AlmaLinux
AlmaLinux OS is a free, open-source, community-owned, and forever-free enterprise-grade Linux distribution designed for long-term stability and production use, serving as a binary-compatible replacement for CentOS Linux following its discontinuation.[1] Initiated by CloudLinux Inc. with initial sponsorship and support from over 25 additional contributors, the project launched its first stable release, AlmaLinux 8.3, on March 30, 2021, under the governance of the AlmaLinux OS Foundation, a 501(c)(6) nonprofit organization established in March 2021.[1][2] AlmaLinux maintains ABI compatibility with Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), ensuring seamless interoperability with RHEL-based software and kernel modules, and shifted its build process in July 2023 to directly align with RHEL releases for enhanced reliability.[1] The distribution supports four architectures—x86_64, aarch64, ppc64le, and s390x—and offers features such as security errata, OpenSCAP compliance tools, and software bills of materials (SBOM), with long-term support extending to 2029 for the 8.x series and 2032 for the 9.x series.[1] As of May 27, 2025, the latest major release is AlmaLinux 10.0, codenamed "Purple Lion," featuring kernel version 6.12.0 and distributed across all supported architectures.[3]Overview
What is AlmaLinux OS
AlmaLinux OS is a free, open-source, community-owned and governed enterprise Linux distribution that serves as a binary-compatible alternative to Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL). Established as a direct fork of RHEL source code, it emphasizes long-term stability and provides a robust, production-grade platform for mission-critical applications without reliance on proprietary vendor support.[1][4] This compatibility ensures that software packages, configurations, and binaries built for RHEL function seamlessly on AlmaLinux without modifications, allowing organizations to migrate or deploy applications with minimal disruption. AlmaLinux emerged in response to the transformation of CentOS into a downstream RHEL variant, filling the need for an independent, upstream-focused enterprise Linux option.[1][4] The distribution targets enterprises, developers, and server administrators who require a reliable operating system for servers, cloud environments, and development workflows, particularly those avoiding vendor lock-in through community-driven alternatives. It supports multiple architectures, including x86_64, aarch64 (ARM64), ppc64le, and s390x, enabling deployment across diverse hardware from standard Intel/AMD systems to IBM Power and mainframes.[1][4] Under the stewardship of the AlmaLinux OS Foundation, a 501(c)(6) non-profit organization, AlmaLinux commits to a forever-free model, ensuring perpetual access without subscription fees or end-of-life restrictions, backed by community contributions and corporate sponsorships.[1][4]Core Principles and Compatibility
AlmaLinux OS is guided by core principles centered on community ownership and governance through the AlmaLinux OS Foundation, a non-profit organization that ensures meritocratic decision-making and independence from corporate control.[1] This structure promotes transparency across all development processes, including public access to build artifacts, source code repositories on GitHub, and detailed documentation, allowing users and contributors to verify every aspect of the distribution.[5] Additionally, AlmaLinux commits to long-term support without subscription fees, providing enterprise-grade stability for up to 10 years per major release, while maintaining complete openness as a forever-free, open-source platform backed by diverse sponsorships.[1] A foundational commitment of AlmaLinux is its binary compatibility with Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), ensuring that applications and binaries built for RHEL run seamlessly on AlmaLinux without recompilation or modification.[1] This compatibility is achieved through ABI (Application Binary Interface) alignment, with source code synchronized from upstream projects like CentOS Stream and Fedora rather than direct RHEL rebuilds, a shift implemented in 2023 to adapt to changes in source availability while preserving functional equivalence.[6] Key features supporting this include full compatibility with RHEL source RPMs for package rebuilding, synchronization of errata for security updates and bug fixes to match RHEL's advisory cadence, and the provision of Software Bill of Materials (SBOM) for each release to enable transparent security auditing and supply chain verification.[7][8] Unlike RHEL, which incorporates proprietary elements and requires paid subscriptions for full support, AlmaLinux excludes all such components, focusing exclusively on open-source alternatives and community-driven enhancements.[9] Notable additions include support for the x86-64-v2 microarchitecture baseline in builds, extending compatibility to older hardware that RHEL has phased out.[10] As of 2025, AlmaLinux adheres to RHEL 10 compatibility standards, featuring kernel version 6.12.0 and a package ecosystem that mirrors RHEL 10's core libraries, tools, and dependencies for enterprise workloads.[3][11] The AlmaLinux build system plays a crucial role in upholding these guarantees by automating verification of binary outputs against upstream specifications.[6]History
