HPC
Rock(y) a bye Centos: Is Rocky Linux the Centos Replacement?
July 30, 2021
4 min read
Rocky Linux
By now it’s no secret that Centos, as we know it, is on its way out there door. Red Hat announced in December 2020 that it will be shifting its focus from Centos to Centos Stream. The announcement came as a surprise to the Centos community and many took to social media to protest.
There has always been growing concern that Centos was a downstream fork of RHEL and that Red Hat would eventually change some of its core tenets or eventually phase it out, after taking it over in 2014. We guess it was to be expected since the same was done to Red Hat Linux. The writing was probably on the wall a long time ago,
Never-the-less, the community was shocked when the announcement came. Since taking it over. Red Hat has made some core changes to Centos, taking it away from what it had originally set out to do. However, its popularity, impact and reach goes across the globe. Many major companies have not only come to use Centos but depend on it. From companies such as Toyota, GoDaddy, PayPal, Rackspace, eBay, Disney, Verizon and many other enterprise technology companies and individuals.
Many CentOS users feel betrayed and are looking for a way out: In comes Rocky Linux.
Gregory Kurtzer, Centos Co-founder was just as shocked as anyone else
"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."
But not only was Kurtzer shocked to hear the news he was inspired from the protest and, in community-driven fashion, answered the call, announcing he would create his own RHEL clone and CentOS replacement: Rocky Linux.
"In response to this unexpected shift, I am proud to announce the launch of a new project, Rocky Linux, in honor of my late CentOS co-founder Rocky McGough. I've started calling on participation from the global community and quickly assembling a team to further our founding commitment of ensuring seamless continuity of business operations for companies running CentOS 8 far beyond 2021. In just one day, we've seen an overwhelming response from thousands of supporters eager to join the project."
“Our goal is to maintain Rocky Linux as a community-oriented distribution by the community, for the community. To do this, we are establishing the necessary organizational structures to ensure that Rocky Linux remains in the hands of the community. We want to make sure that it’s not possible for what happened to CentOS to happen to Rocky Linux.”
It turns out that Kurtzer's decision has been a popular one. Besides quickly building up an army of hundreds of contributors for the project, Rocky Linux 8.4 – which follows the May 18 release of Red Hat's RHEL 8.4 – was downloaded at least 10,000 times within half a day of its release.
. . . . . . So it looks like Rocky Linux just may be here to stay!
Release & Support
You can download the Rocky Linux 8.4 release candidate and test it, if you wish. For the near future, it is expected to have a stable release, which will be supported through the community.
There are no options for enterprise support, but the community is basically documenting everything and has already set up mailing lists and a chat option. You can find the current status in the wiki.
Features.
Since Rocky Linux has a very strong focus on the community, it is building an ecosystem around Rocky Linux. You are not only getting the distribution, but teams that work on documentation, setting up community infrastructure, package stuff and who also want to open source all the knowledge and code. You can find lots of nice guides for several scenarios in the Rocky Linux documentation.
Installation
The installation of Rocky Linux works exactly the same as for CentOS Stream, RHEL or Alma Linux. You can download the minimal, DVD and boot ISO or aarch64 images from the website.
After the initial boot of an ISO, you will get the Anaconda Installer, which will guide you through the installation. Some basic hints here:
- Network must be configured to "Connect on boot"
- Root account does not need a password (root locked)
- Package selection defaults to "Server with GUI"
Other than that Rocky Linux is pretty straightforward.
Rocky Linux 8.4 is now available with EMLI and all Exxact Solutions
Rocky Linux has now been officially released, and it is featured in our Exxact Solutions. You can explore some of our solutions here.
Have any questions? Contact Exxact Today
HPC
Rock(y) a bye Centos: Is Rocky Linux the Centos Replacement?
July 30, 20214 min read
Rocky Linux
By now it’s no secret that Centos, as we know it, is on its way out there door. Red Hat announced in December 2020 that it will be shifting its focus from Centos to Centos Stream. The announcement came as a surprise to the Centos community and many took to social media to protest.
There has always been growing concern that Centos was a downstream fork of RHEL and that Red Hat would eventually change some of its core tenets or eventually phase it out, after taking it over in 2014. We guess it was to be expected since the same was done to Red Hat Linux. The writing was probably on the wall a long time ago,
Never-the-less, the community was shocked when the announcement came. Since taking it over. Red Hat has made some core changes to Centos, taking it away from what it had originally set out to do. However, its popularity, impact and reach goes across the globe. Many major companies have not only come to use Centos but depend on it. From companies such as Toyota, GoDaddy, PayPal, Rackspace, eBay, Disney, Verizon and many other enterprise technology companies and individuals.
Many CentOS users feel betrayed and are looking for a way out: In comes Rocky Linux.
Gregory Kurtzer, Centos Co-founder was just as shocked as anyone else
"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."
But not only was Kurtzer shocked to hear the news he was inspired from the protest and, in community-driven fashion, answered the call, announcing he would create his own RHEL clone and CentOS replacement: Rocky Linux.
"In response to this unexpected shift, I am proud to announce the launch of a new project, Rocky Linux, in honor of my late CentOS co-founder Rocky McGough. I've started calling on participation from the global community and quickly assembling a team to further our founding commitment of ensuring seamless continuity of business operations for companies running CentOS 8 far beyond 2021. In just one day, we've seen an overwhelming response from thousands of supporters eager to join the project."
“Our goal is to maintain Rocky Linux as a community-oriented distribution by the community, for the community. To do this, we are establishing the necessary organizational structures to ensure that Rocky Linux remains in the hands of the community. We want to make sure that it’s not possible for what happened to CentOS to happen to Rocky Linux.”
It turns out that Kurtzer's decision has been a popular one. Besides quickly building up an army of hundreds of contributors for the project, Rocky Linux 8.4 – which follows the May 18 release of Red Hat's RHEL 8.4 – was downloaded at least 10,000 times within half a day of its release.
. . . . . . So it looks like Rocky Linux just may be here to stay!
Release & Support
You can download the Rocky Linux 8.4 release candidate and test it, if you wish. For the near future, it is expected to have a stable release, which will be supported through the community.
There are no options for enterprise support, but the community is basically documenting everything and has already set up mailing lists and a chat option. You can find the current status in the wiki.
Features.
Since Rocky Linux has a very strong focus on the community, it is building an ecosystem around Rocky Linux. You are not only getting the distribution, but teams that work on documentation, setting up community infrastructure, package stuff and who also want to open source all the knowledge and code. You can find lots of nice guides for several scenarios in the Rocky Linux documentation.
Installation
The installation of Rocky Linux works exactly the same as for CentOS Stream, RHEL or Alma Linux. You can download the minimal, DVD and boot ISO or aarch64 images from the website.
After the initial boot of an ISO, you will get the Anaconda Installer, which will guide you through the installation. Some basic hints here:
- Network must be configured to "Connect on boot"
- Root account does not need a password (root locked)
- Package selection defaults to "Server with GUI"
Other than that Rocky Linux is pretty straightforward.
Rocky Linux 8.4 is now available with EMLI and all Exxact Solutions
Rocky Linux has now been officially released, and it is featured in our Exxact Solutions. You can explore some of our solutions here.
Have any questions? Contact Exxact Today
