Now that Rocky Linux is GA, here is a repo for a minimal container image for Rocky Linux. Its size is around ~37 MB (compressed). It is based on Fedora Minimal and UBI8 minimal from Red Hat. You can download it from Quay or build it, following the instructions in the repo. You could also generate a new rootfs yourself before building the image, again, following the short instructions in the repo.

At Krestomatio, we were in search of a Centos 8 minimal container image a couple months ago. Since it was not available, we did a test drive of UBI8 minimal. I believe it is a really good alternative as long as you understand its End User License Agreement and FAQ. There was also Fedora Minimal. However, none seemed to fit perfectly in our use cases. So, we began building our own Centos 8 minimal container image based on Fedora Minimal and UBI8 minimal. Then, Red Hat made its announcement about Centos Stream replacing Centos 8. We began planning for its replacement right away.

Immediately, and admirably, initiatives and communities were formed around the idea of a serious alternative. Two of them were Alma Linux and Rocky Linux. Even though Alma Linux did its first stable release a couple weeks ago; we were waiting for a stable release of Rocky Linux. In the meantime, we started using Centos Stream. A funny thing is we reached to the conclusion that the Centos Stream project and its release cadence worked well for our container workloads. Still, we recognize the need of many for a Centos 8 alternative.

Therefore, we are building a Rocky Linux minimal container image. However, most of our workloads at Krestomatio are using our own Centos Stream minimal container image. In case anyone has a use for any of those two, check out the repo. Cheers!