Founding and Early History
On December 8, 2020, the CentOS project announced a strategic shift toward CentOS Stream as its primary development model, positioning it as an upstream rolling release ahead of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), while traditional CentOS Linux would cease production after December 31, 2021.[12][13] This pivot raised concerns among users reliant on a stable, free RHEL-compatible distribution, prompting the need for an independent alternative to maintain enterprise-grade stability without upstream development risks.[14] In response, CloudLinux Inc. launched the AlmaLinux project on January 14, 2021, as a community-oriented initiative to create a 1:1 binary-compatible fork of RHEL, directly addressing the void left by CentOS Linux.[14] The project released its first beta version, AlmaLinux OS 8.3-beta (codenamed Purple Manul), on February 1, 2021, after approximately 1.5 months of development by CloudLinux engineers incorporating initial community feedback.[15] This beta emphasized seamless migration for CentOS users, with repositories hosted on repo.almalinux.org and development tracked via GitHub.[15] AlmaLinux's core objectives from inception were to deliver a forever-free operating system with 10-year support cycles per major release—aligning with RHEL's lifecycle to ensure predictable security updates and bug fixes through at least 2029 for the initial version—while remaining fully sponsored to avoid commercialization pressures.[14][16] CloudLinux committed $1 million annually as the founding sponsor, supplemented by contributions from partners like AWS and Azure, to fund infrastructure and operations.[14][1] Among the early hurdles were rapidly sourcing and repackaging source RPMs from CentOS Linux repositories ahead of their end-of-life to guarantee compatibility, alongside recruiting contributors through channels like GitHub, a project wiki, and webinars to build a diverse governance model.[17][15] Establishing autonomous build systems posed additional complexity, requiring validation of binary equivalence without direct Red Hat access, though CloudLinux's decade of RHEL repackaging expertise accelerated progress.[17] These efforts culminated in the first stable release of AlmaLinux OS 8.3 on March 30, 2021, simultaneous with the incorporation of the AlmaLinux OS Foundation as a 501(c)(6) nonprofit to transfer control from CloudLinux to community-led oversight, safeguarding against future acquisitions or shifts.[18][17]Key Developments and Milestones
In July 2022, the AlmaLinux OS Foundation introduced the AlmaLinux Build System (ALBS), an open-source infrastructure designed to enable independent rebuilding of the distribution from source code, thereby reducing reliance on external providers like CentOS Stream for package production.[19] This shift marked a pivotal step toward full autonomy, allowing the project to maintain binary compatibility with Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) while controlling its own development pipeline.[20] Project ELevate, launched in October 2021, provided a framework for in-place migrations between major versions of RHEL-based distributions, including upgrades from CentOS 7 to AlmaLinux 8 and subsequent intra-version transitions to 9 and 10.[21] By August 2024, significant updates expanded support to include migrations from CentOS 6, Scientific Linux 7, and CentOS Stream 8, while preserving user data and configurations.[22][23] These enhancements continued into 2025, with ongoing community-driven refinements to the Leapp utility and data libraries, including a November 3, 2025, update adding vendor support (e.g., Nginx, KernelCare, MariaDB, Imunify) for upgrades from AlmaLinux 9 to 10.[24] The release of AlmaLinux 9 on May 26, 2022, aligned closely with RHEL 9, incorporating kernel 5.14 and improvements in cloud, container, and web console functionalities.[25] AlmaLinux 10 followed on May 27, 2025, introducing kernel 6.12, Secure Boot for ARM platforms, and enhanced hardware support, solidifying the project's independence by leveraging ALBS for all builds without upstream dependencies.[10][11] In October 2025, the project announced the beta release of AlmaLinux 10.1, featuring performance improvements and updated developer toolsets including the latest GCC, LLVM, and Rust versions.[26] In May 2024, the AlmaLinux Engineering Steering Committee (ALESCo) was formed to oversee technical decisions, coordinate engineering efforts, and ensure long-term sustainability through community input on robustness and reliability.[27] This committee acts as a centralized body for guiding development priorities, including vulnerability responses and feature integration.