The release of the AlmaLinux 8.8 distribution has been formed, synchronized with the Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.8 distribution, and contains all the changes proposed in this release. Builds are prepared for x86_64, ARM64, s390x, and ppc64le architectures in the form of bootable (900 MB), minimal (1.9 GB), and full images (12 GB). Later, there are plans to create Live builds with GNOME, KDE, Xfce, and MATE, as well as images for Raspberry Pi, WSL, containers, and cloud platforms.
The distribution is fully binary-compatible with Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.8 and can be used as a drop-in replacement for CentOS 8. Changes are mainly branding, removal of RHEL-specific packages such as redhat-*, insights-client, and subscription-manager-migration*.
The AlmaLinux distribution was founded by CloudLinux in response to Red Hat's premature discontinuation of CentOS 8 support (the release of updates for CentOS 8 was halted at the end of 2021, not in 2029 as users had expected). The project is overseen by a separate non-profit organization, the AlmaLinux OS Foundation, which was created to develop it in a neutral environment with community participation and using a management model similar to that of the Fedora project. The distribution is free for all categories of users. All AlmaLinux developments are published under open licenses.
In addition to AlmaLinux, alternatives to the classic CentOS 8 include Rocky Linux (developed by the community under the guidance of the CentOS founder with support from the specially created company Ctrl IQ), VzLinux (prepared by Virtuozzo), Oracle Linux, SUSE Liberty Linux, and EuroLinux. Additionally, Red Hat has offered free RHEL usage for organizations developing open source software and for individual developer environments consisting of up to 16 virtual or physical systems.
Source: opennet.ru
