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Building AlmaLinux OS without RHEL sources code

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All Things Open
All Things Open

Presented at All Things Open 2023 Presented by benny Vasquez - AlmaLinux OS Foundation Title: Building AlmaLinux OS without RHEL sources code Abstract: AlmaLinux OS has historically been built to be an exact copy of RHEL, using RHEL's provided resources. With RedHat's shift away from sharing the full building blocks on git.centos.org, the AlmaLinux team has been hard at work to find a new, reliable path forward. Come hear about what we've been doing since June, and what we're planning for the future. Find more info about All Things Open: On the web: https://www.allthingsopen.org/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/AllThingsOpen LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/all-things-open/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/allthingsopen/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AllThingsOpen Mastodon: https://mastodon.social/@allthingsopen Threads: https://www.threads.net/@allthingsopen 2023 conference: https://2023.allthingsopen.org/

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benny Vasquez Chair, AlmaLinux OS Foundation ATO ‘23 AlmaLinux: Leading without following
2 ● Many years as a sysadmin ● Many years as a community builder ● Many years around open source ● Many years as a lover of Star Wars ● Many years as a lover of Sci-Fi @bennyvasquez social.linux.pizza/@benny benny@almalinux.org hi, I’m benny
3 The early days
4
5 https://lists.centos.org/pipermail/centos-announce/2019-September/023449.html
6
7 https://blog.centos.org/2020/12/future-is-centos-stream/
8 https://blog.cloudlinux.com/almalinux-is-born
9
10 Initial board and sponsors
11
12 https://almalinux.org/elevate/
13 https://jonathanspw.fedorapeople.org/alma/2023-10-08/2023-10-08-almalinux_baseos_systems-timeseries-line-variant.png
14 14 2.5 years in brief Announced January 14th, 2021 1. Built a foundation to own everything, managed by the community, with nearly 400 active members 2. AlmaLinux 8.3 - 9.3 - typically within 12 - 24 hours 3. Added ARM, AArch64, PPC64, and s390x support 4. Built Project ELevate, expanding to include EL 9 5. Images for eeeeeeeeveryone and everywhere 6. AlmaLinux WSL for Windows 7. Geo-location mirror system with 300+ mirrors 8. 500,000 servers calling home 9. Adopted by 6 of the top 500 HPC servers (top500.org) 10. Held our first community election with nearly 300 voters 11. Been adopted as the base for a number of downstream operating systems 12. Added 24 tiered sponsors, and 120 mirror sponsors
15 And then 4 months ago…
16 June 2023: no more srpms https://www.redhat.com/en/blog/furthering-evolution-centos-stream
17 So we shifted again
18 RHEL compatibility means for us 1. No longer building from RHEL srpms a. Deviations may happen, but are minimized 2. Updates are recreated using other sources a. Mostly CentOS Stream repo, some UBI images, upstreams directly, etc. 3. Focused on no breaking changes between RHEL and AlmaLinux a. If applications stop working, it’s a bug 4. Maintaining our delivery of updates and security patches quickly 5. Still a good replacement for RHEL and the upgrade for CentOS 7 users 6. Still focused on stability and security
19 RHEL compatibility means for us 99% of AlmaLinux Packages are still duplicates of RHEL ● 75% are built from CentOS Stream or UBI images ● ~24% require manual patching < 1% differ from RHEL ● Kernel only gets security patches
20 Up next!
21 New stuff and up next! Technical Testing - A place for us to release updates for testing Synergy- Packages that are specific for AlmaLinux ● Our promise: these won’t ever conflict with EPEL AlmaLinux 8.9 and 9.3 - Betas coming soon, full releases after RHEL FIPs certification Updated CIS benchmarks Hardware and software certifications Mirror system updates More outreach! Election - December ‘23 Expanded sponsorships - diversification of funding
22 Open Source is not a spectator sport - Joe Brockmeier, at OLF, Sept ‘23
23 Community is a network of minds - Jono Bacon at CLS, Oct ‘23
24 Join a SIG https://wiki.almalinux.org/sigs/ Help us staff events Write a blog post about something cool you’re doing Help with cloud image automation Provide website translations Follow us on social platforms Answer questions on the forums Engage however you’d like Join the Foundation: almalinux.org/members/ How to get involved
benny Vasquez Chair, AlmaLinux OS Foundation ATO ‘23 Thank you for your time, and for your love of open source.

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Building AlmaLinux OS without RHEL sources code

  • 1. benny Vasquez Chair, AlmaLinux OS Foundation ATO ‘23 AlmaLinux: Leading without following
  • 2. 2 ● Many years as a sysadmin ● Many years as a community builder ● Many years around open source ● Many years as a lover of Star Wars ● Many years as a lover of Sci-Fi @bennyvasquez social.linux.pizza/@benny benny@almalinux.org hi, I’m benny
  • 4. 4
  • 6. 6
  • 9. 9
  • 11. 11
  • 14. 14 14 2.5 years in brief Announced January 14th, 2021 1. Built a foundation to own everything, managed by the community, with nearly 400 active members 2. AlmaLinux 8.3 - 9.3 - typically within 12 - 24 hours 3. Added ARM, AArch64, PPC64, and s390x support 4. Built Project ELevate, expanding to include EL 9 5. Images for eeeeeeeeveryone and everywhere 6. AlmaLinux WSL for Windows 7. Geo-location mirror system with 300+ mirrors 8. 500,000 servers calling home 9. Adopted by 6 of the top 500 HPC servers (top500.org) 10. Held our first community election with nearly 300 voters 11. Been adopted as the base for a number of downstream operating systems 12. Added 24 tiered sponsors, and 120 mirror sponsors
  • 15. 15 And then 4 months ago…
  • 16. 16 June 2023: no more srpms https://www.redhat.com/en/blog/furthering-evolution-centos-stream
  • 18. 18 RHEL compatibility means for us 1. No longer building from RHEL srpms a. Deviations may happen, but are minimized 2. Updates are recreated using other sources a. Mostly CentOS Stream repo, some UBI images, upstreams directly, etc. 3. Focused on no breaking changes between RHEL and AlmaLinux a. If applications stop working, it’s a bug 4. Maintaining our delivery of updates and security patches quickly 5. Still a good replacement for RHEL and the upgrade for CentOS 7 users 6. Still focused on stability and security
  • 19. 19 RHEL compatibility means for us 99% of AlmaLinux Packages are still duplicates of RHEL ● 75% are built from CentOS Stream or UBI images ● ~24% require manual patching < 1% differ from RHEL ● Kernel only gets security patches
  • 21. 21 New stuff and up next! Technical Testing - A place for us to release updates for testing Synergy- Packages that are specific for AlmaLinux ● Our promise: these won’t ever conflict with EPEL AlmaLinux 8.9 and 9.3 - Betas coming soon, full releases after RHEL FIPs certification Updated CIS benchmarks Hardware and software certifications Mirror system updates More outreach! Election - December ‘23 Expanded sponsorships - diversification of funding
  • 22. 22 Open Source is not a spectator sport - Joe Brockmeier, at OLF, Sept ‘23
  • 23. 23 Community is a network of minds - Jono Bacon at CLS, Oct ‘23
  • 24. 24 Join a SIG https://wiki.almalinux.org/sigs/ Help us staff events Write a blog post about something cool you’re doing Help with cloud image automation Provide website translations Follow us on social platforms Answer questions on the forums Engage however you’d like Join the Foundation: almalinux.org/members/ How to get involved
  • 25. benny Vasquez Chair, AlmaLinux OS Foundation ATO ‘23 Thank you for your time, and for your love of open source.