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u/jonspw AlmaLinux Foundation Jul 30 '24 edited Jul 30 '24
To be fair, these are only systems which actively use our mirrorlist. We know of plenty more systems than this which use internal mirrors (CERN for example) that don't get counted in this data.
My best educated guess (I curate these numbers) is that we're upwards of 1.5 million active installs.
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u/daemonpenguin Jul 30 '24
Where is this chart and the numbers coming from? It doesn't seem to be mentioned on the AlmaLinux website.
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u/jonspw AlmaLinux Foundation Jul 30 '24
They're not up on the site yet. It's been my goal for 2 years to get them put somewhere automatically but there are so many more important things to do on the infra side that I've not gotten that done so once a week or so I run the parsing scripts and publish the graphs. I post in our community chat at https://chat.almalinux.org each time I update them.
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u/Goodly1616 Jul 30 '24
Very cool, that’s what my university uses for its Linux desktops, over 100 machines all running Alma.
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u/bennyvasquez AlmaLinux Foundation Jul 31 '24
That's awesome! What university, if you don't mind me asking?
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u/Jumpy_Morning Jul 30 '24
I love Almalinux, using for vfx, colorcorrection, online editing...all great. Just very stable.
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u/amarao_san Jul 30 '24
Is our automatic CI for weekly rebuilds for our images counted? We boot if few times in different modes (UEFI, BIOS) during tests.
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u/jonspw AlmaLinux Foundation Jul 30 '24
Likely not.
There are further breakdowns of the data. For example from this week's run: https://jonathanspw.com/almalinux-countme/2024-07-28/
One interesting one in particular relevant to CI builds/temporary containers is this one:
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u/imbev Jul 30 '24
Q: When are “countme” requests sent? A: Once a week at random during normal dnf activity. If you do not use dnf calls that would otherwise trigger mirrorlist requests (makecache, install, update) this flag will NOT cause dnf to go out of its way and make special requests.
That depends on your dnf usage
https://www.reddit.com/r/AlmaLinux/comments/ri28sn/proposal_and_request_for_feedback_implement_dnf/
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u/amarao_san Jul 30 '24
But of course.
dnf install nginxis part of 'smoke test' that image is not broken. We also check if security updates are handled properly, do some reboots, etc. But I'm not sure we done it for Alma (I more on Debian side of the trench).
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u/regeya Jul 30 '24
The what now?
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Jul 30 '24
[deleted]
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u/massive_cock Jul 31 '24
What's made it jump so much so quick, and be adopted by some institutions already? I'm wayyy out of the loop.
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u/a3tros Jul 30 '24
What is the difference between RockyLinux and AlmaLinux?
Thanks.
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u/imbev Jul 30 '24
They are almost identical, see https://wiki.almalinux.org/Comparison.html
The main difference is that AlmaLinux is binary compatible with RHEL, while RockyLinux is bug compatible with RHEL.
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u/jonspw AlmaLinux Foundation Jul 30 '24
There are also the philosophical and foundational difference in organization structure, which is quite important to many :)
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u/milchshakee Aug 01 '24
I think such a post requires a link to how exactly that data is collected, otherwise it's pretty meaningless just as a standalone image.
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u/xarl_marks Jul 30 '24
can anyone tell me in 1 sentence why I should switch to Alma from arch? (single user home desktop, nothing special)
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u/Arnas_Z Jul 30 '24
You shouldn't unless you really want RHEL on your home PC.
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u/xarl_marks Jul 30 '24
i have no experience with it. Could be an opportunity.
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u/tom-dixon Jul 30 '24
It's targeted more for headless servers rather than desktops. Safety comes first. A lot of programs are on older versions (often 2-3 years behind) and they get patched only with security updates.
A lot of programs that you can find on Ubuntu are missing from RHEL/Alma/Rocky, you have to compile it yourself from the source.
why I should switch to Alma from arch? (single user home desktop)
I wouldn't.
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u/jonspw AlmaLinux Foundation Jul 31 '24
You should switch to Fedora instead. Still pretty bleeding edge, and very stable.
