AlmaLinux 8 Minimal (Alma Linux 8) | Support by ProComputers

I use AlmaLinux  to create simulations, Monte Carlo  simulations using C++, and for that I need to use the terminal and put a lot of different jobs to process the code.

AlmaLinux  is a pretty fast software for handling those simulations and managing multiple jobs. I can process my code and my simulation much faster than with Windows. AlmaLinux is good to work on folders using the terminal, and if I can change something inside the operational system, I have the ability to do that.

I prefer AlmaLinux because it is free and open. I can change anything in AlmaLinux if I want to. If I need to modify code, multithread, or other elements, I can do that with the flexibility that AlmaLinux offers.

With AlmaLinux, I can use the CERN infrastructure. I can use the server from CERN, and CERN has used AlmaLinux since 2024. They installed it recently. It is fast, and Linux is better for coding in C++, Python, and other languages. If you need to manage data, it is considerably better. If I need to process code, AlmaLinux will be two times faster than Windows, for example, which is a specific outcome since switching.

AlmaLinux is a pretty fast software for handling those simulations and managing multiple jobs. I can process my code and my simulation much faster than with Windows. AlmaLinux is good to work on folders using the terminal, and if I can change something inside the operational system, I have the ability to do that.

I prefer AlmaLinux because it is free and open. I can change anything in AlmaLinux if I want to.

AlmaLinux could have more software options. For example, if I need some software from Windows or something similar, it is missing some tools.

I would say you cannot assume AlmaLinux is so similar to Ubuntu . If you use Ubuntu , you can find some difficulties using AlmaLinux.

I have been working in my current field since 2021.

AlmaLinux is stable.

The scalability of AlmaLinux is good.

I worked with AlmaLinux and shared it with a lot of people. The customer support was good.

I did not use the customer support myself, but I have a friend who used it and he said it is an eight.

I did not use a different solution before choosing AlmaLinux.

I just use AlmaLinux for science, and science does not aim toward money, so I have not seen a return on investment.

I did not take the decision. I just used AlmaLinux because CERN was using the server.

I just use AlmaLinux for science, and science does not aim toward money, so I have not seen a return on investment.

In AlmaLinux, I do not have experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing.

I did not use a different solution before choosing AlmaLinux.

I do not understand about AI capabilities when I relate this to AlmaLinux governance and security.

I do not know about the accuracy and reliability of AlmaLinux output.

I do not think there are any improvements needed for AlmaLinux that I have not mentioned yet.

I did not take the decision. I just used AlmaLinux because CERN was using the server.

I would rate this review an eight out of ten.

AlmaLinux  is primarily used for running stable server workloads and enterprise Linux environments. Since it is binary compatible with Red Hat Enterprise Linux , it provides a reliable platform for hosting applications, web servers, databases, and infrastructure services without subscription costs.

I deployed a web application environment consisting of Apache, a database server, and automation scripts using AlmaLinux . The RHEL  compatibility allowed me to follow enterprise Linux best practices while avoiding licensing costs. I also used AlmaLinux for Kubernetes  and container-related labs because it provides a stable operating system foundation similar to enterprise Linux environments.

AlmaLinux offers several standout features that I have observed during my usage, including long-term stability, RHEL compatibility, being free and open source, providing regular security updates, and community governance.

The most valuable feature for me is RHEL compatibility. It allows for the use of the same tools, packages, and administration practices found in enterprise Linux environments while avoiding subscription costs. This is especially useful for learning, testing, and infrastructure deployments. RHEL compatibility reduces troubleshooting and configuration effort because extensive documentation and a large knowledge base are available. Administrators can follow well-established enterprise Linux procedures, reducing the likelihood of configuration errors.

AlmaLinux has delivered a significant positive impact on my organization through cost savings while maintaining enterprise-level reliability. AlmaLinux provides a stable server platform without operating system licensing fees, allowing organizations to allocate resources elsewhere.

The main improvements I would suggest are expanding enterprise awareness, growing the commercial support ecosystem, and providing additional onboarding and migration resources. AlmaLinux itself is stable, secure, and reliable. Most opportunities are around ecosystem growth and user adoption rather than technical limitations. The biggest improvements I would like to see include stronger enterprise ecosystem support, more commercial support options, additional migration tools, and increased industry recognition.

