The Rocky Linux 8.6 distribution aimed at creating a free build of RHEL that can take the place of the classic CentOS has been released after Red Hat stopped supporting the CentOS 8 branch ahead of schedule at the end of 2021, and not in 2029, as originally intended. This is the third stable release of the project, recognized as 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 8.6 and includes all the improvements proposed in this release. Including new modules perl:5.32, php:8.0, container-tools:4.0, eclipse:rhel8, log4j:2, and updated versions of LLVM Toolset 13.0.1, GCC Toolset 11.2.1, Rust Toolset 1.58.1, Go Toolset 1.17.7, java-17-openjdk, NetworkManager 1.36.0, rpm-ostree 2022.2, bind 9.11.36 and 9.16.23, Libreswan 4.5, audit 3.0.7, samba 4.15.5, 389 Directory Server 1.4.3.
Rocky Linux-specific changes include the delivery in a separate pluse repository of a package with a Thunderbird mail client with PGP support and an open-vm-tools package. The rockypi repository includes the "rasperrypi2" package with the Linux 5.15 kernel, which includes improvements to work on Rasperry Pi boards based on the Aarch64 architecture. The nfv repository offers a set of packages for virtualization of network components, developed by the NFV (Network Functions Virtualization) SIG group.
The project is being developed under the leadership of Gregory Kurtzer, founder of CentOS. In parallel, a $26 million commercial company, Ctrl IQ, was created to develop advanced products based on Rocky Linux and support the distribution's developer community. 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 have also joined the development and funding of the project.
In addition to Rocky Linux, AlmaLinux (developed by CloudLinux, together with the community), VzLinux (prepared by Virtuozzo), Oracle Linux, SUSE Liberty Linux and EuroLinux are also positioned as alternatives to the classic CentOS 8. In addition, 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