AlmaLinux 10.2 Lavender Lion Beta supports older CPUs while RHEL moves on

Posted by OkReport5065@reddit | linuxadmin | View on Reddit | 11 comments

AlmaLinux 10.2 Beta “Lavender Lion” is out with Linux kernel 6.12, Python 3.14, PostgreSQL 18, and a bunch of updated dev and security tools, but the interesting part is what it does differently from RHEL 10. It adds Btrfs boot support, brings back i686 userspace, and even offers an x86-64-v2 build so older CPUs don’t get left behind as upstream shifts to v3. Obviously not for production yet, but if you run older hardware or care about keeping legacy workloads alive, this one might be worth spinning up in a lab.

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kernpanic@reddit

Fark! We are using almalinux as a dev platform for redhat - but it's starting to drift way too far to be useful.

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neon_overload@reddit

No, that's not how it works. Alma is binary compatible with RHEL, making it suitable for development for RHEL.

This post is about a beta version of 10.2. Its upstream is centos stream as always, but it does not match RHEL because 10.2 is not out yet, it's just a beta.

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Hotshot55@reddit

We are using almalinux as a dev platform for redhat

Why not use CentOS stream for that use case?

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dev platform

If you're paying for RHEL in production then Red Hat will give you free RHEL for non-production.

https://www.redhat.com/en/resources/developer-subscription-for-teams-overview

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TechTino@reddit

Rocky has treated us very well! Highly recommend.

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sdns575@reddit

Hi, this is an interesting answer. In what ways it is going to far from RHEL? (Genuinely corious)