CentOS Alternative AlmaLinux 8.7 Is Out with Security Improvements, New Packages

AlmaLinux 8.7

The AlmaLinux OS Foundation informs 9to5Linux.com today about the general availability of AlmaLinux 8.7 as a free and open-source alternative to CentOS Linux and RHEL (Red Hat Enterprise Linux) operating systems.

AlmaLinux 8.7 is here six months after the AlmaLinux 8.6 release based on the Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.7 operating system, with which is 1:1 binary compatible. This release is powered by Linux kernel 4.18.0-423.el8 and it’s supported on 64-bit (x86_64), AArch64 (ARM64), PowerPC 64-bit Little Endian (ppc64le), and IBM System z (s390x) architectures.

Highlights include improved defense information system agency (DISA) technical guides, important security updates to the Network Security Services (NSS) libraries that change the minimum key size for all RSA operations from 128 to 1023 bits, as well as updates and improvements to infrastructure services and dynamic programming languages.

In addition, AlmaLinux 8.7 brings various changes to the system configuration, including the installer and image creation tools to allow the building of AlmaLinux images with custom /boot mount point partitions, as well as sizes. New packages are also present in this release, such as XMLStarlet, a tool to parse, query, transform, edit, and validate XML files.

“We are driven by our duty to the community to continue to offer a platform that is secure, easy to use, and dependable,” said benny Vasquez, chair of the AlmaLinux OS Foundation board. “We aim to deliver the quality and timeliness end users require from the leading CentOS successor, and to provide a free and open, community owned and governed, enterprise-grade Linux operating system.”

Important package updates include OpenCryptoKi, Chrony, Unbound, powerpc-utils, and libva. The Ruby 3.1, Mercurial 6.2, and Node.js 18 packages are also included in the AlmaLinux 8.7 release, which is available for download right now from the official website as Full (DVD), Minimal, and Boot ISO images.

Last updated 1 year ago

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