Rocky Linux is the latest option available to all the disenchanted CentOS users whose preferred distribution was abruptly terminated in December 2020. Lead by CentOS founder Gregory Kurtzer, the project has announced its first release candidate for the upcoming version 8.3. for x86_64 and AArch64 architectures.
Alternative for CentOS
“This release is the culmination of months of hard work from every corner of the community. What started in a comment thread on a Red Hat blog in December of 2020 grew to a community over ten thousand strong in a Slack channel in a matter of days. From there you pulled together to build teams around infrastructure, branding, website, development, special interest groups, and more. By February of 2021, over 80 million hits had been recorded across various social media platforms and news sites,” said the announcement.
CentOS founder Gregory Kurtzer talked about Rocky Linux RC1, saying,
“Rocky Linux is a community enterprise operating system designed to be 100% bug-for-bug compatible with America’s top enterprise Linux distribution now that its downstream partner has shifted direction. It is under intensive development by the community. Release Candidate 1 is now available for testing. Contributors are asked to reach out using the communication options offered on this site.”
The Rocky Linux default desktop is GNOME. Compared to standard GNOME desktop elements, you can find new features in Rocky Linux.
- kernel 4.18.0-240.22.1.el8 (this kernel is EOL, but still supported by Red Hat)
- Based on RHEL 8.3
- GNOME 3.32
- sqlite 3.26
- virt-what 1.18
- samba 4.12.3
- dnf 4.2
- rpm 4.14
- glibc 2.28
To download Rocky Linux RC1
You can download it here. It is possible to send your interest to this e-mail address. If you encountered a bug while testing the release candidate, first, you should create an account using Rocky Linux Account Services, then head over to Bugzilla server to report any bugs.
It is one of the good options for those who look for a CentOS replacement that does offer commercial support. You can also test AlmaLimux with CloudLinux backing it. AlmaLinux OS 8.4 Beta has been released for testing.