CentOS replacement Rocky Linux appears

The Rocky Enterprise Software Foundation has released the final version of Rocky Linux 8.4. It is the first stable release of the Linux distribution, which started out of dissatisfaction with Red Hat’s delisting of CentOS.

The developers of Rocky Linux report that they have tested the OS enough to ensure the stability of the software for production systems. Rocky Linux 8.4 has been released for x86_64 and ARM64. Users can get free support through the Mattermost chat environmentthe IRC channel and the forums from Rocky Linux. Paid support is available through CIQ, the company of Gregory Kurtzer. He is also the initiator of Rocky Linux.

Kurtzer is also responsible for CentOS, the Linux distribution he launched in 2002 as CAOS Linux. In 2014, Red Hat became a major driving force behind the CentOS Project, but that company announced in late 2020 that it would discontinue CentOS as rebuilds of Red Hat Enterprise Linux and focus on CentOS Stream, which includes previews of RHEL.

Dissatisfied with that decision, Kurtzer Rocky started Linux. Like CentOS, it is a distro that uses the source code of Red Hat Enterprise Linux, so that users have a guarantee that applications will work for RHEL. Rocky Linux isn’t the only distribution launched to replace CentOS. In March it was announced that CloudLinux with AlmaLinux OS has the same goal.