AlmaLinux is an alternative to CentOS, the distribution that has been discontinued by Red Hat after acquiring it.
The CentOS project, which produced an enterprise Linux distribution, was bought by Red Hat in 2014, but then shut down in December 2020, leaving many users angry. The distribution was basically Red Hat's Enterprise Linux without the trademarks, the only copyrighted elements.
Six months later, Red Hat, which was bought by IBM in 2019, tightened its grip on RHEL source code, said it would make source code available only to its customers.
At that point, AlmaLinux, and distributions like Rocky Linux and SUSE also pledged to provide alternatives to both CentOS and RHEL.
A statement from the AlmaLinux OS Foundation said version 9.4 was built from the same source as RHEL, promised complete compatibility with RHEL, and did so from freely available open source code.
"This makes it the only choice for anyone looking for a truly open source Enterprise Linux," the statement claimed. "AlmaLinux 9.4 is available to download via the over-350-device AlmaLinux mirror system, including pre-built ISOs.
“Releasing AlmaLinux 9.4 less than one week after the release of Red Hat 9.4 is a testament to the strength and depth of knowledge of the AlmaLinux community and its commitment to speed as well as stability,” said Andrew Lukushko, lead architect at AlmaLinux.
“We have the backing of companies and organisations that provide the infrastructure and fundamental understanding needed to deliver the enterprise Linux that our community needs.”
The Foundation statement said introducing updates to enhance machine security and data protection, AlmaLinux 9.4 also provided improvements in web-console and system roles that automated additional operations and promoted consistency in complex environments.
Its new system roles are claimed to enable the creation and management of logical volume manager (LVM) snapshots for improved data back-up and recovery processes while its new features also aim to improve system availability and reliability, facilitate easier recovery operations, and enhance virtual machine snapshot capabilities in hybrid cloud environments.
“The release of 9.4 stands as the latest testament to AlmaLinux’s steadfast commitment to our community while maintaining the ever-improved performance, scalability and reliability,” said benny Vasquez, chair of the AlmaLinux OS Foundation.
“This is our second point release for AlmaLinux 9 since last year’s shift from copying Red Hat bit-for-bit, and we are starting to take advantage of our freedom.”
The statement said with RHEL 9.4, Red Hat had changed how it managed device drivers that are deprecated, disabled, or unmaintained, and it also removed support for several older hardware devices.
It said the way those device were managed made it easy for AlmaLinux to restore support for those devices that the AlmaLinux community still needed.
The statement claimed the release of AlmaLinux 9.4 marked a pivotal moment for any industry looking to keep hardware and human costs low by extending the life of still-good, but aging servers.
“This significant enhancement not only streamlines installation and updates for our clusters but also revitalises older systems, particularly in VFX studios where legacy CPU rendering blades still play a vital role,” said Tristan Theroux, IT infrastructure & security director for SHED, an animation studio and post-production house in Montreal.
“In the realm of VFX, where every resource counts, these trusted, resilient servers tackle less intensive tasks, allowing more powerful rendering servers to be reserved for more intensive projects. AlmaLinux 9.4 doesn't just bridge the gap between the past and present; it propels us toward a future where innovation knows no bounds.”
AlmaLinux 9.4 includes support for the following devices that were disabled upstream:
- aacraid - Dell PERC2, 2/Si, 3/Si, 3/Di, Adaptec Advanced Raid Products, HP
- NetRAID-4M, IBM ServeRAID & ICP SCSI
- be2iscsi - Emulex OneConnectOpen-iSCSI for BladeEngine 2 and 3 adapters
- hpsa - HP Smart Array Controller
- lpfc - Emulex LightPulse Fibre Channel SCSI
- megaraid_sas - Broadcom MegaRAID SAS
- mlx4_core - Mellanox Gen2 and ConnectX-2 adapters
- mpt3sas - LSI MPT Fusion SAS 3.0
- mptsas - Fusion MPT SAS Host
- qla2xxx - QLogic Fibre Channel HBA
- qla4xxx - QLogic iSCSI HBA
