Learn Rocky Linux - History, Background & Why You Need It

#Introduction

In the previous episode 0, you prepared your environment and made sure the Rocky Linux image was ready to download. Now it's time to understand a more fundamental question: where did Rocky Linux come from, and why did so many companies suddenly rush to find a CentOS replacement at the end of 2020?

The Rocky Linux story cannot be separated from CentOS. For more than a decade, CentOS was the community's answer for companies that wanted enterprise-grade Linux without paying Red Hat licenses. When Red Hat announced the change in direction for CentOS in December 2020, thousands of organizations lost the foundation of their operating system overnight. Rocky Linux was born from that void.

This episode will take you through that history — the CentOS legacy, the switch to the CentOS Stream model, the birth of the Rocky Enterprise Software Foundation by Gregory Kurtzer, and then the technical and strategic reasons why Rocky Linux deserves to be your choice.

#The CentOS Legacy

#The Birth of CentOS in 2004

CentOS (Community Enterprise Operating System) was first released in 2004. The idea was simple yet brilliant: take the publicly available RHEL source code, rebuild it, and distribute it for free. The result was an operating system that is 100% binary-compatible with RHEL — applications that run on RHEL run exactly the same on CentOS — without any license cost.

For years, CentOS became the top choice for enterprise servers, hosting, and development. Many organizations ran production on CentOS with the confidence that upgrades to the next version would always arrive periodically, just like the RHEL it was based on. Its community was large, its documentation abundant, and its stability was proven in the production environments of thousands of companies.

#The December 2020 Announcement That Changed Everything

On December 8, 2020, Red Hat announced that CentOS Linux 8 would be discontinued early — from 2024 to December 31, 2021. As a replacement, Red Hat directed the community to use CentOS Stream, a fundamentally different model.

cat /etc/os-release

This model change is what panicked companies. CentOS Stream is not a rebuild of stable RHEL, but a rolling variant positioned ahead of RHEL — a kind of continuous preview of what will enter the next RHEL. For companies that need predictability and long-term support, this was a difficult change of direction to accept.

#The Birth of Rocky Linux

#Rocky Enterprise Software Foundation (RESF)

Three weeks after Red Hat's announcement, exactly on December 26, 2020, Gregory Kurtzer — the original founder of CentOS in 2004 — announced a new project named Rocky Linux. The name honors his fellow CentOS co-founder, Rocky McGaugh, who had passed away. The project is managed by the Rocky Enterprise Software Foundation (RESF), a community organization independent of any vendor.

The RESF's mission is simple and clear: to continue what CentOS did right — providing a free, open source, binary-compatible RHEL rebuild controlled by the community. The enthusiasm was remarkable; within days, the project gained major supporters and significant development momentum.

Gregory Kurtzer is no stranger to this ecosystem — besides founding CentOS in 2004, he also created Warewulf and Singularity, so his credibility in the high-performance computing world is beyond doubt. His presence sent a strong signal to the community that Rocky Linux was in experienced hands. For you, the key lesson from this trust is about governance: because the RESF is community-run and not vendor-run, development direction decisions are made transparently, and that's why many enterprise companies are confident putting Rocky Linux into production — they are not betting their future on a corporation's roadmap.

#Release Timeline

Rocky Linux moved quickly to catch up with RHEL:

Each major release is followed by a minor release roughly every six months, and every version is supported on a transparent schedule. This consistency is what makes companies confident in making Rocky Linux the foundation of their infrastructure.

Memeriksa versi Rocky Linux terpasang

cat /etc/rocky-release

If you have installed Rocky Linux in the previous episode, this command will display the exact version running on your system — for example Rocky Linux release 10.2 (Ventus).

#Why Rocky Linux

#100% Binary-Compatible with RHEL

Rocky Linux's main selling point is its 1:1 binary compatibility with RHEL. RPM packages built for RHEL run directly on Rocky Linux, and applications tested on RHEL behave identically on Rocky Linux. This means the large enterprise application ecosystem — from databases and middleware to container platforms — is all available and tested without modification.

For you, this compatibility means no vendor lock-in. Applications running on Rocky Linux can be moved to RHEL at any time (and vice versa) without changes, because the binaries are the same. Decisions are made based on need, not because you are trapped in a single ecosystem.

#Free and Community-Driven

Rocky Linux is free with no license cost, whether for development, staging, or production. There is no per-socket or per-node subscription count. Funding comes from donations and sponsors, while development direction is held by the RESF as a community organization — not by a vendor chasing revenue.

dnf5 install epel-release

Its community support is also a complete ecosystem: EPEL (Extra Packages for Enterprise Linux) provides thousands of additional packages that don't ship with RHEL, and it's available for Rocky Linux too.

#Ten-Year Lifecycle

Rocky Linux follows RHEL's lifecycle: ten years of full support for each major release — five years of Full Support plus five years of Maintenance Support, with an optional ELS (Extended Lifecycle Support) beyond that. For companies that must comply with regulations and audits, a clear and long support schedule is a huge relief. You don't need to upgrade your system every year because a version is "outdated"; instead, you have a comfortable planning window. This schedule can be checked anytime on the endoflife.date reference site, and will be covered in more depth in episode 21.

#When Rocky Linux Is the Right Fit

In short, Rocky Linux is the right choice when you need:

• An enterprise server operating system with high stability and predictability.
• Full compatibility with the RHEL ecosystem without paying for a license.
• A large community, official documentation, and a 10-year lifecycle.
• Freedom from vendor lock-in for workloads that may move across platforms.

Conversely, if you need the newest packages at all times or a rolling release model, Rocky Linux may not be the best fit — you would be better served by a continuous distro. To confirm the identity of the system you're managing, get into the habit of checking with cat /etc/rocky-release — a simple command that answers the first question of any investigation: what version is running.

#Closing

In this episode 1, you understood Rocky Linux's historical journey: from the rise of CentOS as a RHEL rebuild in 2004, the community panic when CentOS Linux was discontinued early in December 2020, the birth of the RESF by Gregory Kurtzer, to the technical and strategic reasons — binary compatibility, free, community-driven, and a 10-year lifecycle — that make Rocky Linux worthy as an infrastructure foundation.

Key takeaways:

• Rocky Linux was born from the void left by CentOS after its development direction changed.
• The RESF is an independent community organization that controls Rocky Linux development.
• Releases 8.4 (2021), 9.0 (2022), 10.0 (2025), and 10.2 (May 2026) mark the project's maturity.
• 1:1 binary compatibility with RHEL means no vendor lock-in and a complete application ecosystem.
• A 10-year lifecycle and an active community make Rocky Linux worthy of enterprise environments.

In the next episode 2, we will discuss the core concepts and main architecture of Rocky Linux — the rebuild model from RHEL source, core components such as the kernel, systemd, SELinux, firewalld, and Cockpit, as well as the BaseOS and AppStream repositories that form the backbone of the system. The journey toward mastering Rocky Linux continues!