Red Hat launches the Red It Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 9 Beta. With the latest versions of compilers and programming languages, RHEL’s position as a Linux distro for developers and other IT professionals strengthens.
RHEL 9 Beta is available for any existing user. The earlier release of RHEL 8.5 Beta eliminated the need for a beta pass. We share a selection of the RHEL 9 Beta’s most noteworthy additions.
GCC11
The RHEL 9 Beta includes an updated GCC system compiler: GCC 11. The compiler supports the C++ 17 programming language instead of C++ 14. A noteworthy benefit is the addition of ‘-fanalyzer’, a so-called static analysis function for code in C++. A program does not need to be executed to analyze its security and efficacy when using the function.
LTO
The enablement of LTO (Link Time Optimization) also caters to C++ programmers. The feature belongs to GCC and jumps in at the last step of creating C programs: linking. Whereas GCC without LTO optimizes the building blocks that make up a program (e.g. libraries and object files) separately, GCC with LTO references the entire program to optimize each component. The result: applications run a bit faster, take up less space and consist of source code that can be viewed more accurately.
Python 3.9
RHEL 8’s 3.6 version of Python has been updated to 3.9. No one articulates the details of the newer version better than the Python’s developers themselves, so for an accurate overview, we refer to this document. In short, the release introduces timestamps that automatically take time zones into account, a method for more effectively removing prefixes and suffixes from strings, and a means for merging dictionaries.
Go 1.16 and Rust 1.54
In addition, Red Hat is introducing more recent versions of programming languages Go and Rust. Go 1.16 includes an easier method for connecting data files to Go programs. Managing dependencies is also said to be simplified. Rust 1.54, according to Red Hat, is ideal for writing high-performance programs with low memory consumption.
In addition to the compiler and programming language updates mentioned above, Red Hat is introducing more choices among Node.js and PostgreSQL versions.
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