Oracle Linux 8 appears about five years after the predecessor Oracle 7 and is based on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 (RHEL). Oracle, like CentOS or the recently discontinued Scientific Linux, uses the source packages from Red Hat’s corporate distribution and offers it as a separate product with its own kernel. Accordingly, Oracle Linux 8 brings the innovations that are already known by RHEL 8.
These include prominently the application streams (AppStreams) developed by Fedora as part of the modularization project. According to the announcement of product manager Simon Coter in the Oracle blog, a combination of basic system and application streams is used.
The concept of AppStreams allows multiple versions of software to be maintained and updated more frequently than the base system. AppStreams contain the necessary system components and a set of applications previously distributed in software collections and other products and programs in separate repositories. A list of the AppStreams supported on Oracle Linux 8 mainly includes development tools and web applications. The AppStreams are not covered by the Oracle Linux Extended Support.
The system administration also experienced some changes. Package management is handled by DNF, the successor to Yum. Cockpit is a new administration tool for Linux servers and allows monitoring and control via web browser and mouse. The installer now uses the LUKS2 format for encryption. OpenSSH is offered in version 7.8p1, Transport Layer Security (TLS) 1.3 is enabled by default. In the network tools, Iptables was replaced by Nftables. Stratis was introduced in the field of storage systems. Containers can be created and managed using Podman, Buildah, and Skopeo. The kernel will be 4.18.0-80.el8 of the Red Hat Compatible Kernel (RHCK), while the in-house Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel (UEK), which is in a more recent version, is still under development.
Source: https://www.pro-linux.de/news/1/27278/oracle-linux-8-ver%C3%83%C2%B6ffentlicht.html
Submitted by: Arnfried Walbrecht
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