While AlmaLinux does not provide the same vendor-backed support experience as Red Hat Enterprise Linux , the available resources are more than sufficient for many organizations and administrators. Overall, AlmaLinux is highly rated, but the ecosystem and support aspects could be expanded.

I have been using AlmaLinux for more than six to seven months.

AlmaLinux is highly stable and represents one of its strongest qualities. It is designed for enterprise workloads and follows a long-term support model, making it suitable for production servers, databases, web applications, virtualization platforms, and cloud environments.

AlmaLinux scales very well and can support everything from a small virtual machine to large enterprise deployments. It works effectively in physical, virtualized, cloud, containerized, and clustered environments. I would rate AlmaLinux highly for scalability.

AlmaLinux offers strong community support and excellent documentation. While it does not provide the same vendor-backed support experience as Red Hat Enterprise Linux , the available resources are more than sufficient for many organizations and administrators.

I did not use any other solution before AlmaLinux. I did not evaluate any other options. I was completely focused on AlmaLinux and had my eye on AlmaLinux, so there were no alternative options considered.

The return on investment comes primarily from lower operating system costs, operational consistency, and reduced administrative effort. Even without exact metrics, the impact is reflected in cost savings from licensing, faster deployments through RHEL compatibility, and a stable platform that supports reliable operations. The clearest measurable benefit is avoiding operating system subscription costs while maintaining enterprise Linux compatibility and stability.

AlmaLinux is highly rated overall. I would advise you to seriously consider AlmaLinux if you are looking for a stable, enterprise-grade Linux distribution without operating system licensing costs. It provides excellent compatibility with the Red Hat ecosystem, making it a strong choice for servers, cloud deployments, virtualization, containers, and enterprise applications.

AlmaLinux scales very well and can support everything from a small virtual machine to large enterprise deployments. It works effectively in physical, virtualized, cloud, containerized, and clustered environments. I would rate AlmaLinux highly for scalability.

AlmaLinux's role is seen as enabling governance and security rather than directly governing AI. Its enterprise security features, long-term support, auditing capabilities, and stable operating environment help organizations run AI workloads securely and in a controlled manner. AI governance itself is typically implemented through higher-level tools, policies, and processes.

I would not rate AlmaLinux on AI output accuracy because that is determined by the AI application itself. However, I would rate AlmaLinux highly for reliability as a platform for AI workloads because it provides enterprise-grade stability, security, and long-term support.

Based on my experience using AlmaLinux, I do not believe there are any other improvements needed. I would give this product a rating of nine out of ten.

AlmaLinux  serves as a replacement for us; initially, we were using CentOS  because we had a couple of Red Hat servers as well, but Red Hat operates on a licensing model, whereas CentOS  was a free open source component. When CentOS was discontinued, we moved to a different solution, but we believed AlmaLinux could be the right replacement. We have a couple of use cases for AlmaLinux. On AWS , we have a couple of EC2  instances running AlmaLinux, which we mostly use for application servers. We host applications such as Apache and NGINX  and similar components. I can confirm that for one of our Kubernetes  worker nodes, we also used AlmaLinux, but not for all, only for one or two worker nodes to conduct some research and development.

We have a couple of static websites running on AlmaLinux, mostly for our own Wikipedia-like content and to host knowledge-based articles and internal company, team, and project information. We have Apache servers running on top of AlmaLinux, and those Apache servers connect with databases. Those databases come directly from Amazon RDS . That is our main use case. Another use case is the Kubernetes  worker node. We have a custom Kubernetes deployment on AWS , not the Amazon-provided Kubernetes. In that custom Kubernetes solution, we have deployed AlmaLinux as the operating system for the worker nodes. This also proves helpful, as we have containers, pods, and other services running on top of the worker nodes.

We have used AlmaLinux for database servers, but that did not work as well because we need good scalability and reliability. We conducted a small proof of concept with that, and if the scale is very low, then it is good. However, if we need high scalability, then we will definitely have to switch and deal with some other database solutions. I would say this is also good for databases.

