The AlmaLinux OS Foundation has announced the general availability of AlmaLinux 8.10, a community-owned open-source alternative to CentOS.
In a statement, the Foundation said the new release, including pre-built ISO images, could be downloaded from its system of more than 350 mirror sites.
“Our consistently speedy releases, as illustrated by today’s announcement and the recent release of 9.4, underscore the reliability and timeliness offered via AlmaLinux,” said benny Vasquez, chair of the AlmaLinux OS Foundation.
“With AlmaLinux, users can confidently deploy robust, scalable, and secure Linux environments, ensuring seamless integration and maximum operational efficiency.”
AlmaLinux is one of a number of Linux distributions that have risen to prominence after Red Hat, the biggest open source company, decided to make it difficult to gain access to the source of its enterprise distribution.
Red Hat acquired CentOS in 2014, but then shut it down in December 2020. CentOS is basically Red Hat’s Enterprise Linux without the trademarks.
In June 2023, Red Hat, which is owned by IBM which bought it in 2019, tightened its grip on RHEL source code, and said it would make it available only to its paying customers.
After that, enterprise distributions like AlmaLinux and Rocky Linux have presented themselves as alternatives to CentOS. Plus, SUSE has said it would invest more than US$10 million (A$15.1 million) to fork the publicly available RHEL source code and make it available to world+dog with no restrictions.
In the wake of that decision, SUSE, the second biggest open source company, recently announced SUSE Liberty Linux, ” a technology and support solution that lets you keep your current operating system while getting the support, maintenance updates, and security patches you need for your existing Linux estates without the need to migrate”.
Rocky Linux is another replacement for CentOS and the company behind it, CIQ, offers something called CIQ Bridge “with up to three years of additional life for CentOS 7 beyond the official EOL, covering critical security updates for CVSS scores of 7 and above”.
AlmaLinux has also devised a solution to allow people running CentOS 6 to migrate to AlmaLinux.
The AlmaLinux statement said it would continue to offer support for older hardware such as:
Aacraid – Dell PERC2, 2/Si, 3/Si, 3/Di, Adaptec Advanced Raid Products, HPNetRAID-4M, IBM serveRAID & ICP SCSI
be2iscsi – Emulex OneConnect Open-iSCSI for BladeEngine 2 and 3 adapters
hpsa – HP Smart Array Controller
lpfc – Emulex LightPulse Fibre Channel SCSI
megaraid_sas – Broadcom MegaRAID SAS
mlx4_core – Mellanox Gen2 and ConnectX-2 adapters
mpt3sas – LSI MPT Fusion SAS 3.0
mptsas – Fusion MPT SAS Host
qla2xxx – QLogic Fibre Channel HBA
qla4xxx – QLogic iSCSI HBA
be2net – Emulex BladeEngine 2 and 3 adapters
“Releasing AlmaLinux 8.10 less than one week after the release of RHEL 8.10 proves again the power of AlmaLinux community and its ability to deliver on speed, quality, and security,” said the distribution’s lead architect, Andrew Lukoshko.
“Powered by people and organizations that provide infrastructure and deep technical knowledge, we have proven our commitment to deliver the enterprise Linux that people need.”
