Hello everyone. I am pleased to announce the general availability of Rocky Linux 8.5. This release is for the x86_64 and aarch64 architectures and is derived from Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.5.

Please read through the release notes at: https://docs.rockylinux.org/release_notes/8.5/ - These notes contain important information about the release, details about some of the content inside the release (such as newer modules or updates throughout the distribution).

# Secure Boot ----

## x86_64 ------

Secure boot is now officially supported starting with Rocky Linux 8.5.

### Rescue Kernel -------------

If you are updating from an 8.4 machine running on UEFI and you enable secure boot, the rescue kernel will no longer work. You will need to regenerate the necessary components.

If you updated to 8.5 and rebooted into the latest kernel, run the following: % rm /boot/vmlinuz-0-rescue-* /boot/initramfs-0-rescue-*.img % /usr/lib/kernel/install.d/51-dracut-rescue.install add $(uname -r) \ "" /lib/modules/$(uname -r)/vmlinuz

It may be possible to remove the rescue files like above and run a dnf update to regenerate the kernel and initramfs in a single step.

### EFI MOKvar ----------

You may also see a mokvar message in dmesg: EFI MOKvar config table is not in EFI runtime memory - We determined that this does not affect the functionality of secure boot and this message can be safely ignored. We will be looking into this in a future update of packages surrounding secure boot.

## AARCH64 -------

At this time we do not have a signing system for this architecture. More information will be available soon.

# Known Issues ---

## .NET ----

During 8.3 and 8.4, our dotnet packages had stated the RID as rocky. For now, most dotnet packages will state "rhel" as the RID. This is temporary until we work out the plan to become part of the .NET ecosystem like our upstreams RHEL and Fedora. Please join us in ~Development on our [mattermost](https://chat.rockylinux.org) or #rockylinux-devel if you would like to help us with this effort.

# Updates ---

Updates released since upstream are posted across our current architectures. We strongly recommend that all users apply *all* updates, including the content released today on your existing Rocky Linux machines. This can be done by running `dnf update`.

All Rocky Linux components are built from the sources hosted at git.rockylinux.org. In addition, SRPMs are being published alongside the repositories in a corresponding "source" directory. You can find these on any of our mirrors. These source packages match every binary RPM we release.

Note that this release supersedes all previously released content for Rocky Linux 8. You are encouraged to update your system. Older content, such as those obsoleted from the previous release will not be available. While we keep older content around for historical purposes, it is recommended that you use the latest updates available to you.

# Download ---

Rocky Linux can be downloaded in different ways. There are ISO images as well as torrents available.

* x86_64 Boot: https://download.rockylinux.org/pub/rocky/8.5/isos/x86_64/Rocky-8.5-x86_64-b... DVD: https://download.rockylinux.org/pub/rocky/8.5/isos/x86_64/Rocky-8.5-x86_64-d... Minimal: https://download.rockylinux.org/pub/rocky/8.5/isos/x86_64/Rocky-8.5-x86_64-m... DVD Torrent: https://download.rockylinux.org/pub/rocky/8.5/isos/x86_64/Rocky-8.5-x86_64-d... Boot Torrent: https://download.rockylinux.org/pub/rocky/8.5/isos/x86_64/Rocky-8.5-x86_64-b... Minimal Torrent: https://download.rockylinux.org/pub/rocky/8.5/isos/x86_64/Rocky-8.5-x86_64-m... Checksum: https://download.rockylinux.org/pub/rocky/8.5/isos/x86_64/CHECKSUM Verification: https://download.rockylinux.org/pub/rocky/8.5/isos/x86_64/CHECKSUM.sig

* AARCH64 Boot: https://download.rockylinux.org/pub/rocky/8.5/isos/aarch64/Rocky-8.5-aarch64... DVD: https://download.rockylinux.org/pub/rocky/8.5/isos/aarch64/Rocky-8.5-aarch64... Minimal: https://download.rockylinux.org/pub/rocky/8.5/isos/aarch64/Rocky-8.5-aarch64... DVD Torrent: https://download.rockylinux.org/pub/rocky/8.5/isos/x86_64/Rocky-8.5-aarch64-... Boot Torrent: https://download.rockylinux.org/pub/rocky/8.5/isos/x86_64/Rocky-8.5-aarch64-... Minimal Torrent: https://download.rockylinux.org/pub/rocky/8.5/isos/x86_64/Rocky-8.5-aarch64-... Checksum: https://download.rockylinux.org/pub/rocky/8.5/isos/aarch64/CHECKSUM Verification: https://download.rockylinux.org/pub/rocky/8.5/isos/aarch64/CHECKSUM.sig

* Live Images (x86_64 only)

GNOME (Workstation): https://download.rockylinux.org/pub/rocky/8.5/live/x86_64/Rocky-8.5-Workstat... XFCE: https://download.rockylinux.org/pub/rocky/8.5/live/x86_64/Rocky-8.5-XFCE-202... Checksum: https://download.rockylinux.org/pub/rocky/8.5/live/x86_64/CHECKSUM Verification: https://download.rockylinux.org/pub/rocky/8.5/live/x86_64/CHECKSUM.sig

KDE live image is not available. The KDE packages in EPEL rely on an older version of Qt5. 8.5 rebased the base Qt5 packages to 5.15. A KDE live image will be released upon a KDE rebuild in EPEL.

# Additional Images ----

Generic Cloud Image: http://download.rockylinux.org/pub/rocky/8/images/Rocky-8-GenericCloud-8.5-2... Checksum: http://download.rockylinux.org/pub/rocky/8/images/CHECKSUM Verification: http://download.rockylinux.org/pub/rocky/8/images/CHECKSUM.sig

# Getting Help / Engaging with the Community ----

The Rocky Linux ecosystem is sustained by community-driven help, guidance, and love of RPM distributions, Enterprise Linux and its ecosystem. The best place to start for new users is at https://docs.rockylinux.org.

You can communicate with us and other community members on various mediums:

Mattermost: https://chat.rockylinux.org Reddit: https://reddit.com/r/rockylinux Forums: https://forums.rockylinux.org Mail list: https://lists.resf.org Libera IRC: #rockylinux

Bug Tracker: https://bugs.rockylinux.org

Thank you, and enjoy the release!

Louis Abel Release Engineering