Introduction

CentOS 8 delivers a stable, secure, consistent foundation across hybrid cloud deployments with the tools needed to deliver workloads faster with less effort. It can be deployed as a guest on supported hypervisors and Cloud provider environments as well as deployed on physical infrastructure, so your applications can take advantage of innovations in the leading hardware architecture platforms.

Supported architectures

CentOS supports the following architectures:

  • AMD and Intel 64-bit architectures

  • The 64-bit ARM architecture

  • IBM Power Systems, Little Endian

Installation terminology

This section describes CentOS installation terminology. Different terminology can be used for the same concepts, depending on its upstream or downstream origin.

Anaconda: The operating system installer used in Fedora, CentOS, and their derivatives. Anaconda is a set of Python modules and scripts with additional files like Gtk widgets (written in C), systemd units, and dracut libraries. Together, they form a tool that allows users to set parameters of the resulting (target) system. In this document, the term installation program refers to the installation aspect of Anaconda.

Installation methods

You can install CentOS using one of the following methods:

Quick install

Install CentOS on AMD64, Intel 64, and 64-bit ARM architectures using the graphical user interface. The quick installation assumes that you are familiar with CentOS and your environment, and that you can accept the default settings provided by the installation program.

Graphical install

Install CentOS using the graphical user interface and customize the graphical settings for your specific requirements.

Automated install

Install CentOS using Kickstart. The automated installation allows you to perform unattended operating system installation tasks.

Additional resources