Rocky Linux release attracts 80,000 downloads as ex-CentOS users mull choices
- Reference: 1625222826
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2021/07/02/rocky_linux_80000_downloads/
- Source link:
Both Rocky Linux and AlmaLinux are designed to be binary-compatible with Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), while also being free software, for those who can manage without Red Hat's support. Red Hat's CentOS used to fulfil this role, until the company declared that in future it would be only [1]CentOS Stream that previews rather than follows what will be in RHEL.
AlmaLinux, sponsored by CloudLinux, was first out of the gate with a [2]stable release at the end of March. Rocky Linux, a project led by CentOS co-founder Greg Kurtzer, took a little longer to reach general availability, perhaps because it was built from scratch, whereas the CentOS-based CloudLinux OS already existed.
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Another factor in the delay, according to the [4]Rocky Linux FAQ , was the effort put into governance. "If our only goal for Rocky Linux was to debrand and repackage RHEL, we would have been done much sooner. However, what we had to do differently is figure out how we could keep Rocky Linux in the hands of the community. Carefully devising this strategy ensures that Rocky Linux will never meet the same fate of CentOS," it says.
[5]
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The solution it came up with was to create the Rocky Enterprise Software Foundation (RESF) with a "community charter". According to the FAQ, "Rocky Linux will never be controlled, purchased, or otherwise influenced by a single entity or organization."
The AlmaLinux project came up with what seems a similar solution, creating the AlmaLinux Foundation, with board members including Igor Seletskiy, CEO of CloudLinux, Jesse Acklund from cPanel, and open source advocate Simon Phipps.
[7]
Despite appearing a little later, the Rocky Linux project has momentum. It [8]reported that "within 72 hours of launch, Rocky's assets have been downloaded nearly 70,000 times from our Tier0 mirror, served from Fastly – not counting the number of downloads from our mirrors, of which we have nearly 100 – and we count approximately 10,000 downloads of our torrent file." We note, though, that because of the mirrors it is not possible to get an accurate total count. Another indication of support is that Google has made a [9]customised Rocky Linux for installation on Google Compute Engine (GCE), and is now a "Principal Sponsor" of RESF. AlmaLinux is [10]also available on GCE but as a "community supported image" which means it is "not directly supported by Compute Engine." Microsoft has "signed on as a partner of RESF" and will ensure Rocky Linux availability on Azure.
[11]Systemd 249 release candidate includes better support for immutable OSes and provisioning images
[12]openSUSE leaps to 15.3 – now built with 'same binary packages' as SUSE Enterprise
[13]RHEL, RHEL, RHEL, fancy that: Rocky Linux would-be CentOS replacement hits RC1 milestone
[14]Shadow over Fedora 34 as maintainer of Java packages quits with some choice words for Red Hat and Eclipse
AlmaLinux has also been well received with mostly positive reviews from early adopters. This week the project released 8.4 stable for ARM64, assisted by Arm and tested by AWS on its ARM-based Graviton VM instances (Rocky also has an ARM build available). Similarly, it is impossible to be precise about the number of AlmaLinux downloads but a recent press statement spoke of "tens of thousands of downloads from its primary mirror site, plus an undetermined number from 133 other mirror sites around the world."
It's quite hard to pick a clear technical reason to pick one over the other... you now have two distributions continuing where there was one before but both rely on a parent who owes them nothing
That said, AlmaLinux does not seem to have attracted as big a community around it. The AlmaLinux chat server has 203 member in its general channel at the time of writing, versus Rocky Linux with 5,536 (both run on Mattermost servers). There is a sense that these two distributions are jostling for position. A [15]comment (registration required) on the AlmaLinux chat server says what many must be thinking: "What do I do for CentOS now: as a relative outsider, it's quite hard to pick a clear technical reason to pick one over the other... you now have two distributions continuing where there was one before but both rely on a parent who owes them nothing. And the 'community' that was there, such as it was, is now fractured. Hard to tell who will still be here five years from now."
Perhaps conscious that adoption decisions made today may stick for a long time, the projects are advertising. "We are about to start AlmaLinux ads – all sponsored by money from CloudLinux at this point," [16]said (registration required) Seletskiy. Asked why a FOSS project needs ads, he said: "If there are no user adoptions, commercial vendors will not support it, and then all the cool shit we would do – just wouldn't matter." Ads for Rocky Linux have also been appearing, from Ctrl IQ, a company of which Kurtzer is CEO, that [17]calls itself "the official founding support and services partner for Rocky Linux," though it also specialises in HPC (high-performance computing).
Some apparent AlmaLinux fans are taking other approaches, like the user [18]"Rabiton" who turned up on Reddit to question whether Rocky Linux is as community-spirited as it appears, claiming that "Rocky is for profit company... nothing prevents Greg from selling it when he decides he has enough." He also self-identified as "a sock puppet and I don't like community being taken for a ride."
