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CentOS is a community-supported, free and open source operating system based on Red Hat Enterprise Linux. It exists to provide a free enterprise class computing platform and strives to maintain 100% binary compatibility with its upstream distribution. CentOS stands for Community ENTerprise Operating System. CentOS developers use Red Hatâs source code to create a final product very similar to Red Hat Enterprise Linux. CentOS is available free of charge. Technical support is primarily provided by the community via official mailing lists, web forums, and chat rooms.
For example, CentOS 6.5 is built from the source packages of RHEL 6 update 5 (also known as RHEL version 6.5), which is a so-called point release of RHEL 6. Starting with version 7.0, CentOS version numbers also include a third part that indicates the monthstamp of the source code the release is based on.