Three years after its major previous release, RHEL 9, Red Hat, a leading enterprise Linux provider, has officially released its Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 10, positioning it as the strategic anchor for hybrid-cloud and AI-driven operations.
The big novelty is Lightspeed, an AI-powered assistant that pops up right at the command line. Users can type plain-English queries—think, “Why did my SSH service just croak?”—and receive context-aware remediation steps drawn from decades of Red Hat support data.
Security, too, gets a serious overhaul. RHEL 10 is the first enterprise Linux distribution to bake in Federal Information Processing Standards (FIPS) compliance for post-quantum cryptography.
In other words, enterprises can start defending today against “harvest-now-decrypt-later” tactics that future quantum computers could exploit. The release ships with quantum-resistant algorithms for TLS and RPM package signing, allowing CISOs to stay ahead of tomorrow’s cryptographic curveballs.
On the deployment front, and more specifically, containers, Red Hat introduces a new image mode. Instead of treating the base OS and the application stack as separate concerns, administrators can now build, patch, and roll back both in one container-native workflow.
The approach slashes configuration drift and lets DevOps teams stamp out golden images with the same toolchains they already use for microservices. Complementing this, Red Hat Insights adds image-builder package recommendations, nudging teams toward optimal dependency sets before the first pod ever hits production.
Moreover, RHEL 10 also stretches its legs in several forward-looking directions:
- Security Select Add-On. Enterprises may request fixes for up to ten CVEs per year, fine-tuning patch strategy without waiting on broader errata cycles.
- Cloud-ready out of the box. Pre-tuned images land simultaneously on AWS, Google Cloud, and Microsoft Azure, so spinning up an enterprise-grade OS is now a matter of minutes.
- An extension marketplace. Admins can discover community-backed tools—Podman Desktop, for example—through a curated repository that checks provenance and signatures.
- Hardware acceleration for AI. Partner-validated builds target next-gen GPUs and silicon specifically optimized for inference and training workloads.
- A RISC-V developer preview. In collaboration with SiFive, Red Hat offers early access to the HiFive P550 platform, giving tinkerers a low-risk runway to explore the open-ISA ecosystem.
For customers ready to try it, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10 is generally available today via the Red Hat Customer Portal, with no-cost downloads through Red Hat’s developer program.
Of course, production deployments still require a subscription, but the foundational tooling—including tutorials, SDKs, and sample workloads—is freely accessible.
For more information, see the announcement or the release notes, which provide a detailed overview of the novelties that RHEL 10 offers.
