Download CentOS 5.6

Version 5.6 of CentOS has become available. This open source operating system is based on Red Hat Enterprise Linux and profiles itself for use in enterprise environments. CentOS therefore stands for Community Enterprise Operating System. Unlike RHEL, CentOS is free to use. When looking at popularity, CentOS is on the tenth place. However, it is the most widely used distribution for web servers. The full release notes for version 5.6 are out this page to find. This is the introduction to it:

IntroductionWelcome to the CentOS 5.6 release. CentOS is an Enterprise-class Linux Distribution derived from sources freely provided to the public by our Upstream OS Provider (UOP)1.

CentOS conforms fully with the upstream vendors redistribution policy and aims to be 100% binary compatible. (CentOS mainly changes packages to remove upstream vendor branding and artwork.) CentOS is a Free Operating System.

CentOS 5.6 is the sixth update to the CentOS 5 distribution series. It contains a lot of bug fixes, updates and new functionality. Before reading any further we advise you to read the UOP Release Notes (or Single Page Release Notes) and Technical Notes (or Single Page Technical Notes). The rest of this document is an addendum and primarily covers CentOS-specific issues.