AlmaLinux has the similar features that we had with CentOS, most of which it provides. It provides an enterprise-ready operating system without any subscription and cost. It has long support from the community and from the vendor itself. I would say this is an enterprise-ready solution, meaning it is an enterprise-grade operating system that we can directly use in our environment to host applications, to host databases, or for whatever use cases we want. This means it is not only for lower environments like development and non-production; this is a production-ready system. We have a couple of servers running in our production environment using AlmaLinux. These are the main benefits I can think of. We have good documentation and, as it is open source, we have good community support as well.

There is plenty of documentation available with AlmaLinux. Initially, when we were dealing with packages and installing and updating them, we were having some dependency issues. At that time, when we went through the documentation provided by AlmaLinux, those documents were really helpful. We learned about dependencies, repositories, upgrade paths, and upgrade channels. That really helped. The documentation is really good. I do not feel any issues with that. AlmaLinux is enterprise-ready, so it is reliable because we have huge package availability, the RPMs and packages that we usually install.

AlmaLinux has the similar capabilities that we have with CentOS.

As of now, I do not see any challenges or any issues with this. The only thing is that this is community-driven. We do not have that enterprise type of support, but that is what we can expect from a free or open source product.

I have been using AlmaLinux  for the last year.

I think we have covered everything, so there are no new comments.

As I already mentioned, AlmaLinux is an enterprise-ready server, so it is really scalable. This depends on how you have set up AlmaLinux in your environment. When I talk about a Kubernetes cluster or any cluster deployed using AlmaLinux, we can have multiple instances running and then it is really scalable. We can scale in, scale out, horizontally, and vertically depending on the way we want. AlmaLinux is really scalable and is a stable one.

Initially, we were using CentOS, and then when the CentOS support and new releases were discontinued, we thought that we would have to stick with some vendor licensing model and go with the enterprise product which comes with licensing and cost. Then we heard of AlmaLinux and we tried and tested it, and it really helped us save costs. Another point I would like to highlight is that it is AWS compatible. This means on AWS or any other cloud platform, we can directly deploy it as an instance, and this is also fully supported. It is available in the marketplace and it is stable. We have stable releases and community support. I would say this is also beginner-friendly. If someone who is completely new to the Linux environment comes across it, it is a beginner-friendly solution.

I do not have any numbers because earlier we were using CentOS, and then we were supposed to get some paid versions like Red Hat Linux and some other solutions. Thanks to AlmaLinux, that cost part got saved. We do not need to pay anything there. It is completely free, I would say, open source.

For the project where we use AlmaLinux, it is a kind of hybrid. We have AlmaLinux deployed as an EC2  instance on AWS and some of our on-premises virtual machines. It is a kind of hybrid deployment.

AlmaLinux is an open source one, so we have community support. In the community, there are multiple communities coming from Red Hat and some different open source communities we have. This is really good. There was good support from the community.

AlmaLinux is an open source one, so I think there is no licensing or cost involved with this. The setup part was quite easy. As I already mentioned, it is beginner-friendly. We did the installation, we did the configuration, we configured the repositories and the network settings. It was quite straightforward.

I would say it has saved our time because when the CentOS part was discontinued, we had to explore a couple of other products, and AlmaLinux was the first one in the list. We tried exploring that, and when we got all the features in one place, we did not have to spend separate or much time exploring other components. The other options are vendor-locked or license-based, which we were not expecting for the current project. We were looking for an open source and free solution. AlmaLinux fits in our requirement.

We considered Red Hat Enterprise Linux . That is also good, stable, and a fully enterprise-ready operating system. However, the only challenge we had was the cost because that is a license model. According to our current project budget, we did not have that much budget allocation. We went with AlmaLinux because earlier we were using CentOS, so we thought it would be good to have a similar solution.

I rate AlmaLinux ten out of ten. It is a lifesaver for me and for my project. It has the same features which I was expecting from an operating system coming from open source communities. AlmaLinux has everything similar to CentOS. If you have already experienced or already used CentOS for any of your workloads, solutions, projects, or environments, I would recommend going with AlmaLinux because it has been discontinued now. AlmaLinux provides the similar solution that we had with CentOS. It is really good to have AlmaLinux in our environment, and you should also give it a try. My overall rating for this product is ten out of ten.