AlmaLinux Now Available For Download As RHEL/CentOS Alternative

[kpedersen]

I didn't know you used such modern distros. I thought you were using archaic hardware which only still ran because Linux was made to keep old computers running

I pretty much have every generation of machine under the sun. Mostly because I do horde old stuff

To be fair, enterprise distros are pretty good at digital preservation. RHEL 6 even got a Gtk3 Chrome backported to it. Only recently is BSD starting to overtake in regards to compatibility with older platforms.

[thunderbird32]

Some of us have plenty of time, others are rushing to beat the clock. I work at a University and the plan is currently to switch our CentOS 8 systems to Oracle Linux. As much as we all hate Oracle as a department, we need a tried and tested OS to move to before summer. Any upgrades have to be done and tested before the students come back in the fall. Until today, that meant going with Oracle Linux. We had hoped Rocky would be ready in time, but I'm not sure it will be. With this coming out today, it will hopefully be reasonably well tested by summer so we can move to Alma instead of Oracle.

EDIT: It should be noted that Oracle has already started calling us to try and sell us a support contract. Vultures, the lot of them.

[kpedersen]

I work at a University and the plan is currently to switch our CentOS 8 systems to Oracle Linux. As much as we all hate Oracle as a department, we need a tried and tested OS to move to before summer. Any upgrades have to be done and tested before the students come back in the fall.

Why not just stick with CentOS 7 (supported until 30 June 2024). That is a longer support than even Microsoft offers these days. Besides I am assuming you were with CentOS because you either didn't need the support or you used other 3rd party support vendors. They will still be more than happy to provide support.

Unless your typical student is a Phoronix forum member of course, in which case then they always have to be using the newest stuff

[thunderbird32]

Why not just stick with CentOS 7 (supported until 30 June 2024). That is a longer support than even Microsoft offers these days. Besides I am assuming you were with CentOS because you either didn't need the support or you used other 3rd party support vendors. They will still be more than happy to provide support.

Unless your typical student is a Phoronix forum member of course, in which case then they always have to be using the newest stuff

Ah yes, well... We could go back to CentOS 7, but the servers are running an application that was written in-house by a developer who no longer works here (and management has decided development of that program is "done" and therefore isn't going to assign anyone to maintaining it). No one seems to know how to install it, and no one seems to know anything about the stack it runs on. Honestly I think it's just a Tomcat application, but I'm not going to stake my job on getting it working again. My department is just the server/OS. The application is a different part of IT's job. Migrating to anything that doesn't have a in-place upgrade method isn't going to work.

[Vistaus]

Why not just stick with CentOS 7 (supported until 30 June 2024). That is a longer support than even Microsoft offers these days. Besides I am assuming you were with CentOS because you either didn't need the support or you used other 3rd party support vendors. They will still be more than happy to provide support.

I don't know what Oracle Linux contains, but maybe they need something newer that's not available in/for CentOS 7?

Unless your typical student is a Phoronix forum member of course, in which case then they always have to be using the newest stuff

Unless said Phoronix member uses some obscure driver that's about to be dropped from the newest kernel

[kpedersen]

Unless said Phoronix member uses some obscure driver that's about to be dropped from the newest kernel

Good point. They should migrate to an N64, just to be safe. That sees more maintenance these days than those new trendy "ARM" platforms.

was written in-house by a developer who no longer works here (and management has decided development of that program is "done" and therefore isn't going to assign anyone to maintaining it).

Yeah, good plan. Better not kick that hornets nest. That is a problem with developers just jumping on the latest and greatest, it sometimes adds extra strain on deployment / maintenance.

If it is a Java EE app, it *probably* will work on the older platform. Though only if they haven't dragged in every hip new feature of the Java 20 language. Probably not worth digging into.

[swagg_boi]

Personally we are waiting to see what the Scientific Linux communities (CERN/Fermilab) are doing. Those guys usually make calculated and well informed choices.

I'm afraid you'll be waiting a long time:

https://listserv.fnal.gov/scripts/wa.exe?A2=SCIENTIFIC-LINUX-ANNOUNCE;11d6001.1904

(Still running SL7 at work)

[kgonzales]

Some of us have plenty of time, others are rushing to beat the clock. I work at a University and the plan is currently to switch our CentOS 8 systems to Oracle Linux. As much as we all hate Oracle as a department, we need a tried and tested OS to move to before summer. Any upgrades have to be done and tested before the students come back in the fall. Until today, that meant going with Oracle Linux. We had hoped Rocky would be ready in time, but I'm not sure it will be. With this coming out today, it will hopefully be reasonably well tested by summer so we can move to Alma instead of Oracle.

EDIT: It should be noted that Oracle has already started calling us to try and sell us a support contract. Vultures, the lot of them.

Yeah how DARE they want to be paid for their work like you are! Damn vultures indeed.

[kgonzales]

If these AlmaLinux guys were so good, they could just create their own OS.

[thunderbird32]

Yeah how DARE they want to be paid for their work like you are! Damn vultures indeed.

As someone who has personally paid for a Red Hat license in the past, I can assure you that my beef is entirely with Oracle as a company (and more particularly their licensing structure), and not with the idea of paying for open source.