Following the recent Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9.4 release, Rocky Linux, a popular enterprise-level Linux OS, has officially released its 9.4 version. It comes packed with updates and features to improve user experience across cloud and container platforms.
Rocky Linux 9.4 Highlights
Rocky 9.4 introduces a significant update in image building. Most images now use KIWI, a new image builder from openSUSE designed to replace the older ImageFactory system. However, a few, like Vagrant-VBox and OCP-Base, still utilize the old system.
What is the idea of all this? In short, the new KIWI tool aims to streamline the building process, making updates more frequent and consistent across all cloud providers.
And speaking of cloud providers, there’s an important update for users deploying Rocky on Microsoft Azure. The publisher account has changed, rendering previous images deprecated. Users are encouraged to switch to the new account by following the guidelines provided on the Rocky Linux forums.
Additionally, Rocky Linux continues to be available at no cost via the Azure Community Gallery.
Regarding the new features and security enhancements, Rocky Linux 9.4 brings:
- Image Builder: Users can now specify custom mount points and select from different partitioning modes such as auto-lvm, lvm, and raw.
- Security: The release includes several security enhancements, including SELinux userspace release 3.6, Keylime server components for enhanced TPM-based security, and customizable TLS/SSL encryption settings for Rsyslog.
This release also updates several key software components crucial for developers:
- Languages and Databases: Updated versions of Python 3.12, Ruby 3.3, PHP 8.2, Nginx 1.20, MariaDB 10.11, and PostgreSQL 16 are now available. Git and Git LFS have also been upgraded to newer versions.
- Compilers and Development Tools: LLVM 17, Rust 1.75, Go 1.21, GCC Toolsets, and more have also received version bumps.
Lastly, the release notes mention several deprecations, including certain Node.js, .NET, and OpenJDK versions, which will not receive further updates after their end of life in 2024. Users are advised to transition to supported versions to continue receiving updates.
Those operating on any Rocky Linux 9.x version can seamlessly upgrade to 9.4 by executing the command sudo dnf -y upgrade. However, Rocky 8 users are recommended to perform a fresh installation, as no official direct upgrade path is available from 8 to 9.4.
Nevertheless, if you still use the 8-series version, we have a guide to follow for the upgrade, but we remind you that you can use it entirely at your own risk.
Rocky Linux 9.4 is available for four architectures: Intel/AMD (x86_64), ARM64 (aarch64), IBM PowerPC (ppc64le), and IBM Z (s390x). The installation ISO images can be downloaded from the project’s website.
Refer to the announcement or review the release notes for more information about all changes.
