Developers from Red Hat have announced the initial support for the RISC-V architecture in the CentOS Stream 10 repository, which serves as the foundation for developing Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10. Previously, packages were released for architectures such as x86_64 (x86_64_v3 in RHEL 10), Aarch64, ppc64le (POWER9), and s390x (IBM z14). Red Hat has also introduced experimental RHEL 10 builds for RISC-V systems, developed in collaboration with SiFive.
Currently, most of the patches addressing build and operational issues for various packages on riscv64 systems have already been integrated into the CentOS Stream git repository. Some patches have not yet been moved to the main repository and remain in separate git branches, which are scheduled to be published on July 1, along with bootable builds ready for use on SiFive HiFive Premier P550 boards. After the builds are published in the build infrastructure on RISC-V hardware, a separate server Koji will be launched, and work will continue on porting the created fixes to the upstream projects.
The Rocky Linux project, aimed at creating a free build of RHEL to fill the gap left by classic CentOS, has gone further and announced official support for RISC-V systems (riscv64gc) in Rocky Linux 10. Rocky Linux 10 will support StarFive VisionFive 2 (VF2) and SiFive HiFive Premier P550 boards, as well as running in the QEMU emulator, similar to the RISC-V builds from the Fedora project. There is also potential for support for Milk-V and Banana Pi boards.
The RISC-V architecture has received alternative support status, meaning it will not block the release of versions for other architectures, unlike primary architectures (x86_64, Aarch64, ppc64le, and s390x). The presence of RISC-V specific issues in packages will not prevent the publication of these package builds for other architectures.
When operating on the VisionFive 2 board and in QEMU, the standard kernel from RHEL 10 will be used, while for the SiFive HiFive Premier P550 boards, a separate kernel from the hardware manufacturer will be utilized. The development of the build is in collaboration with the Fedora project. The release date for Rocky Linux 10 has not yet been announced.
Additionally, the Alma Linux project initiative can be noted for the creation of a variant of the EPEL 10 (Extra Packages for Enterprise Linux) repository for the x86-64-v2 architecture. Unlike the RHEL 10 distribution, which supplies packages optimized for the x86-64-v3 microarchitecture, Alma Linux builds separate packages for the x86-64-v2 microarchitecture, which are provided alongside the base x86-64-v3 packages. Henceforth, the x86-64-v2 builds in Alma Linux will cover not only the main repository but also the EPEL repository. Compared to x86-64-v2, x86-64-v3 support includes CPU extensions such as AVX, AVX2, BMI2, FMA, LZCNT, MOVBE, and SXSAVE. x86-64-v2 support ensures compatibility with CPUs older than Intel Haswell and AMD Excavator, designed before 2013.
Source: opennet.ru
