FUSING INNOVATION AND LEGACY: ALMALINUX 8.10 BREATHES NEW LIFE INTO DEPRECATED HARDWARE

The AlmaLinux OS Foundation announces the general availability of AlmaLinux 8.10, the fastest-growing community and openly sourced alternative to Oracle’s CentOS Linux. AlmaLinux’s latest point release brings a host of new features to the Linux table. These include advancements in security and data protection, with more automation benefits of the major updates to many applications. AlmaLinux 8.10 also honours its commitment to supporting outdated and deprecated hardware, demonstrating its ability to thread the needle of old and new. CentOS was one of the earliest Linux distributions introduced in 2004 by Red Hat.

THE CORE OF FUSION: WHAT’S NEW IN ALMALINUX 8.10

Starting with system availability and reliability, AlmaLinux 8.10 delivers extensive improvements to the recovery processes. New roles that facilitate automation of operation will enhance the resilience of systems to changes in its environment. Virtual machine snapshots are an example. New functionalities in the web-console will empower AlmaLinux to support numerous IT needs in a multitenant fashion, in accordance with the mission of AlmaLinux. AlmaLinux 8.10 includes the state-of-the-art updates for hybrid cloud scenarios, which improve the virtual machine snapshot functions, allowing users to backup and recover data more rapidly.

PARALLEL PATHS: ALMALINUX AND RHEL

Staying true to its origins, AlmaLinux continues to provide a ‘drop-in’ enterprise Linux distribution that can be deployed to keep the beat with Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL). AlmaLinux 8.10 is now available, almost on the heels of RHEL 8.10. AlmaLinux provides an enterprise Linux distro that doesn't miss a beat while combining Red Hat's innovation with the new capabilities and improvements to performance, scalability, and reliability.

THE FUSION OF LEGACY AND MODERNITY: SUPPORTING DEPRECATED HARDWARE

One of the notable new features of AlmaLinux 8.10 is the return of support for deprecated hardware. The AlmaLinux kernel team understood that while many people in the community use older hardware they also need to use a modern operating system that has all the features of a contemporary OS version. So they have made huge changes to device drivers to add back in those PCI IDs for deprecated hardware that had stopped working upstream (that is, removed from a more recent kernel version) and to keep them supported and running nicely on the latest kernel version. It’s a nice marriage of two opposites: pioneering software and hardware longevity. AlmaLinux 8.10 supports a wide range of hardware, including Dell PERC controllers, HP Smart Array controllers and more.

A DEEP DIVE INTO HARDWARE COMPATIBILITY

STRENGTHENING THE BONDS: ENHANCED DRIVER SUPPORT

AlmaLinux 8.10 comes with big changes in driver support that make it possible for the server system to make the most of legacy hardware. Its list of drivers changes is long, but here’s just a small portion of it:

• Aacraid: Added the largest number of Dell PERC, HPNetRAID, and IBM serveRAID devices to its extensive list of supported Adaptec Advanced Raid Products.
• Be2iscsi & be2net: Provides renewed support for Emulex OneConnect and BladeEngine adapters.
• Hpsa, lpfc: Restores compatibility with HP Smart Array Controller and Emulex LightPulse Fibre Channel SCSI.
• Megaraid_sas, mlx4_core, mpt3sas, mptsas: provides extended support for Broadcom MegaRAID SAS, Mellanox adapters and LSI MPT Fusion products.
• Qla2xxx & qla4xxx: Ensures QLogic Fibre Channel and iSCSI HBAs remain fully functional.

LOOKING AHEAD: THE FUTURE OF FUSION

With the release of AlmaLinux 8.10, the AlmaLinux OS Foundation doubles down on its mission to remain a viable victim-less solution to enterprise Linux, while also setting a new precedent in bringing enterprise innovation to real-world legacy computing. AlmaLinux 8.10 is a powerful wake-up call to industry, stating that progress does not have to equate to forced obsolescence for good working hardware.

FUSION DEFINED

In AlmaLinux 8.10, it means marrying the best of the new with the imperative to continue supporting the hardware that would otherwise be cast aside. This enables the broadest swath of users and organisations to keep making the most of what they’ve already invested in, all while reaping the rewards of the latest software developments. This is a sentiment that is increasingly embodied in the AlmaLinux community commitment to deliver an enterprise Linux that is accessible, resilient and progressive.

Instead of promoting a future in which new means replacing old, AlmaLinux 8.10 points the way forward that science fiction often promised was coming: a path to the future that preserves the best of the past and present through hybridisation and fusion of the old and the new, in a direction that is open, innovative, and incalculably more possible than ever.