It seems that the ecosystem of Linux has already begun to take firm steps towards supporting the RISC-V architecture. (an open alternative to the traditional dominance of x86 and ARM), since recently, Red Hat has announced initial support for RISC-V in CentOS Stream. 10 (which serves as the basis for the development of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10 (RHEL 10)). In parallel, the project Rocky linux, one of the main derivatives of RHEL, has officially confirmed its compatibility with RISC-V in version 10, thus expanding the range of supported architectures.
With the arrival of experimental support for the riscv64 architecture in the CentOS Stream repository, Red Hat is joining the growing trend within the free software world, which is "committing to open and modular architectures." This new compatibility builds on the existing ones.
Getting started with RHEL 10 with RISC-V
In your ad, Red Hat mentions that RISC-V work is being done in collaboration with the manufacturer SiFive, and experimental builds of RHEL 10 have already been generated for their devices.
It's not often that a new computer instruction set architecture (ISA) generates industry support. The last time Red Hat implemented a new ISA was with Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 7.2, which added an implementation for the ARM CPU design…
This is the first introduction of a new ISA since CentOS transitioned from a top-down to a bottom-up distribution.
Besides that, The CentOS Stream Git repository now incorporates most patches. necessary to resolve package compilation and execution issues on RISCv64 platforms. However, some fixes remain in secondary branches and will be integrated into the main repository on July 1st, when executable builds specific to the HiFive Premier P550 board are also expected to be released.
Once this phase is completed, Red Hat plans to deploy a build infrastructure Koji is dedicated to RISC-V hardware. He will also continue the upstreaming process of the necessary changes so that the developed improvements reach the main community projects.
Rocky Linux 10 goes one step further
As Red Hat moves forward with caution, Rocky Linux has decided to go further by announce official support for RISC-V in its version 10. This compatibility is not limited to internal compilations, but includes functional support for several specific hardware environments, as well as running in virtualized environments using QEMU.
The architecture riscv64gc has been integrated as an alternative architecture, This means that RISC-V-specific compilation errors won't block development or the release of updates for other architectures. This fault-tolerant policy allows for parallel development without compromising the stability of more mature platforms like x86_64 or AArch64.
RISC-V builds for Rocky Linux 10 will be considered an alternative architecture; however, unlike ppc64le and s390x, compilation failures for riscv64 No. will not be considered fatal or block the release of other architectures. In short, package updates for Rocky Linux will not be hindered by waiting for RISC-V builds or by architecture-specific bug fixes.
Rocky Linux support for RISC-V is built on the infrastructure developed by the Fedora RISC-V project, which serves as the basis for the compiler stack and package build system. Many of the key components have been backported from Fedora to EL10 (Enterprise Linux 10), ensuring greater compatibility and consistency between distributions.
In this first phase, devices supported by Rocky Linux 10 on RISC-V architecture include:
- StarFive VisionFive 2: fully supported, using the standard RHEL 10 kernel.
- QEMU: ideal for testing in virtual environments.
- SiFive HiFive Premier P550: compatible, although with a special kernel from the manufacturer, which implies certain functional limitations.
- Milk-V and Banana Pi: plates still under evaluation, whose support will be added as the ecosystem stabilizes.
What distinguishes this development is its community origin, especially in the case of Rocky Linux. Since the beginning of 2024, volunteer teams have been working alongside Fedora's upstream efforts to adapt the necessary tools, making this move towards RISC-V more than just a technical compatibility.
Finally, it's worth mentioning that as support improves and hardware becomes more affordable, RISC-V could become a viable option for professional infrastructures, embedded environments, and low-power solutions.