The release of the AlmaLinux 9.0 distribution has been formed, synchronized with the Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 distribution and containing all proposed changes for this branch. The AlmaLinux project has become the first publicly available distribution based on the RHEL package base to release stable builds based on RHEL 9. Installation images have been prepared for the x86_64, ARM64, ppc64le, and s390x architectures in the form of bootable (800 MB), minimal (1.5 GB), and full images (8 GB). Live builds with GNOME, KDE, and Xfce, as well as images for Raspberry Pi, containers, and cloud platforms, will be formed later.
The distribution is fully binary compatible with Red Hat Enterprise Linux and can be used as a replacement for RHEL 9 and CentOS 9 Stream. The changes include rebranding and the removal of RHEL-specific packages such as redhat-*, insights-client, and subscription-manager-migration*. An overview of the changes in RHEL 9 can be found in the announcement text of this product.
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 classic CentOS include Rocky Linux (developed by the community under the leadership of the CentOS founder with support from a specially created company, Ctrl IQ), VzLinux (prepared by Virtuozzo), Oracle Linux, SUSE Liberty Linux, and EuroLinux. Furthermore, Red Hat has provided the opportunity for free use of RHEL in organizations developing open-source software and in environments for individual developers, counting up to 16 virtual or physical systems.
Source: opennet.ru
