AlmaLinux is a free, open source Linux distribution, created by CloudLinux and supported both by CloudLinux and other sponsors. It is focused on long-term stability and governed by the community; with regular releases. It is licensed under General Public License version 2 (GPLv2) and other licenses.
AlmaLinux distribution
Like other distributions such as Rocky Linux, AlmaLinux was born as an alternative downstream of RHEL after CentOS’ discontinuation in December 2021. Red Hat has replaced CentOS Linux with a rolling release: CentOS Stream. So, when creating this new distro, CloudLinux aimed to provide a community-supported, enterprise-grade OS compatible with new releases of RHEL (Red Hat Enterprise Linux).
The AlmaLinux OS Foundation, a non-profit organization, has been established to take ownership of the project. As of October 2022, the members within the organization are:
- Platinum members: CloudLinux and Codenotary.
- Gold member: Sine Nomine Associates (SNA).
- Silver members: AMD, BlackHOST and KnownHost.
Moreover, as mentioned above, apart from CloudLinux, many other organizations, such as Equinix, Plesk and cPanel, back the project as well.
The source code and tools used to build the distro are on AlmaLinux’s GitHub. Besides, users can interact and discuss with other users via the distribution’s community chat, the forum and Reddit.
Releases
The first stable release of AlmaLinux, version 8.3 (codename: Purple Manul), was released in March 2021. The AlmaLinux 8.x series is expected to include support until at least 2029.
AlmaLinux OS 9.0
As of October 2022, the latest release is AlmaLinux 9, released in May 2022 and codenamed Emerald Puma. This version supports the following architectures: Intel/AMD (x86_64), ARM64 (aarch64), IBM PowerPC (ppc64le) and IBM Z (s390x). It is based on kernel version 5.14 and delivers enhancements for cloud and container development, security, etc.
You can find further details about it in AlmaLinux’s website.
