Published first beta release of the distribution AlmaLinux , created in response to the early withdrawal of support for CentOS 8 by Red Hat (it was decided to discontinue the release of updates for CentOS 8 at the end of 2021, and not in 2029, as users assumed). Development of AlmaLinux is carried out under the auspices of CloudLinux, which provided resources and developers (a million dollars a year were allocated for the development of the project). Test builds prepared for x86_64 architecture as bootable (680 MB), minimum (1.8 GB) and the full image (8.7 GB).
The build is based on the Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.3 release and is completely identical in functionality with the exception of changes related to rebranding and removal of RHEL-specific packages, such as redhat- *, insights- client and subscription-manager-migration *. All developments will be published under free licenses, but at the moment the public repository has not been launched yet (they promise to launch it after the revised source code is ready). At the same time, the infrastructure for tracking error information has already been launched.
The distribution develops in accordance with the principles of classic CentOS, is formed by rebuilding the Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 package base and retains full binary compatibility with RHEL, which allows it to be used to transparently replace the classic CentOS 8. Updates for the AlmaLinux distribution branch based on the package based on RHEL 8, they promise to release until 2029.
The distribution is free for all categories of users, developed with community involvement and using a management model similar to the organization of the Fedora project. AlmaLinux is trying to find the optimal balance between corporate support and the interests of the community – on the one hand, the resources and developers of CloudLinux, which has extensive experience in supporting RHEL forks, will be involved in the development, and on the other hand, the project will be transparent and under the control of the community.
In addition to AlmaLinux, Rocky Linux is also positioned as alternatives to the old CentOS (at the stage of infrastructure creation, test builds are promised to be published on March 31) and Oracle Linux (tied to the interests of the corporation, which can revise the rules of the game at any time). In addition, Red Hat provided
the ability to use RHEL for free in production deployments with no more than 16 systems.