Almalinux 9.4, the latest distribution issue has been announced, synchronized with a new release of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9.4 and including all proposed changes in this issue. Installation images are available for architectures x86_64, ARM64, PPC64le, and S390X in the form of boot (988 MB), minimum (1.9 GB), and a complete image (10 GB). Live-assembly images with GNOME, KDE, Mate, and XFCE will be formed, along with images for raspberry pi, containers, WSL (Windows Subsystem for Linux), and cloud platforms.
The distribution is binary compatible with Red Hat Enterprise Linux and can serve as a replacement for RHEL 9.4 and CentOS 9 Stream. Changes include rebranding and removal of specific packets for RHEL, such as redhat-*, onsights-callient, subscription-manager-migration*, kpatch*, kmod-realhat-*, rhc, spice*, and virtio-win. Additionally, a synergy repository is available for use, which differs from Red Hat Enterprise Linux.
The formation of two new SIG groups (Special Interest Group) HPC and AI has been reported, aimed at creating and supporting solutions based on Almalinux for high-performance calculations and machine learning. These groups will also provide support in these areas and promote related optimizations and innovations by uniting organizations, companies, and community representatives interested in deploying HPC and AI systems using Almalinux as a platform.
Almalinux distribution is based on Cloudlinux in response to the premature end of support for CentOS 8 by Red Hat. The Almalinux project is overseen by the Almalinux OS Foundation, a non-profit organization created to develop on a neutral platform with community participation and a management model similar to the Fedora project. The distribution is free for all user categories, and all Almalinux achievements are published under free licenses.