Rocky Linux

Rocky Linux Logo

Rocky Linux is a brand new, released free Linux distribution. It is based on Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), and is aiming to replace the CentOS distribution. The ultimate goal is the same as CentOS, which is to provide a community-supported, production-grade enterprise operating system to everyone.

It was founded and created by the CentOS co-founder Gregory Kurtzer, who said:

I was just as shocked as the rest of the community with the news from Red Hat. When I started CentOS 16 years ago, I never imagined the incredible reach and impact it would have around the world on individuals and companies who rely on CentOS for Linux distribution.

Details will be placed on this wiki soon on how to install it, how to set many common services up, and what to expect from the OS.

When will it be released?

IT HAS ALREADY MEGA BEEN RELEASED!

Technical details

Developers	Community (The Rocky Linux Foundation)
OS family	Linux
Source model	Open source
Release date	April 30, 2021
Update method	DNF
Package manager	RPM
User interface	GNOME 3
License	BSD license and others
Language	Multilingual
Platforms	x86-64

Why use Rocky?

Red Hat has decided to reduce the promised end-of-life of CentOS 8 from 2029 to December 2021. This is a very big problem as servers that were designed to run CentOS 8 until the EOL date of 2029 (and possibly beyond) have now been left in the dust and will possibly be left without updates for several months or maybe even years as server migration is a long process that can take a lot of time and resources. Ironically, those who stayed on CentOS 7 are actually better off, as CentOS 7 still has the planned EOL date of 2024.

CentOS Stream, the "future" of CentOS (in Red Hat's words), is essentially a beta test of the next RHEL distribution, which means that, in order to have the reliability of RHEL, you must cough up the dough and pay for RHEL as CentOS Stream will not have that reliability.

There is nothing wrong with a company wanting to charge for their product's proven reliability, but to go ahead and reduce the promised EOL date of an OS by 8 years without any announcement or warning is an unacceptable slap to the face to the userbase and community who rely on CentOS to power their production servers.