Rocky Linux, the open-source enterprise operating system designed to be 100% bug-for-bug compatible with Red Hat Enterprise Linux, has released its latest version, 9.3, on November 15, 2023.
Rocky Linux aims to provide a stable and secure platform for users who want to migrate from CentOS or other RHEL-based distributions. Rocky Linux 9 will be supported through May 2032, with general support until May 2027 and security support through May 2032
Some of the new features and improvements in Rocky Linux 9.3 include:
- Support for PowerPC64le architecture: Images for PowerPC64le systems are now available, expanding Rocky Linux’s reach to a wider range of hardware platforms.
- Updated system toolchain: The system toolchain has been updated to the latest version, providing improved performance and stability.
- Updated performance tools and debuggers: Several performance tools and debuggers have been updated to provide better insights into system performance and identify potential issues.
- Updated compiler toolsets: The compiler toolsets have been updated to support the latest programming languages and development tools.
- Security enhancements: Several security vulnerabilities have been addressed in this release, ensuring that your systems remain protected from the latest threats.
- Updated versions of popular packages such as Redis 7, NodeJS 20, and Apache 2.4.57
- Enhanced security features such as OpenSCAP 1.3.8, SCAP 0.1.69, SEtools 4.4.2
- Introduction of further improvements to support the Extended Master Secret (EMS) extension (RFC 7627) required by the FIPS-140-3 standard for all TLS 1.2 connections.
Breaking Changes
- Azure images for Rocky Linux 9.3 will be published under a new publisher name:
resf, instead of the previous long, unreadable name. These images are not published yet, but should be available by the end of the week and will be accompanied by another news post. - The optional guest-agents group, previously available within both the Minimal Install and Custom Operating System base environments in anaconda, is no-longer available for selection as additional software for those environments. Consult release notes for more details.
- The KDE live image for Rocky Linux 9.3 had problems during the testing phase. For this, we will be providing the older 9.2 images until we can build and provide a working image.
How to upgrade to Rocky Linux 9.3
Current users of Rocky Linux 9 can upgrade to 9.3 from the terminal via dnf update, or from the desktop with GNOME Software, KDE Discover, etc.
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