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Exploring the AlmaLinux Build System

Package Packer

Article from ADMIN 79/2024

By Joe Casad

The AlmaLinux Build System lets you build, test, sign, and release packages from a single interface.

When IBM announced that it was restricting access to Red Hat Enterprise (RHEL) source code and moving CentOS upstream, the distros that depended on RHEL and CentOS source code were sent scrambling. It is still a little unclear whether IBM's moves are legal and consistent with the GNU Public License (GPL), but the litigation to sort it out could take years, and in the meantime, the derivatives need a solution.

One enterprise distribution that weathered the storm quite smoothly was AlmaLinux [1] (see the box entitled "Where Do They Get Their Code?"). If you ask the AlmaLinux developers, they will say that one reason for their success in navigating the transition to the post-RHEL era is the AlmaLinux Build System [2].

Where Do They Get Their Code?

AlmaLinux was envisioned as a free alternative to RHEL, which comes with a subscription fee and other corporate licensing arrangements. AlmaLinux and other RHEL derivatives used source code from Red Hat repositories as the basis for building an independent distro. It is important to note that Red Hat does not own the source code in the sense that the term own is used with proprietary software. Because Linux and most of the code included with it are open source and licensed under the GNU Public License (GPL), the code is available for others to use and modify.

IBM currently restricts access to some, but not all, RHEL source code. Some source code is available through the Red Hat Universal Base Image (UBI) [3]. AlmaLinux uses as much of the Red Hat UBI code as it can, but a majority of the code comes from the CentOS Stream project [4]. IBM did not eliminate all

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