New kernel and New packages

Rocky Linux General
1

I’m starting to use rocky linux as new CentOS replacement

But I see that it follows the same line as the centos 8

very old kernel and outdated packages

kernel 4.18

php 7.2

since we have kernel 5 stable
php 8 , php 8.1

mariadb database 10.6

is there a more up-to-date distro forecast or is it a hope for many years to come

2

Rocky tracks RHEL8 so it will not have the latest and greatest packages. It will always have what RHEL8 has. When Rocky9 comes out based on RHEL9 then there will be newer versions. How new though depends on Red Hat.

You can use remi repo for latest php. Mariadb also has their own repo for later versions.

1 Like
3

I understand…so never have more current packages…hehehe

tks

4

Yep this is generally what happens with stable distros. Older packages never the latest. Debian 11 only has php7.4 and I was hoping it would have php8.

You can also add elrepo to get latest kernel. So all of what you want is possible just not from default package set.

5

There are currently three PHP streams:

$ dnf module list php
Name                Stream                 Profiles                                 Summary                             
php                 7.2 [d]                common [d], devel, minimal               PHP scripting language              
php                 7.3                    common [d], devel, minimal               PHP scripting language              
php                 7.4                    common [d], devel, minimal               PHP scripting language

Red Hat Enterprise Linux Application Streams Life Cycle - Red Hat Customer Portal shows:

Application Stream Release Date Retirement Date Release
php 7.4 Nov 2020 May 2029 8.3
php 7.3 Nov 2019 Nov 2021 8.1.0
php 7.2 May 2019 May 2021 8.0.0
mariadb 10.5 May 2021 May 2026 8.4
mariadb 10.3 May 2019 May 2029 8.0.0

So, while the PHP 7.2 is a default stream (as it was the only one present on release of RHEL 8.0), it is the PHP 7.4 that Red Hat has committed to maintain all the way to 2029 (to EOL of RHEL 8).

Red Hat does backport some features. The “4.18” in current Rocky is not what upstream Linux kernel developers did release as 4.18:

RHEL 7 will have kernel “3.10.0” to June 2024 (and some more, if you pay extra). I know for a fact that it has a feature that was introduced in upstream 3.13.

If you don’t want to use the PHP that Red Hat maintains, then go to Remi’s repository:

The overall idea of Enterprise Linux is that you can set up a server and it will run almost a decade without major changes. Almost “fire and forget”. You can’t do that with bleeding edge frequently changing features.

6

plus everyone said
for database i never use the os repo to install it so i use the official database repo
for other software that depend but if i choose to use different repo than the one by the os then i choose from the official repo to be sure of the repo provider

and have a nice day everyone :slight_smile: