Red Hat Changing How They Handle Their Minor Release Betas
To date Red Hat has roughly provided for a one-month beta period prior to new Red Hat Enterprise Linux point releases being declared GA. But Red Hat and their customers have found that month-long RHEL beta period is often too short to provide much value.
Beginning with RHEL 9.5, Red Hat will begin releasing "beta" packages earlier and continuously. After an upcoming minor release has completed initial testing, the packages will begin being pushed out to their beta channels. Thus it's up to a 4-month beta period rather than just a one-month cycle.
But with this longer beta period and pushing out new beta package updates on a weekly basis, there will no longer be installation media for RHEL minor release betas like the pre-built ISOs and cloud/VM images.
Red Hat isn't announcing any changes at this time around their six-month beta period prior to major Red Hat Enterprise Linux releases (e.g. RHEL 9.0, RHEL 10.0).
More details on the RHEL beta changes for minor releases going into effect with RHEL 9.5 can be found via the Red Hat blog.
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