What is new in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 (RHEL 8 )?

Some of the new features of RHEL 8 are as described below.

Kernel & OS

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.0 is based on Fedora 28 and upstream kernel 4.18. This provides users with a secure, stable and consistent foundation across hybrid cloud and Data Center deployments with tools needed to support all levels of workloads.
Supported CPU Architectures are:
  • AMD and Intel 64-bit architectures
  • The 64-bit ARM architecture
  • IBM Power Systems, Little Endian
  • IBM Z

Content Distribution

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 has two modes of Content distribution and will only need two repositories enabled.
  • BaseOS repository – The BaseOS repository provides the underlying core OS content in the form of traditional RPM packages. BaseOS components have a life cycle identical to that of content in previous Red Hat Enterprise Linux releases.
  • AppStream repository – The Application Stream repository provides all the applications you might want to run in a given userspace. Other software that has special licensing are available on a Supplemental repository.
What is AppStream?
The AppStream allows you to install additional versions of software on independent life cycles and keep your operating system up-to-date while having the right version of an application that suits your use case. Note that no two streams can be installed at the same time into the same userspace.
Application Streams are typically named according to the version of software it distributes e.g. mongodb:3.4 or mongodb:3.6, but may also use names such as “latest” and “stable” and “latest“.

Desktop Environment

RHEL default Desktop Environment is GNOME. The GNOME Project is supported by the GNOME Foundation. A version of Gnome shipped in RHEL 8 is version 3.28 which has automatic downloading of operating systems in Boxes. Other new features include:
  • New on-screen keyboard
  • New GNOME Boxes features
  • Extended devices support, most significantly integration for the Thunderbolt 3 interface
  • Improvements for GNOME Software, dconf-editor and GNOME Terminal
  • GNOME Software utility, which enables you to install and update applications and gnome-shell extensions.
  • GNOME Display Manager (GDM) use Wayland as their default display server instead of the X.org server

Features of Wayland display server

  • Stronger security model
  • Improved multi-monitor handling
  • Improved user interface (UI) scaling
  • The desktop can control window handling directly.
Read more about Gnome 3.28 features in the release notes.

Software Management

RHEL 8 YUM package manager is now based on the DNF technology and it provides support for modular content, increased performance, and a well-designed stable API for integration with tooling. The version of RPM is 4.14.2 and it validates the whole package contents before it starts the installation.
YUM version available in RHEL 8 is v4.0.4. YUM based on DNF has the following advantages over the previous YUM v3 used on RHEL 7:
  • Increased performance
  • Support for modular content
  • Well-designed stable API for integration with tooling

Web servers, Web Tools, Compilers, Languages & Databases

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 includes Application Streams of multiple versions of databases, languages, compilers, and other tools available for your use.
Below is a list of components available on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.