The Rocky Linux 8.7 distribution has been released, aimed at creating a free build of RHEL that can take the place of the classic CentOS, 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. Additionally, assemblies are generated for Oracle Cloud Platform (OCP), GenericCloud, Amazon AWS (EC2), Google Cloud Platform and Microsoft Azure cloud environments, as well as images for containers and virtual machines in RootFS/OCI and Vagrant formats (Libvirt, VirtualBox, VMWare) .
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 8.7 and includes all the improvements proposed in this release. For example, new modules ruby:3.1, maven:3.8, mercurial:6.2, Node.js 18 are proposed and GCC Toolset 12, LLVM Toolset 14.0.6, Rust Toolset 1.62, Go Toolset 1.18, Redis 6.2.7, Valgrind 3.19 are updated, chrony 4.2, unbound 1.16.2, opencryptoki 3.18.0, powerpc-utils 1.3.10, libva 2.13.0, PCP 5.3.7, Grafana 7.5.13, SystemTap 4.7, NetworkManager 1.40, samba 4.16.1.
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 nfv repository offers a set of packages for virtualization of network components, developed by the NFV (Network Functions Virtualization) SIG group.
The project has been placed under the auspices of the newly formed Rocky Enterprise Software Foundation (RESF), which is registered as a Public Benefits Corporation with no intention of making a profit. The organization is owned by Gregory Kurtzer, founder of CentOS, but management functions in accordance with the adopted charter are delegated to the board of directors, in which the community elects participants involved in the work on the project.
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.
Note: Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9.1 and AlmaLinux 9.1 were released a few hours ago, but news about them will be published later.
Source: opennet.ru