Rocky Linux is an open-source enterprise operating system designed to be 100% bug-for-bug compatible with Red Hat Enterprise Linux®. It is under intensive development by the community.

Rocky Linux is a Linux distribution developed by Rocky Enterprise Software Foundation. It is intended to be a downstream, complete binary-compatible release using the Red Hat Enterprise Linux operating system source code.

Repository: git.rockylinux.org
Package manager: RPM (DNF), Flatpak — graphical front-ends: GNOME Software, dnfdragora
License: GPL and various free software licenses, plus proprietary firmware files
Initial release: 21 June 2021; 10 months ago
Developer: Rocky Enterprise Software Foundation
Latest release: 8.5 “Green Obsidian” / 15 November 2021; 5 months ago
Default user interfaces: GNOME Shell, Bash

Founder Gregory Kurtzer

Started by CentOS co-founder and Rocky Linux founder Gregory Kurtzer, CIQ is now officially offering support services for Rocky Linux. According to Kurtzer, CIQ will be a one-stop resource for Rocky Linux users.

History

It all started with a blog comment.

On December 8, 2020, Red Hat announced that they would discontinue development of CentOS, which has been a production-ready downstream version of Red Hat Enterprise Linux, in favor of a newer upstream development variant of that operating system known as “CentOS Stream”. In response, original founder of CentOS, Gregory Kurtzer, announced via a comment on the CentOS website that he would again start a project to achieve the original goals of CentOS. It’s name was chosen as a tribute to early CentOS co-founder Rocky McGaugh. By December 12, the code repository of Rocky Linux had become the top-trending repository on GitHub.

On December 22, 2020, Rocky Linux announced that the target for an initial release was anywhere between March and May of 2021. On January 20, 2021, it was announced that a test repository would be made available to the public by the end of February, and a release candidate was on target for the end of March 2021. However, that date was slightly pushed back, and on April 30, 2021, the first release candidate was officially released. The second release candidate, of version 8.4, the last before the stable release, was released on June 4, 2021. On June 21, 2021, the stable release of Rocky Linux 8.4 was released, with the code name “Green Obsidian”.
Organization

The Rocky Linux project is hosted by the Rocky Enterprise Software Foundation (RESF).

Rock solid, no matter the use-case.

Stable, production ready Linux

Rocky Linux rebuilds sources directly from RHEL®, so you can bet your best dollar that you’ll have a super stable experience, no matter the use-case.

• Production Ready – Rocky Linux is enterprise-ready, providing solid stability with regular updates and a 10-year support lifecycle, all at no cost.
• Community Supported – The community, sponsors, and partners have invested with long-term commitments to ensure the project stays with the community.
• Easy Migration – Migrate from other Enterprise Linux distributions without sweating it. We provide an easy-to-use migration script, free of charge.

Downloads

Download the official release of Rocky Linux from one of our trusted mirrors.

If you need professional assistance configuring your deployment, you can use our commercial support to help get you up and running.

Key Terms:

• Enterprise Linux
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• Rock Linux
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• Rock solid no matter the use-case
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• Stable production ready Linux
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• the community way