The Rocky Linux 9.0 distribution has been released, aimed at creating a free assembly of RHEL that can take the place of the classic CentOS. The release is marked as ready for production deployments. The distribution is fully binary compatible with Red Hat Enterprise Linux and can be used as a replacement for RHEL 9 and CentOS 9 Stream. Support for the Rocky Linux 9 branch will continue until May 31, 2032. Rocky Linux iso images prepared for x86_64, aarch64, ppc64le (POWER9) and s390x (IBM Z) architectures. Additionally, there are live builds with GNOME, KDE and Xfce desktops published for the x86_64 architecture.
As in the classic CentOS, the changes made to the Rocky Linux packages come down to getting rid of the Red Hat branding and removing RHEL-specific packages such as redhat-*, insights-client and subscription-manager-migration*. An overview of the list of changes in Rocky Linux 9 can be found in the RHEL 9 announcement. Among the changes specific to Rocky Linux is the delivery of the openldap-servers-2.4.59 package in a separate pluse repository. The NFV repository offers a set of packages for virtualization of network components developed by the NFV (Network Functions Virtualization) SIG group.
Rocky Linux 9 was also the first release built using the new Peridot build system, created by the project's developers, which supports repeatable builds, allowing any user to reproduce the packages provided in Rocky Linux and ensure that they do not contain hidden changes. Peridot can also be used as a tool to maintain and build individual distributions, or to maintain synchronized forks.
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. 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