AlmaLinux Will No Longer Be "Just Another RHEL Clone"

As my favorite band, Rush, once said, in Circumstances, "plus Áa change, plus c'est la mÍme chose." In other words, the more that things change, the more they stay the same.

But this time around, AlmaLinux isn't happy with staying the same… especially with regards to remaining in lockstep with Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL).

With the upcoming release of AlmaLinux 9.3, those who have become fans of the distribution should expect change. This new release will not rely on RHEL Linux source code. Instead, AlmaLinux 9.3 is built from the CentOS Stream repositories, which is upstream from RHEL.

What does this mean for users? AlmaLinux 9.3 will most likely not change all that much. The distribution will continue supporting x86_64, aarch64, ppc64le, and s390x architectures and will likely no longer release days after RHEL.

According to benny Vasquez (https://almalinux.org/blog/future-of-almalinux/), AlmaLinux OS Foundation Chair, "For a typical user, this will mean very little change in your use of AlmaLinux. Red Hat-compatible applications will still be able to run on AlmaLinux OS, and your installs of AlmaLinux will continue to receive timely security updates."

"The most remarkable potential impact of the change is that we will no longer be held to the line of 'bug-for-bug compatibility' with Red Hat, and that means that we can now accept bug fixes outside of Red Hat's release cycle," Vasquez continues. "While that means some AlmaLinux OS users may encounter bugs that are not in Red Hat, we may also accept patches for bugs that have not yet been accepted upstream or shipped downstream."

AlmaLinux 9.3 is now available to download (https://almalinux.org/get-almalinux/).

elementary OS 8 Has a Big Surprise in Store

Elementary OS has long been a favorite of mine. For years it was my go-to Linux distribution, which came to a halt when I purchased my first System76 Thelio desktop. Even so, I've continued to admire from afar the work that goes into the OS.

And with the upcoming release, the development team plans to finally shift to the Wayland display server by default.

This has been a long time coming, because Wayland is far superior and more secure than X.Org.

Wayland isn't the only change coming to elementary OS 8. According to the team's recent blog (https://blog.elementary.io/lets-talk-os-8/), version 8 of the OS will also include the continued transition to GTK 4.

So far, the Captive Network Assistant, Initial Setup, and Videos app have already made the transition (in their respective development branches), and the port for the AppCenter is almost done.

The System Settings app and the indicator area will also see some major changes, making them both more modern and responsive. In addition, the development team is considering an immutable version of elementary OS, adding Pipewire, replacing the onscreen keyboard, and even reevaluating the systemd boot.

Of course, not everything will make it into version 8, but it looks like the team has their work cut out for them.

If you'd like to get early access to daily builds, you can do so by becoming an elementary OS sponsor on GitHub (https://github.com/sponsors/elementary).

OpenELA Releases Enterprise Linux Source Code

OpenELA was formed by CIQ (the company behind Rocky Linux), Oracle, and SUSE with a singular purpose: "… to encourage the development of distributions compatible with Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) by providing open and free enterprise Linux source code." And the initial release of the OpenELA source code is now available (https://github.com/openela-main).

But why is this happening? According to CIQ (https://ciq.com/blog/ciq-oracle-and-suse-launch-openela/), "The decision to establish OpenELA wasn't made in isolation. It was a direct answer to the challenges posed by Red Hat's recent policy shifts. At CIQ, we've always believed in the power of collaboration and open access."

The site continues, "By teaming up with Oracle and SUSE, we'll be able to provide the community with the tools, resources, and most importantly, the source code they need through OpenELA. With OpenELA, both upstream and downstream communities can fully leverage the potential of open source, from independent upstream projects through the delivery of compatible and standards-based Enterprise Linux derivatives."

The code (found at the prior OpenELA GitHub page link) contains all of the basic packages for building an Enterprise Linux OS. Keep in mind, however, that the code is still very much a work in progress and some of the code has yet to be made public (due to OpenELA's continued removal of all Red Hat branding/trademarks).

At the moment, both Oracle and SUSE are planning on releasing their enterprise distributions based on OpenELA, and the Rocky Linux Software Foundation is considering the same.