[28] From 2024 to 2025, key initiatives included the October 22, 2024, introduction of AlmaLinux OS Kitten, a development branch serving as the direct upstream for future stable releases like AlmaLinux 10, enabling early testing for users and partners such as Cisco and Miracle Linux.[29] The project conducted community surveys, notably in June 2025, to gather user feedback on features and priorities without telemetry implementation.[30] AlmaLinux also participated in major conferences, including FOSDEM and CentOS Connect in January 2025, where representatives presented on ELevate upgrades and SIG developments.[31] Sponsorship expanded significantly, growing from 25 members in early 2024 to 34 by year's end, with additions like AMD, Fastly, and Virtuozzo providing infrastructure and financial support.[32][33] This growth continued in 2025, with renewals such as Cybertrust Japan as a Platinum Sponsor in June.[34] Board elections for the AlmaLinux OS Foundation were planned for August-September 2025 to select directors, emphasizing community governance, though the process was later rescheduled to March 2026 for procedural refinements.[35][36]Governance and Community
The AlmaLinux OS Foundation
The AlmaLinux OS Foundation was established in March 2021 as a 501(c)(6) non-profit organization based in the United States, specifically incorporated as a Delaware non-stock, nonprofit corporation.[1][37][38] It owns all assets related to AlmaLinux OS, including trademarks, build infrastructure, repositories, and other project resources, with initial assets transferred from CloudLinux, Inc., to ensure independent community stewardship.[37] The foundation's mission is to further develop and maintain AlmaLinux OS as a free, stable, open-source Linux distribution without registration or advertising requirements, while fostering community growth, promoting transparency, and ensuring the project's long-term viability for the benefit of users and contributors.[38][39] This includes supporting an ecosystem of vendors and partners, as well as pursuing board-approved activities to sustain the distribution's enterprise-grade compatibility and accessibility.[38] Governance is led by a Board of Directors, consisting of up to 13 members (typically at least seven), with Benny Vasquez serving as Chair as of 2025.[39][40] The board oversees major decisions via supermajority votes and includes directors such as Jack Aboutboul, Jesse Asklund, Simon Phipps, Moshe Bar, Daniel Pearson, Jun Yoshida, and Alex Iribarren, alongside non-voting expert David Snead.[39] Board elections occur periodically; the planned 2025 cycle, originally set to begin on August 31, was postponed to March 2026 due to procedural issues, using ranked-choice voting for three-year terms, with current board terms extended. Eligible members from classes including Platinum, Gold, Silver, Ruby, Contributor, Alumnus, and Mirror participate in nominations and voting.[41][36][38] Key committees, including the Membership Committee—which reviews applications and meets regularly—along with the Executive, Technical Steering, Vendor Selection, and optional Marketing Committees, support governance and operational needs.[39][38] Funding is derived from a tiered membership model, with fees ranging from $100,000 annually for Platinum members to $2,500 for Silver, as well as in-kind contributions such as employee time or hardware; this structure emphasizes independence, avoiding reliance on entities like Red Hat and instead drawing sponsorships from diverse companies including CloudLinux.[39][42] Membership classes grant varying voting rights, with good standing required for participation in electing community directors and influencing project direction.[38]Community Structure and Contributions
The AlmaLinux community operates through structured membership tiers that encourage participation at individual and organizational levels. Individual contributors qualify as Contributor Members by demonstrating active involvement, such as code submissions or documentation improvements, granting them one vote in board elections, the ability to nominate candidates, and usage of the Contributor logo on their profiles.[39] Sponsor tiers include Silver ($2,500 annual fee or equivalent in-kind contributions), Gold ($20,000), Platinum ($100,000), and Ruby ($5,000), each providing escalating voting rights—5, 15, 50, and 5 votes respectively—along with benefits like prominent logo placement on the project website, event promotions, and press release mentions to enhance visibility.[39] These tiers, managed by the project's Membership Committee, ensure broad representation in governance while supporting the foundation's neutrality.[39] Contributions flow through diverse channels that facilitate collaboration and feedback. Developers and users engage via Git repositories on platforms like GitHub for code reviews and pull requests, particularly in repositories such as almalinux-deploy for migration tools.[43] The official forums at forums.almalinux.org host discussions on general topics, support, and development, serving as a primary hub for community interaction.[43] Real-time communication occurs on chat.almalinux.org, a Matrix-based platform with channels like #almalinux for introductions and topic-specific rooms, supplemented by legacy IRC support.