AlmaLinux 9 is set to be released very soon (May 2022) but for those who are antsy to see what's coming, the beta has been pushed out the door, ready for testing.

This new release adds support for IBM Z systems to the lineup of other architecture (x86/64, ARM 64, and POWER), which puts it in perfect sync with the hardware supported by RHEL. At the moment, however, the cloud images are still being prepared by the developers and should arrive soon.

AlmaLinux 9 beta is based on the upstream kernel 5.14 and includes plenty of improvements and optimizations for cloud and container development. Other improvements for the upcoming release center around the Cockpit web console, security and compliance, and plenty of software updates (including Perl 5.32, PHP 8.0, Git 2.31, Apache 2.4, Varnish Cache 6.5, Squid 5.2, MySQL 8.0, Redis 6.2, GCC 11.2, Glibc 2.34, binutils 2.35, Go Toolset 1.17.7, GDB 10.2, and more. 

To find out more about the changes, check out the official AlmaLinux 9.0 release notes. And for those interested, download the beta for AlmaLinux and spin up an instance for testing.