The release of Rocky Linux 9.0 has taken place, aimed at creating a free assembly of RHEL capable of taking the place of classic CentOS. This release is marked as ready for production implementations. The distribution is fully binary compatible with Red Hat Enterprise Linux and can be used as a replacement for RHEL 9 and CentOS 9 Stream. Support for the Rocky Linux 9 branch will be provided until May 31, 2032. Installation iso images for Rocky Linux have been prepared for x86_64, aarch64, ppc64le (POWER9), and s390x (IBM Z) architectures. Additionally, live builds with GNOME, KDE, and Xfce desktop environments have been released for the x86_64 architecture.
Similar to classic CentOS, the changes made to the Rocky Linux packages involve the removal of ties to the Red Hat brand and the elimination of RHEL-specific packages, such as redhat-*, insights-client, and subscription-manager-migration*. An overview of the changes in Rocky Linux 9 can be found in the RHEL 9 announcement. Among the Rocky Linux-specific changes, the provision of the openldap-servers-2.4.59 package in a separate repository can be noted. The NFV repository offers a set of packages for virtualizing network components, developed by the NFV (Network Functions Virtualization) SIG group.
Rocky Linux 9 has also become the first release built using the new Peridot build system, created by the project's developers and supporting repeatable builds, allowing any user to reproduce the packages provided in Rocky Linux and verify that they contain no hidden changes. Peridot can also be used as a tool for maintaining and building individual distributions or for supporting synchronized forks.
The project is being developed under the leadership of Gregory Kurtzer, the founder of CentOS. At the same time, a commercial company, Ctrl IQ, has been established to develop advanced products based on Rocky Linux and support the community of developers of this distribution, which has received $26 million in investments. The Rocky Linux distribution itself is promised to be developed independently of Ctrl IQ under community management. Companies such as Google, Amazon Web Services, GitLab, MontaVista, 45Drives, OpenDrives, and NAVER Cloud have also joined in the development and financing of the project.
In addition to Rocky Linux, alternatives to classic CentOS include AlmaLinux (developed by CloudLinux in collaboration with the community), VzLinux (prepared by Virtuozzo), Oracle Linux, SUSE Liberty Linux, and EuroLinux. Furthermore, Red Hat has provided the opportunity for free use of RHEL in organizations developing open-source software and in environments of individual developers with up to 16 virtual or physical systems.
Source: opennet.ru