[44] Special Interest Groups (SIGs), such as the Cloud SIG for container and image work or the HPC and AI SIG for high-performance computing needs, enable focused collaboration on niche areas.[45] Bug reporting is centralized at bugs.almalinux.org, a GitLab instance where users file issues, while packaging contributions involve rebuilding RHEL packages or EPEL modules through the build system.[43][46] Key initiatives underscore the community's role in shaping the project. The annual community survey, such as the 2025 edition launched in June, gathers anonymous user feedback on usage patterns, support needs, and feature priorities to inform data-driven decisions without relying on telemetry.[30] Packaging efforts allow contributors to submit and maintain third-party repositories, integrating them into official channels like EPEL.[46] These activities, coordinated by the AlmaLinux OS Foundation, amplify grassroots input into development.[47] Engagement extends to events that build connections and showcase contributions. The community maintains booths and speaking slots at major conferences, including FOSDEM 2025 in February for open-source developers, All Things Open in October 2025 in Raleigh, North Carolina, and CloudFest USA in November 2025 in Miami, Florida, where foundation leaders discuss collaboration in AI and cloud ecosystems.[31][48] Developer meetups and webinars, hosted via the project's events platform, facilitate hands-on sessions and SIG discussions.[49] The community's impact is evident in influential feature decisions, driven by user feedback and SIG input. Secure Boot support, enabling trusted boot processes on Intel/AMD and ARM platforms, was prioritized and implemented in AlmaLinux OS 10 based on community demands for enhanced security.[10] Similarly, the addition of x86-64-v2 architecture in version 10.0 extended compatibility to older hardware, addressing SIG and survey-identified needs for broader hardware support without compromising modern optimizations.[3] Over 40 individual backers contribute via GitHub and Open Collective as of early 2025, reflecting growing grassroots involvement.[32]Technical Infrastructure
Project ELevate
Project ELevate was introduced in 2021 by the AlmaLinux project as an open-source toolset to enable in-place upgrades for systems running CentOS Linux 7 or 8, as well as other RHEL-based derivatives, to AlmaLinux versions.[21] It builds on Red Hat's Leapp utility and upgrade tools, providing a framework for seamless transitions while maintaining system stability.[50] The project has facilitated upgrades on over 500,000 devices worldwide, contributing significantly to the migration of users away from discontinued distributions like CentOS Linux following its end-of-life in 2021.[21] At its core, ELevate utilizes a Leapp-based framework to handle data migration, package replacement, and preservation of existing configurations, ensuring minimal disruption to applications and settings during the upgrade.[50] This includes support for third-party repositories such as EPEL (limited to AlmaLinux), Docker CE, MariaDB, nginx, PostgreSQL, Imunify, KernelCare, and TuxCare, allowing for comprehensive ecosystem compatibility.[50] The tool performs one-step upgrades for most paths, leveraging actors—modular components—for custom migration tasks, such as handling specific hardware or software adjustments.[51] Supported upgrade paths encompass CentOS 7 to AlmaLinux 8/9/10, CentOS 8 to AlmaLinux 8/9, and intra-version migrations like EL8 to EL9 or EL9 to EL10, with extensions enabling transitions to Rocky Linux 8 and Oracle Linux 8 equivalents from CentOS 7, and from Rocky Linux 8 to EL9; higher Oracle Linux versions use Oracle's Leapp utility.[21][50] For older systems, it also covers CentOS 6 to CentOS 7 using the Red Hat Upgrade Tool, and Scientific Linux 7 to AlmaLinux 8 with specific workarounds.[21] The usage process starts with installing the ELevate release package from the official repository, followed by the Leapp upgrade tools and AlmaLinux-specific data modules, such asleapp-data-almalinux.[51] Pre-upgrade checks are conducted via leapp preupgrade to generate a report identifying issues like incompatible packages or configurations, which must be resolved before proceeding.[51] The upgrade is initiated with leapp upgrade, triggering a reboot into a dedicated initramfs environment, after which post-upgrade verification involves checking release files (/etc/redhat-release and /etc/os-release), scanning for residual old packages, and reviewing logs in /var/log/leapp/.[51]
Despite its capabilities, ELevate has limitations, including the recommendation against direct production use without prior testing in a non-critical environment, and the requirement for offline upgrades in certain paths due to the reboot process.[51] It lacks support for Raspberry Pi images and does not enable x86_64_v2 architecture for upgrades to AlmaLinux 10 or Kitten 10; additionally, some EL9 packages may persist post-upgrade if unavailable in the target version.[51]