release at all considering that they do not have release number?
RHEL --> Debian in the sense that RHEL is a root distro from which the others spring. But there the similarities very much end.
Not really, Fedora is upstream of CentOS Stream, which itself is upstream of RHEL. So it’s kind of the other way around: RHEL is based on Fedora, while Ubuntu is based on Debian (although not on Debian stable).
IIRC, within RHEL it goes fedora (next major) -> centos stream (next minor) -> RHEL (current major.minor).
With Debian and its derivatives (e.g Ubuntu) this means that Debian-unstable corresponds to fedora, Debian-testing corresponds to CentOS stream and Debian-stable corresponds to RHEL. (Roughly of course).
Ubuntu is based off of some flavor of Debian and is therefore downstream of it: Debian (unstable I think) -> Ubuntu -> Ubuntu LTS.
But as far as which version has the newest packages then sure, your list is correct.
What’s your goal? Is it safe to match is a very open ended question.
Take RHEL, it’s meant to be a paid distro for enterprise, something Debian isn’t. But you could draw similarities too.
What’s are you trying to learn?
It is to match them based on how cutting edge and stable they are
Edit: adding some context. I am planning to setup a dev machine that I will connect to remotely and would like to babysit very little while having stable and fresh packages. In the Ubuntu world we would go to an LTS release but on the RPM/Dnf world is there any other distro apart from CentOS Stream? And also is CentOS Stream comparable to an LTS release at all considering that they do not have release number?
Wanting both stable and fresh packages is unfortunately somewhat difficult in my experience. I think the primary choice within the Fedora ecosystem is if you want to have fresh packages (Fedora) or if you prefer a slower update cycle and more stable packages (RHEL/Alma/Rocky). In the second case you can also choose if you wish to pay Red Hat for support (RHEL) or not (Alma or Rocky).
One thing that’s quite different in RHEL vs Ubuntu/Debian ist that it gets minor releases that include substantial new features. For example you’ll get new compilers, python versions, drivers, … CentOS Stream gets those slightly ahead of RHEL/Alma/Rocky (a cynical person might say that CentOS Stream is a rolling beta for RHEL). But, IMHO that’s not really a strong reason to use CentOS Stream.
If you’d go with an Ubuntu LTS release, then I’d look into RHEL/Alma/Rocky.
