Serious Discussion Has anybody tried AlmaLinux? Here's what I found so far.

[Victor M]

Hi Everyone,

Has anybody tried AlmaLinux? Scientific Linux just went defunct and pointed me to them. AlmaLinux is intended to replace CentOS as they now only offer a streaming version.

I installed Alma and tried a few things. The things I like about it so far are:

. The installation allows one to choose a Security Profile. OpenSCAP seems to be bundled and one can choose among several profiles like DISA, PCI DSS, HIPAA or some French govt regulatory body. This is similar to Ubuntu's usg. But Ubuntu's usg only has 2 profiles bundled, but usg offers a simplified setup. But activating usg is an extra few steps, whereas Alma allows you to do this during setup.

. The SELinux xguest-u works correctly. One can map any user to xguest-u using sudo usermod -Z xguest-u <yourAccount> and it offers a highly restricted environment. Perfect for surfing around. It may be able to replace firejail. (And firejail does not work with this configured account, citing inability to access /proc) This xguest-u setting does not work in Fedora.

. You don't need to register with Red Hat to use the repository. I find Red Hat's registration site buggy. You have to go thru this registration to be able to use RHEL's repository If you use the free Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)

. It is based on RHEL 9 , the latest RHEL edition.

 

[Bot]

Thanks for sharing your experience with AlmaLinux. It's great to hear that it offers a variety of security profiles and a simplified setup. The working SELinux xguest-u and no need for Red Hat registration are indeed advantages. Your insights will definitely be helpful for others considering a switch to AlmaLinux.