The release of the AlmaLinux 10.1 distribution has been presented, synchronized with Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10.1 and containing all the changes proposed in this release. Installation images have been prepared for the x86_64_v3, x86_64_v2, ARM64, ppc64le and s390x architectures in the form of a bootable (927 MB), minimal (1.4 GB) and full image (8.3 GB). Live builds with GNOME, KDE, MATE and Xfce will be created later, as well as images for Raspberry Pi boards, containers, WSL (Windows Subsystem for Linux) and cloud platforms.
The distribution is binary compatible with Red Hat Enterprise Linux where possible and can be used as a replacement for RHEL 10.1 and CentOS 10 Stream. In addition to rebranding and removal of RHEL-specific packages, AlmaLinux 10.1 has the following differences from RHEL 10.1:
- Support for the Btrfs file system has been restored. We've added the ability to partition drives using Btrfs in the installer, ensured installation of the btrfs.ko kernel module, returned the btrfs-progs utility suite, and adapted the storage management stack for Btrfs. We've also verified that the following packages work correctly in Btrfs environments: bcc, buildah, cockpit, ignition, libblockdev, libguestfs, osbuild, osbuild-composer, podman, pykickstart, python-blivet, skopeo, udisks2, and virt-v2v. Red Hat deprecated the Btrfs file system in RHEL 7.4 (2017) and discontinued support for it in RHEL 8.
- The CodeReady Builder (CRB) package repository is enabled by default. It contains a selection of packages not offered by default in Red Hat Enterprise Linux, including developer applications, additional libraries and wrappers, as well as packages containing debug data, documentation, header files, static builds, and code samples (the "-devel," "-example," "-doc," and "-static" packages). Among other things, CRB includes libraries used as dependencies in packages from the EPEL (Extra Packages for Enterprise Linux) repository.
- Packages for installing NVIDIA drivers and the CUDA stack have been created. The drivers can be used in configurations with UEFI Secure Boot. Kernel modules from the official set of proprietary drivers from NVIDIA cannot be loaded in UEFI Secure Boot mode because they are not digitally signed by the distribution. This limitation was circumvented by using kernel modules openly available from NVIDIA, which were used to create a proprietary nvidia-open-kmod package with modules digitally signed by AlmaLinux. A separate package, almalinux-release-nvidia-driver, configures an external repository maintained by NVIDIA, from which CUDA drivers and proprietary NVIDIA driver components running in user space are loaded.
- Separate builds for the second version of the x86-64 microarchitecture (x86-64-v2) have been created. These builds are maintained in parallel with the base x86-64 builds, which are generated with optimizations for the x86-64-v3 microarchitecture used in RHEL 10. Additional support for x86-64-v2 ensures compatibility with CPUs older than Intel Haswell and AMD Excavator, designed before 2013. In addition to the standard repositories, x86-64-v2 builds are also prepared for packages from the EPEL repository.
- Server and client implementations of the SPICE protocol have been reintroduced, allowing for remote desktop interactions running in a virtual environment under QEMU/KVM. Unlike the VNC and RDP protocols, SPICE renders screen contents and processes audio streams on the client side, rather than on the server. serverIn RHEL, SPICE support was dropped in release 9.0.
- The use of the %rbp processor register as a base pointer to the stack frame containing return addresses and function variables (frame pointer) has been returned. Using a pointer to stack frames allows the distribution to use additional capabilities for tracing and profiling the system.
- The ability to use a hypervisor has been implemented KVM On systems with IBM POWER processors. In RHEL, such support was discontinued in the 9.0 branch.
- The Synergy repository, which contains packages other than Red Hat Enterprise Linux, is maintained. Currently, the Synergy repository contains packages for the Pantheon user environment, developed by the Elementary OS project, and Warpinator, a utility for encrypted file sharing between two computers.
- Implemented the ability to boot in UEFI Secure Boot mode for systems with Intel/AMD and ARM processors.
- Support for over 150 hardware devices not supported in RHEL 10.1 has been restored. For example, the IDs of old PCI devices in the drivers have been returned:
- aacraid - Dell PERC2, 2/Si, 3/Si, 3/Di, Adaptec Advanced Raid Products, HP NetRAID-4M, IBM ServeRAID & ICP SCSI
- be2iscsi - Emulex OneConnectOpen-iSCSI for BladeEngine 2 and 3
- be2net – Emulex BladeEngine 2 and 3 adapters *
- hpsa - HP Smart Array Controller
- lpfc - Emulex LightPulse Fiber Channel SCSI
- megaraid_sas - Broadcom MegaRAID SAS
- mlx4_core - Mellanox Gen2 and ConnectX-2
- mpt3sas - LSI MPT Fusion SAS 3.0
- mptsas - Fusion MPT SAS Host
- qla2xxx - QLogic Fiber Channel HBA
- qla4xxx — QLogic iSCSI HBA.
The AlmaLinux distribution was founded by CloudLinux in response to the premature end of support for CentOS 8 by Red Hat (updates for CentOS 8 were discontinued at the end of 2021, and not in 2029, as users expected). The project is overseen by a separate non-profit organization, the AlmaLinux OS Foundation, which was created to develop in a neutral, community-driven environment using a governance model similar to the Fedora Project. The distribution kit is free for all categories of users. All developments of AlmaLinux are published under free licenses.
In addition to AlmaLinux, Rocky Linux (developed by the community under the leadership of the founder of CentOS), Oracle Linux, SUSE Liberty Linux and EuroLinux are also positioned as alternatives to the classic CentOS. In addition, Red Hat has provided the opportunity to use RHEL for free in organizations developing open source software and in individual developer environments with up to 16 virtual or physical systems.
Source: opennet.ru
