Rocky Linux has recently unveiled the release of Rocky Linux 9.4, a distribution aimed at providing a free RHEL alternative to replace the classic CentOS. The binary distribution is compatible with Red Hat Enterprise Linux and can serve as a replacement for RHEL 9.4 and CentOS 4 Stream. The Rocky Linux 9 branch will receive support until May 31, 2032. Installation ISO-images of Rocky Linux are available for architectures x86_64, Aarch64, PPC64le, and S390X (IBM Z). Live-assemblies with desktop environments like GNOME, KDE, Cinnamon, and XFCE are also available for x86_64 architecture.
Incorporating features from classic CentOS, Rocky Linux includes changes to remove the RED HAT brand and specific packages for RHEL, such as Redhat-*, Insights-Client, and Subscription-Manager-Migration*. Rocky Linux introduces new packages like Openldap-servers-2.6.6 in a separate repository. Additional repositories like nfv (Network Functions Virtualization), CRB (Code Ready Builder for PowerToLS), rt (real-time packets), high availability, ResilientStorage, sap, and saphana (SAP HANA packages) are also supported. An experimental package Kernel-Uki provides a unified image for Secureboot.
The source packets for Rocky Linux 9.4 are sourced from the Openla repository, a collaboration between Openla, Oracle, and SUSE. The development processes have been adapted following the cessation of RED HAT’s practice of placing the initial RPM packet texts from RHEL in the public repository git.centos.org.