AlmaLinux OS First Stable Release is Here to Replace CentOS

AlmaLinux is undoubtedly one of the most anticipated Linux distributions of 2021.

In a recent announcement, it looks like the first stable release for AlmaLinux is here. Perhaps, a worthy CentOS replacement that you’ve always wanted?

In addition to the stable release, there’s also a conversion script available for folks who were testing AlmaLinux beta and do not want to reinstall from scratch as mentioned in the announcement post:

We are very happy to announce that today we are releasing the first AlmaLinux OS stable version. That’s right, you can go right ahead and download the stable version and use it everywhere you need a stable, reliable, Linux distribution. For some time now we also have the conversion script in our GitHub repository, so you can also convert your system to AlmaLinux OS stable using it if you don’t feel like reinstalling from scratch.

A Non-Profit Organization to manage AlmaLinux OS Project

Not just limited to its first stable release, but they’ve also announced the formation of a non-profit organization to ensure the forever-free enterprise-grade AlmaLinux evolves as expected.

There are some notable members in the governing board as well. Here’s what the press release mentioned:

The company also announced the formation of a non-profit organization that will take over responsibility for managing the AlmaLinux project going forward. CloudLinux has committed a $1 million dollars annual endowment to support the project. The AlmaLinux project named Jack Aboutboul as community manager of AlmaLinux. He brings more than 20 years of experience in open source communities as a participant, manager and evangelist, including nearly 10 years as a community engineer with the Fedora project while working at Red Hat as a community architect.

This is definitely exciting considering the commitment of $1 million dollars by CloudLinux to support the project under a new foundation.

They have some experienced community members working with them as well – we’ll see how that turns out in due time. But, on paper, it sounds good!

We’ve also received the details of the governing board members in the press release, here they are:

Aboutboul; Jesse Asklund, global head of customer experience for WebPros at cPanel; Simon Phipps, open-source advocate and a former president of the Open-Source Initiative; Igor Seletskiy, CEO of CloudLinux; and Eugene Zamriy, director of release engineering at CloudLinux.

On top of selected board members, two additional members for the non-profit organization will also be selected by the AlmaLinux community itself.