To determine whether a specific hardware is supported on the current Oracle Linux 8 release, check the Hardware Certification List at https://linux.oracle.com/hardware-certifications. Note that as hardware becomes available and validated, the hardware is added to the list.

Oracle Linux 8 for the aarch64 platform is primarily engineered for use with Ampere™ eMAG™-based EVK platform and the Marvell ThunderX2® processor. Other hardware might be supported and added to the Hardware Certification List in the future.

CPU, memory, disk and file system limits for all Oracle Linux releases are described in Oracle Linux: Limits.

The release is available on the following platforms:

• Intel® 64-bit (x86_64)

• AMD 64-bit (x86_64)

• 64-bit Arm (aarch64)

The Arm platform is only supported with Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel Release (UEK).

On the x86_64 platform, Oracle Linux 8.8 release ships with the following default kernel packages:

• kernel-4.18.0-477.10 (Red Hat Compatible Kernel (RHCK))

• kernel-uek-5.15.0-101.103.2 (Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel Release 7 Updater 1 (UEK R7U1))

  For new installations, the UEK R7 is automatically enabled and installed. It also becomes the default kernel on first boot.

  On the aarch64 platform, Oracle Linux ships with the UEK kernel only.

  Important:

  If you are upgrading from a previous Oracle Linux 8 version, the kernel isn't automatically upgraded to UEK R7.

The Oracle Linux release is tested as a bundle, as shipped on the installation media image. When installed from the installation media image, the kernel's version included in the image is the minimum version that is supported. Downgrading kernel packages is unsupported, unless recommended by Oracle Support.

The Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel (UEK) is a Linux kernel built by Oracle and supported through Oracle Linux support. UEK is tested on Arm (aarch64), Intel® x86, and AMD x86 (x86_64) platforms. Each release contains additional features, bug fixes, and updated drivers to provide support for key functional requirements, improve performance, and optimize the kernel for use on Oracle products such as Oracle's Engineered Systems, Oracle Cloud Infrastructure, and large enterprise deployments for Oracle customers.

Typically, a UEK release contains changes to the kernel ABI relative to a previous UEK release. These changes require recompilation of third-party kernel modules on the system. To minimize impact on interoperability during releases, the Oracle Linux team works with third-party vendors regarding hardware and software that have dependencies on kernel modules. Thus, before installing the latest UEK release, verify its support status with the application vendor.

The kernel ABI for a UEK release remains unchanged in all subsequent updates to the initial release.

The kernel source code for UEK is available after the initial release through a public git source code repository at https://github.com/oracle/linux-uek.

For more information about UEK such as tutorials, notices, and release notes of different UEK versions, go to Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel documentation.

Oracle Linux maintains user space compatibility with Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) that is independent of the kernel version that underlies the OS. Existing applications in user space continue to run unmodified on UEK R6 and UEK R7, with no required recertifications for RHEL certified applications.

The following installation images for the current Oracle Linux 8 release are available:

• Full ISO of Oracle Linux for typical installations on premises.

• Boot ISO of Oracle Linux for network installations

• Boot ISO of the supported UEK release for installing on hardware which is supported only on UEK

• Source DVDs

You can download these images from the following locations. Note that the images in these locations are for both the x86_64 and aarch64 platforms, unless indicated otherwise:

• Oracle Software Delivery Cloud at https://edelivery.oracle.com

• Oracle Linux yum server at https://yum.oracle.com/oracle-linux-downloads.html

To prepare a downloaded image for installing Oracle Linux, see Oracle Linux 8: Installing Oracle Linux.

For information about the available ISOs for the three most recent updates to the Oracle Linux releases, refer to https://yum.oracle.com/oracle-linux-isos.html.

For developers who use the Raspberry Pi hardware platform, Oracle provides an unsupported developer release image, which includes the required firmware to boot this platform. For more information about using the Raspberry Pi hardware platform, see Install Oracle Linux on a Raspberry Pi.

You can upgrade an Oracle Linux 7 system to the latest Oracle Linux 8 release by using the leapp utility. For step-by-step instructions, as well as information about any known issues that you might encounter when upgrading the system, see Oracle Linux 8: Performing System Upgrades With Leapp.

Oracle Linux 8 releases earlier than Oracle Linux 8.7 ship with UEK R6 as the default kernel.

Starting with Oracle Linux 8.5, you also have the option of installing UEK R7. From Oracle Linux 8.7 onward, UEK R7 is the default kernel.

Oracle provides Remote Direct Memory Access (RDMA) packages for use with UEK R6 and UEK R7. The RDMA feature enables direct memory access between two systems that are connected by a network. RDMA facilitates high-throughput and low-latency networking in clusters.

To use RDMA features, you must first install the Oracle-supported RDMA packages. To do so, ensure that the system is subscribed to the appropriate channels on ULN or that you have enabled the appropriate repositories on the Oracle Linux yum server.