The Rocky Linux 8.5 distribution aimed at creating a free build of RHEL that can take the place of the classic CentOS has been released after Red Hat decided to stop supporting the CentOS 8 branch at the end of 2021, and not in 2029, as originally intended. This is the second stable release of the project, which is considered ready for production deployments. Rocky Linux builds are prepared for x86_64 and aarch64 architectures.
As in the classic CentOS, the changes made to the Rocky Linux packages come down to getting rid of being tied to the Red Hat brand. The distribution is fully binary compatible with Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.5 and includes all the improvements proposed in this release. This includes additional packages with OpenJDK 17, Ruby 3.0, nginx 1.20, Node.js 16, PHP 7.4.19, GCC Toolset 11, LLVM Toolset 12.0.1, Rust Toolset 1.54.0, and Go Toolset 1.16.7.
Rocky Linux-specific changes include the addition of a Thunderbird mail client package with PGP support and the openldap-servers package to the pluse repository. The "rasperrypi2" Linux kernel package has been added to the rockypi repository, including improvements to work on Rasperry Pi boards based on the Aarch64 architecture.
For x86_64 systems, official support for booting in UEFI Secure Boot mode is provided (the shim layer used when booting Rocky Linux is certified with a Microsoft key). For the aarch64 architecture, the ability to verify the integrity of the bootable system using a digital signature will be implemented later.
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 investment. The Rocky Linux distribution itself is promised to be developed independently of the Ctrl IQ company under the control of the community. Companies such as Google, Amazon Web Services, GitLab, MontaVista, 45Drives, OpenDrives and NAVER Cloud also joined the development and financing of the project.
In addition to Rocky Linux, AlmaLinux (developed by CloudLinux, together with the community), VzLinux (prepared by Virtuozzo) and Oracle Linux are also positioned as alternatives to the old CentOS. In turn, Red Hat has made RHEL available free of charge to open source organizations and individual developer environments of up to 16 virtual or physical systems.
Source: opennet.ru