Amazon releases 2023 version of Amazon Linux for AWS users

Amazon has released a new version of its own Linux distribution. Amazon Linux 2023 is a Fedora-based distro intended to run software in the cloud and includes AWS tools and better security and update cycle to do so.

Amazon has the third generation of the operating system released. Amazon says the distro will receive five years of long-term support in three-month update cycles. In addition, a minor update is published every quarter. Security updates will follow as they become available. The update and support policy is one of the distro’s biggest changes; of previous versions it was not always clear how often they were updated and with what frequency. There are also improvements in the update policy. For example, the distro gets “deterministic updates” for different repo versions.

Amazon Linux 2023 is based on Fedora. The distro is specifically optimized for cloud use and in particular, of course, AWS. This means that tools are included with which it is possible to build or run cloud applications in AWS.

In the 2023 version of the OS, more attention has also been paid to security. For example, the OS uses kernel hardening and live patching of the kernel can be enabled so that security updates can be applied without downtime. There are also ‘pre-configured security policies’ that can be enabled both at startup and at run time.