Rocky Linux 9, codenamed “Blue Onyx”, is here with a host of new security, application and networking features. The capability in version 9 taking center stage is the availability of all the build chain infrastructure tools that developers would need to pick up Rocky Linux to extend or reproduce the operating system, should they desire to do something independently of the community or any upstream supporting organization. As a result, Rocky Linux v9 delivers a supported enterprise Linux platform for the next decade.

Rocky Linux uses only open source tools to deliver a completely reproducible operating system assuring there’s no repeat of the CentOS end-of-life issues.

Data made available by Fedora from the Extra Packages for Enterprise Linux (EPEL) usage metrics indicate a rapid rise in Rocky Linux usage among those with EPEL enabled. Specifically, the data show usage of Rocky Linux surpassing that of CentOS Stream, AlmaLinux and even the RHEL. This is depicted graphically, courtesy of Michael Larabel at Photonix, where the data show utilization numbers continuing to rise, outpacing all other Enterprise Linux variants.

Rocky Linux 9 was built with a community-developed and open-source cloud native build system called Peridot, built in Golang. Peridot was used to build Rocky Linux 9 for the x86_64, aarch64, s390x and ppc64le architectures.

A primary  goal in developing the new build system was assuring that new versions of Rocky can be released within one week after each Red Hat Enterprise Linux new version release. The source code for the build system is available here, and soon it will be easily installable via Helm Charts for anyone to leverage.