As you may also remember, shortly after Red Hat announced that the company is shifting its focus from CentOS Linux to CentOS Stream, Co-Founder of CentOS, Gregory Kurtzer announced that they started working on a CentOS alternative, Rocky Linux. Now the Rocky Linux team announces that the first release may be ready for 2021’s second quarter. The company also stated that they will be releasing the timeline soon.
Timeline for the delivery of the following:
- Build systems and infrastructure readiness
- Automatic package build infrastructures
- When the testing package repository will be made public
- Installer testing readiness
- ETA for length of time needed for community testing
- Release candidate availability
According to the announcement, over the past three weeks, here is some of the progress made:
Infrastructure
- We have selected and vetted auditing, logging, and user account management tooling.
- Amazon Web Services (AWS):
- The team selected AWS as the primary build platform for development of Rocky Linux. AWS was chosen primarily to protect the integrity of the software supply chain for Rocky Linux.
- Unfortunately, donated hardware and rack space isn’t sufficient to meet our supply chain integrity needs.
- Traditional physical hardware separate from our production build environment will still be necessary, and we expect a large portion of our infrastructure will exist outside of AWS for the purposes of business continuity, cost, and platform agnosticity.
- We have outlined an infrastructure to best secure and facilitate our engineering efforts using multiple VPCs, subnets, and regions for high availability.
- Data Centers:
- We are negotiating with several data center providers for the secure hosting of our physical infrastructure.
- After we have our physical infrastructure provider solidified, we will reach back out to those that have offered to donate hardware .
- Discussions with the Oregon State University Open Source Lab regarding resources are in the works.
Release Engineering and Packaging
- The build process for Rocky Linux will use Koji and MBS.
- We are developing scripts and build tools to create a pipeline that allows pulling sources, debranding, and building through Koji and Mock.
- The progress of proof of concepts and processes utilized by the Rocky Linux build process, including all errors and dependencies, is being documented in the wiki.
Security
- The Security team has drafted a Data Classification Policy, which will be made available for public comment pending review.
- Groups, members, and permissions structures for the build infrastructure have been laid out for review and evaluation.
- In parallel with the infrastructure team, we have architected and designed AWS network and security topologies aligned with best practices and security standards.
- Work has started on OpenSCAP documents for popular STIGs.
- Plans are being made with the goal of Rocky Linux becoming FIPS compliant.
FAQ
What is the latest version of Rocky Linux?
The latest version in Rocky Linux 8 series is 8.7 which was released on 14 November 2022, and in 9 series is 9.1 released on 26 November 2022.
How long will Rocky Linux be supported?
Rocky Linux 8.X versions will be supported until 2029 and Rocky Linux 9.X versions will be supported until 2032.
Is Rocky Linux free?
Yes, Rocky Linux is free and open-source software. It is released under the GNU General Public License.
Is Rocky Linux lightweight?
Rocky Linux is designed to be lightweight and minimalistic, it is built to be a drop-in replacement for Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) and it uses the same packaging, management, and update tools. It aims to be a fast, stable, and secure platform for enterprise use, so it is not as lightweight as other Linux distributions such as Arch Linux or Gentoo, but it is still considered a lightweight distribution when compared to others that are designed for enterprise use.
Who owns Rocky Linux?
Rocky Linux is owned and developed by the Rocky Linux Project, which is a community-driven and open-source project. The project is led by Gregory Kurtzer, who is also the founder of the CentOS project.
Is Rocky Linux same as RHEL?
Rocky Linux is similar to Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) in many ways, as it is designed to be a drop-in replacement for RHEL and uses the same packaging, management, and update tools. It aims to be fully compatible with RHEL and to provide the same level of performance, stability, and security as RHEL.
Is Rocky Linux same as CentOS?
Rocky Linux and CentOS are similar in many ways, but Rocky Linux is a new project that aims to fill the gap left by the discontinuation of CentOS and it has some different goals and directions.
Is Rocky Linux good for servers?
Rocky Linux is designed for enterprise use and as a drop-in replacement for Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), so it can be a good choice for servers. It aims to provide the same level of performance, stability, and security as RHEL and uses the same packaging, management, and update tools.
Does Rocky Linux have a desktop environment?
Yes, Rocky Linux comes with a desktop environment, it ships with the KDE Plasma desktop environment by default, but it also provides other options like GNOME and Xfce that can be installed via the package manager. The desktop environment is just one of the many packages that can be installed on Rocky Linux, so users can choose to install a different desktop environment or none at all, depending on their needs.
Can Rocky Linux be installed on a virtual machine?
Yes, Rocky Linux can be installed on a virtual machine. A virtual machine (VM) allows you to run an operating system within another operating system. This means that you can install Rocky Linux on a virtual machine and run it on top of your current operating system, without the need to replace it or partition your hard drive. To install Rocky Linux on VMWare, you can refer to our article: How to install a Linux Distro on VMware Workstation