A release candidate for the Rocky Linux 8.4 distribution is available for testing, aimed at creating a new free build of RHEL that can take the place of the classic CentOS, after Red Hat decided to stop supporting the CentOS 8 branch at the end of 2021, and not in 2029, as was originally intended. Rocky Linux builds are prepared for x86_64 and aarch64 architectures.
The distribution is fully binary compatible with Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.4. As in the classic CentOS, the changes made to the packages come down to getting rid of the link to the Red Hat brand. The project is being developed under the leadership of Gregory Kurtzer, founder of CentOS. In parallel, to develop advanced products based on Rocky Linux and support the community of developers of this distribution, a commercial company Ctrl IQ was created, which received $ 4 million in investments. The Rocky Linux distribution itself is promised to be developed independently of the Ctrl IQ company under the control of the community. MontaVista, 45Drives, OpenDrives and Amazon Web Services have also joined to develop and fund the project.
In addition to Rocky Linux, VzLinux (prepared by Virtuozzo), AlmaLinux (developed by CloudLinux, together with the community) and Oracle Linux are positioned as alternatives to the classic CentOS 8. In addition, Red Hat has made RHEL available for free to open source organizations and individual developer environments with up to 16 virtual or physical systems.
Source: opennet.ru