What is next for Open Source- Alma Linux and beyond

• Open source has become the mainstay of many innovative enterprise applications, and garners no doubts on its efficacy and security.
  
• Even erstwhile proprietary brands are now collaborating with OS platforms for development of technologies.
  
• AlmaLinux is here to stay and support across sectors.
  

When Red Hat announced that it will no longer support open-source CentOS, a wave of disturbance was caused throughout the open-source community. In response, the open-source community formed an alliance and started building alternatives for CentOS.

While they initially named it Lenix, which was a paid offering and was initially restricted to hosting providers, its eventual success led the community to make it 100% free and open-source and renamed it to AlmaLinux.

Today, AlmaLinux has delivered over three releases with millions of downloads. It has become an alternative platform for developers for CentOS Stream and Red Hat Enterprise Linux. Even though its user-facing features are limited, its speed and agility have made it an attractive avenue for the open-source community.

It is quick and efficient

One of the key factors of AlmaLinux 9 success is its speed. After each iteration, the speed of this OS is faster and is noticeable with a broad margin. Industry experts have stated that AlmaLinux is the highest performing on any RHEL clone. Being based on RHEL 9, AlmaLinux 9 greatly benefits from its features. What’s more, its newfound speed is a combination of the latest kernel and the changes in SELinux along with an enhanced and robust I/O controller.

But it is not just about the underlying layers. AlmaLinux also comes with GNOME 42, whose GUI is considered to be much faster than other open-source alternatives. A rapid installation of its application and the launch of desktop applications, faster loading time of websites, container deployment along with networking make it a perfect choice for the open-source community seeking an alternative to CentOS as well as AlmaLinux’s predecessor.

Adoption by various tech platforms

Its efficiency and growing popularity among the open-source community has attracted the attention of many tech giants. For instance, Amazon Web Services has made the operating system available on its marketplace. Not only that but Microsoft through its Azure marketplace has later listed the OS. Recently AMD has also joined the bandwagon.

Good news for heavyweights

When Red Hat announced that it will stop its support of CentOS on production or for production-level testing, multiple media eCommerce and networking platforms, such as GoDaddy, Rackspace, and Verizon were negatively affected. But with the arrival of AlmaLinux, these large entities can now use the OS for installations on servers either situated in on-premises data centers or edge locations.

Additionally for organizations that are skeptical or cannot afford outside support, spinning AlmaLinux in the cloud can help them to avoid hefty subscription fees. While Azure and AWS customers have to bear the cost of the cloud’s services, there is an additional cost for running AlmaLinux.

It is yet to be confirmed that AlmaLinux is supporting both x86- and Arm-based platforms. However, the community is taking every possible step to do so. The platform has come so far and has already made rapid progress in the open-source marketplace. With its latest launch, many industries predict that it will be the server-focused operating systems that will raise the bar for other open-source platforms. Let’s see what lies in the next chapter of open-source platforms.
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