Is Rocky Linux vulnerable to this accusation? Whereas the AlmaLinux OS Foundation is a 501(c)(6) non-profit entity, the RESF is a Public Benefits Corporation, which is a for-profit company though one obliged to focus on a positive social impact rather than just the interests of its shareholders.
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Kurtzer said this is not at odds with commitment to the community. "I own the RESF because I've gone down the shared ownership 501(c) path before with the Caos Foundation (the org that hosted CentOS) and within a couple of years, CentOS was manipulated out of the non-profit," [20]he said .
"I've seen other 501(c) entities created within the open source realm, some of them having better results than others. What I've learned was that simply being a non-profit is not a magic pill for honesty and integrity. So we decided to go with a PBC (Public Benefits Corporation) and be very clear that we are not motivated by profit, but rather public benefit."
He added: "Do I have to be the sole owner of the RESF? No, and at some point we will revisit this, as well as becoming a non-profit. How long did Linus Torvalds control and 'own' Linux? Did that stop you and others from using it? No."
The corporate structure matters less in open source than anywhere else because you can lift and shift, the ability to fork
In order to succeed long term, open-source projects need to have both sufficient community around them and an appropriate level of sponsorship and financial support; there are many routes to this goal and no single best way to achieve it. Amanda Brock, CEO of Open UK, an open source advocacy group, said: "In open source, the thought process is that the community has control because they can lift the code and fork... the corporate structure matters less in open source than anywhere else because you can lift and shift, the ability to fork."
This is the exact path that has now given rise to both Rocky Linux and AlmaLinux. When CentOS went along a path that many of its community disliked, the open-source licensing of RHEL enabled these other projects to form and succeed. Technically, these distributions are very alike and switching between them is easy, since both are binary compatible with RHEL.
As one Rocky user [21]said on Reddit , in response to the idea that Rocky Linux could be acquired: "Maybe it will and I'll switch to the next fork. If it does live as long as CentOS, I'll have about 20 years." ®
Get our [22]Tech Resources
[1] https://www.theregister.com/2020/12/09/centos_red_hat/
[2] https://www.theregister.com/2021/03/30/almalinux_project_issues_first_stable_release/
[3] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/oses&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2YN84H5dzqVGDJ3mpwPsIVwAAANU&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[4] https://rockylinux.org/faq/
[5] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/oses&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44YN84H5dzqVGDJ3mpwPsIVwAAANU&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[6] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/oses&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33YN84H5dzqVGDJ3mpwPsIVwAAANU&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[7] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/oses&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44YN84H5dzqVGDJ3mpwPsIVwAAANU&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[8] https://forums.rockylinux.org/t/community-update-june-2021/3260
[9] https://cloud.google.com/compute/docs/images/os-details#rocky_linux
[10] https://cloud.google.com/compute/docs/images#almalinux
[11] https://www.theregister.com/2021/06/16/systemd_249_release_candidate/
[12] https://www.theregister.com/2021/06/04/opensuse_leaps_to_153_now/
[13] https://www.theregister.com/2021/05/04/rocky_linux_wouldbe_centos_replacement/
[14] https://www.theregister.com/2021/04/27/fedora_34_released_fabio_valentini_quits/
[15] https://chat.almalinux.org/almalinux/pl/5j5gjyc7tpbztyz4p3qkumrs1r
[16] https://chat.almalinux.org/almalinux/pl/wdy1srf9opdni8cj8k7thif7pw
[17] https://ctrliq.com/
[18] https://www.reddit.com/user/Rabiton/
[19] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/oses&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33YN84H5dzqVGDJ3mpwPsIVwAAANU&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[20] https://forums.rockylinux.org/t/community-update-june-2021/3260/4
[21] https://www.reddit.com/r/CentOS/comments/o747n9/disaffected_centos_users_are_you_switching_to/h3albdf
[22] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Scientific Linux etc
I actually used White Box Linux when I needed a RHEL clone, but it was a one-man band (or nearly), so after a year or two its maintainer gave up, and recommended CentOS, to which I moved.
Scientific Linux was a bit different, it survived until fairly recently, and the reason is it was not just a RHEL clone, but bundled software that RHEL did not have (I think OpenAFS support was one notable addition).
Wasn't Yellow Dog another of them? I think what finished off the others was that Red Hat took Centos under its wing so it had the benefit of being the "official" Red Hat alternative.
Yellow Dog was focused on the PowerPC architecture, and had a brief period of popularity for repurposing Apple kit and when PlayStation 3 consoles were used to build supercomputing clusters. That popularity disappeared when interest in using PS3s waned and Apple dropped the PowerPC architecture in favour of x86.
Totally off topic
But, could I just thank you Doctor Syntax for giving me an ear worm of that bloody shit record by Yellowdog called One More Night.
Sorry but...
...RedHat have poisoned the well. Next move will be away from them, not to another pretender.
Re: Sorry but...
