The release of the AlmaLinux 9.5 distribution is now available, synchronized with the new release of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9.5 and containing all the changes proposed in this release. Installation images have been prepared for the x86_64, ARM64, ppc64le, and s390x architectures in the form of bootable (1 GB), minimal (2 GB), and full images (10 GB). Live builds with GNOME, KDE, MATE, and Xfce, as well as images for Raspberry Pi, containers, WSL (Windows Subsystem for Linux), and cloud platforms will be generated later.
The distribution is binary-compatible with Red Hat Enterprise Linux whenever possible and can be used as a replacement for RHEL 9.5 and CentOS 9 Stream. Changes include rebranding, removal of RHEL-specific packages such as redhat-*, insights-client, subscription-manager-migration*, kpatch*, kmod-redhat-*, rhc, spice*, and virtio-win, and expanded hardware support. In particular, compared to RHEL, AlmaLinux adds support for additional device IDs including Compaq, LSI SAS 10xx/2xxx, LSI MegaRAID SAS1078, HP NetRAID-4M, Adaptec 5400S, Dell PERC 2*/3*, Dell PERC5, QLogic ISP, Emulex BladeEngine 2/3, Emulex OneConnect, Themisto/Callisto Jupiter Platform, IBM 8i, Adaptec Catch All, CERC SATA RAID, Legend, etc.
Additionally, a repository Synergy is available for use, containing packages that differ from Red Hat Enterprise Linux. Currently, the Synergy repository has already published packages with the Pantheon user environment developed by the Elementary OS project, and the Warpinator utility designed for encrypted file sharing between two computers.
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 are also positioned as Rocky Linux (developed by the community under the guidance of the CentOS founder), 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 with up to 16 virtual or physical systems.
Source: opennet.ru
