This new Linux distro wants to 'fill the void' left by CentOS

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The first stable release of AlmaLinux, the drop-in CentOS replacement, has arrived on schedule. AlmaLinux is an open source rebuild of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) that aims to fill the void left by Red Hat’s move to divert its resources to the CentOS Stream distro. 

Proposed by server OS vendor CloudLinux, AlmaLinux backs the new Linux distro with a financial commitment of a million dollars a year, and promises to develop and foster an open source community around the project.

“So, after about 4 months since the decision to steer CentOS in a different path, you now have a 1:1 binary compatible drop-in replacement, with a very long support timeframe,” write the AlmaLinux developers in the release announcement.

Proper open source

In addition to the release, the project also announced the formation of a non-profit organization, the AlmaLinux OS Foundation, which will now take over the responsibility of managing the distro going forward via its governing board.

Former Red Hat and Fedora developer, Jack Aboutboul, will be AlmaLinux's community manager. 

He will be joined on the board by veteran open source advocate Simon Phipps, along with Igor Seletskiy, CloudLinux’s CEO, Eugene Zamriy, CloudLinux’s director of release engineering, and Jesse Asklund, global head of customer experience for WebPros at web hosting control panel, cPanel. 

There’s also room for two other members from the AlmaLinux community who’ll be elected in due time.

In addition to the installation ISOs, the project has also shared a conversion script that will help CentOS users convert their existing installation to AlmaLinux. 

Via: ZDNet

Mayank Sharma

With almost two decades of writing and reporting on Linux, Mayank Sharma would like everyone to think he’s TechRadar Pro’s expert on the topic. Of course, he’s just as interested in other computing topics, particularly cybersecurity, cloud, containers, and coding.