Oracle Debuts Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel
The relationship between Oracle and Red Hat becomes even more strained.
At Oracle OpenWorld Oracle announced the Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel. Oracle touts the kernel as being more than 75 percent faster than Red Hat according to OLTP benchmarking.
The kernel itself is based on the 2.6.32 mainline kernel. It allows for existing Oracle Linux 5 and Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 customers to upgrade without reinstalling the entire operating system. Oracle says that third party applications for both RHEL 5 and Oracle Linux will run unabated. At the same time, however, the announcement slips in a mention that from this point forward the Unbreakable Kernel is the only kernel Oracle recommends using.
Between this announcement at Red Hat's decision to stop support Xen in favor of the KVM virtualization technologies that came with the acquisition of Qumranet, it looks like the future of Red Hat and Oracle compatibility is a shaky one.
Subscribe to our Linux Newsletters
Find Linux and Open Source Jobs
Subscribe to our ADMIN Newsletters
Support Our Work
Linux Magazine content is made possible with support from readers like you. Please consider contributing when you’ve found an article to be beneficial.
News
-
Red Hat Releases RHEL 10 Early
Red Hat quietly rolled out the official release of RHEL 10.0 a bit early.
-
openSUSE Joins End of 10
openSUSE has decided to not only join the End of 10 movement but it also will no longer support the Deepin Desktop Environment.
-
New Version of Flatpak Released
Flatpak 1.16.1 is now available as the latest, stable version with various improvements.
-
IBM Announces Powerhouse Linux Server
IBM has unleashed a seriously powerful Linux server with the LinuxONE Emperor 5.
-
Plasma Ends LTS Releases
The KDE Plasma development team is doing away with the LTS releases for a good reason.
-
Arch Linux Available for Windows Subsystem for Linux
If you've ever wanted to use a rolling release distribution with WSL, now's your chance.
-
System76 Releases COSMIC Alpha 7
With scores of bug fixes and a really cool workspaces feature, COSMIC is looking to soon migrate from alpha to beta.
-
OpenMandriva Lx 6.0 Available for Installation
The latest release of OpenMandriva has arrived with a new kernel, an updated Plasma desktop, and a server edition.
-
TrueNAS 25.04 Arrives with Thousands of Changes
One of the most popular Linux-based NAS solutions has rolled out the latest edition, based on Ubuntu 25.04.
-
Fedora 42 Available with Two New Spins
The latest release from the Fedora Project includes the usual updates, a new kernel, an official KDE Plasma spin, and a new System76 spin.