Might well be. I hope not. Time will tell but if there's a way i'd stay away from RHEL or anything that depends on it. Personal computers and mainframes have different needs . I can switch distros anytime on my desktops .. but on a mainframe , the implications are enormous. It's not a small matter. Can any fork be trusted to stay the course ? I'd say give it 5 years , then if it's stable, commit to it. But before that , i have a feeling the odds are against any of them being a good choice. Just a feeling.
Another indication of support is that Google has made a customised Rocky Linux
Not sure that this is an indication of "support" if they've made their own version that they can control. If it was lacking something, they could have just submitted it as a contribution to the project, rather than going "right, we'll have that and slap in a load of our own stuff".
Horses for courses, but twins
Given their backgrounds, I'm expecting AlmaLinux to be popular in the webserving/VPS role, and Rocky on the HPC/Scientific/hardware integration role.
Re: Horses for courses, and Twins into Deep Open See Phishing
Given their backgrounds, I'm expecting AlmaLinux to be popular in the webserving/VPS role, and Rocky on the HPC/Scientific/hardware integration role. ..... ScissorHands
I agree, ScissorHands, and Rocky Linux is a perfect candidate for CHAOS* Control which is EMPowering and Tends towards Trends that are Practically Almighty and Virtually Absolute.
Red Hat's CentOS used to fulfil this role, until the company declared that in future it would be only CentOS Stream that previews rather than follows what will be in RHEL.
That has CentOS hosting rather than drivering Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) which is a very convenient in-house AIdDevelopment for Future Systems Drivers .... Core AWEsome Source Ore Providers ..... Mega MetaDataBase Mine Suppliers with Registered Addresses and Quirky Handles everywhere they are landed to share considerably greater news than all are accustomed to and make comfortable with.
* Clouds Hosting Advanced Operating Systems
Ah yes CentOS the linux distro for those who like their packages years out of date. Personally I'm glad that stagnant pool has gone. Oh no, wait, now its spawned many puddles (sigh)
"Ah yes CentOS the linux distro for those who like their packages years out of date. Personally I'm glad that stagnant pool has gone."
How many disparate users do your clusters support? How do you handle continuity of service while upgrading to new hardware?
@Munchausen and all including OP
Clustery options also include Springdale Linux. This RHEL clone dates from before Scientific Linux and is used at IAS and Princeton and a number of other academic sites.
https://researchcomputing.princeton.edu/systems/tiger
Springdale also works fine on my crappy old refurbished laptop. Cool isn't it? Boot iso only then rest of install over the wire.
PS: does anyone know what Fermilab and CERN are doing after the CentOS discontinuation? Free RHEL licences or what?
PPS: no mention of Oracle Linux? Like it is a total non-person? It is still there.
This will be a show-stopper (or delayer) for some. From the Rocky Linux 8.4 release notes:
"A Note about Secure Boot
We know many of you depend on Secure Boot. It is a non-trivial process to get Secure Boot for a new OS. This process is underway and the shim-review process should begin very soon. Rocky Linux version 8.4 will initially be released without Secure Boot support enabled by default. However, once the proper packages have been built and signed, another set of ISOs for Rocky Linux version 8.4 will be released with Secure Boot support available."
Secure Boot - both Alma and Rocky are in the space of having to wait for shim packages etc. to be signed by Microsoft.
Alma's shim was signed before they released 8.4.
I had no problem building an AlmaLinux 8.4 server from their released .iso with secure boot enabled.
Two of the three names posted for AlmaLinux make me think I’d probably check out Rocky Linux first, if I had a need to get off CentOS which luckily I don’t any more.
Can you elaborate, AC?
We shifted some workloads to RHEL, others to Amazon Linux. Work were happy to pay and wanted the certainty, so who am I to argue?
"What I've learned was that simply being a non-profit is not a magic pill for honesty and integrity"
Ain't that right, Nominet ?
The cynic in me wonders if (commercial offering) Cloud Linux have made Alma Linux out of the goodness of their hearts, or if they've got some sort of ulterior motive. Mind you, at least they have form in taking the RHEL source and making their own distro.
On either distro option I'm one of the many wondering which way to jump. At work we've even looked at some other commercial options, but there's usually some sort of issue/gotcha which makes it not so obvious.
Jump to Debian or Ubuntu and leave RPM Hell behind? :)
‘Rocky’, eh?
Which Rocky? Frank ‘n ‘furter or flying squirrel? Admittedly, the thought of Boris, Natasha, and Fearless Leader trying to steal the secrets behind the Linux kernel has some appeal. As does the idea of Bullwinkle booting up a server.
Yes, I’m a fan of early 1960s cartoons. No, not a fan of idiot Italian boxers. Rocky the squirrel should have bitten the, ahem, Italian Stallion somewhere painful. I pity the fool who dares to steal the name from the squirrel.
In the early days of CentOS there were alternatives such as Whitebox and Scientific Linux if I recall the names correctly. There was eventually a kind of survival of the fittest and CentOS eclipsed the other two. I expect the same will happen with Rocky and AlmaLinux.