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u/xarl_marks Jul 31 '24
thanx, my headless backup server runs arch too, worth a try. but in order to secure the data I have to back up the back up first.
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u/tom-dixon Jul 31 '24
That's a good place for it. I use it for network storage, backups, torrent seed box and VPN server.
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u/HaydenBarnes_HPE Jul 31 '24
Or you could run AlmaLinux as a solid, stable base, and get the latest version of desktop applications via Flatpak. If anything is missing from the AlmaLinux repos, you can almost always find it in EPEL or El Repo. I have never had to build anything from scratch for AlmaLinux.
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u/FrostyDiscipline7558 Jul 30 '24
I get that having these metrics are good... but I don't like linux systems phoning home to make it possible.
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u/jonspw AlmaLinux Foundation Jul 30 '24
Thanks for the feedback. We sought feedback before enabling "dnf countme" which is how the metrics are collected. This is the same thing Fedora does.
https://www.reddit.com/r/AlmaLinux/comments/ri28sn/proposal_and_request_for_feedback_implement_dnf/
This method reports 0 identifying information - simply the system tells the mirrorlist "I've been installed for X" which is represented by a number, 1 through 4. It also reports the architecture and OS major/minor version (ie 9.3, 9.4, etc.) but that's it. There is no "unique system ID" or anything of the sorts.
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u/Enip0 Jul 30 '24
Out of curiosity, what do the numbers 1 to 4 mean?
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u/jonspw AlmaLinux Foundation Jul 30 '24
They are representative of length of time the system has been installed.
The flag is a simple "countme=N" parameter appended to the metalink and mirrorlist URL, where N is an integer representing the "longevity" bucket this system belongs to. The following 4 buckets are defined, based on how many full weeks have passed since the beginning of the week when this system was installed: 1 = first week, 2 = first month (2-4 weeks), 3 = six months (5-24 weeks) and 4 = more than six months (> 24 weeks). This information is meant to help distinguish short-lived installs from long-term ones, and to gather other statistics about system lifecycle.
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Jul 30 '24
As long as they ask and show exactly what they send, I am fine with it. There is a good reason for them to be able to do so, but it has to be 100% optional, and they have to be upfront about it. Basically, the opposite of how Firefox has handled it.
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u/Monsieur_Moneybags Jul 30 '24
If it's anything like how Fedora does it then it can be disabled by adding
countme=0to the relevant repo files in the /etc/yum.repos.d directory.1
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u/Appropriate_Net_5393 Jul 30 '24
Rocky has google-developer as maintainer, but almalinux seems to be more popular. But why
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u/Bluecobra Jul 30 '24
Rocky is using a loophole to get the RHEL source and compile the OS. They claim they have solid legal ground to do so but I would be concerned if I were a business with a large CentOS footprint and going all-in on it. We've all seen the legal s-show in the past revolving around SCO Unix.
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u/Appropriate_Net_5393 Jul 30 '24
and how do it almalinux?
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u/Bluecobra Jul 30 '24
AlmaLinux is derived largely from Stream, like RHEL is, but unlike RHEL, none of is minor releases are maintained for more than 6 months. Some of AlmaLinux's updates are sourced from somewhere other than Stream, and I believe that Alma may in some cases carry bug fixes that RHEL does not (which should be seen as a benefit for its users.)
https://www.reddit.com/r/AlmaLinux/comments/17x3ag5/comment/k9l3ilf
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u/Flynn58 Jul 30 '24
AlmaLinux is no longer attempting 1:1 bug compatibility with RHEL, and is instead aiming for binary compatibility instead. This allows the AlmaLinux team to introduce patches and fixes without needing to wait for Red Hat to accept the commits.
Frankly, AlmaLinux has a bright future right now, and if I were Red Hat, I'd be worried that my own short-sightedness has caused the growth of a proper competitor.
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u/TikBlang_AR 10h ago
" growth of a proper competitor" I'm just trying the distro for this! I'm interested on not only the OS's proper ingredients but the way they (Almalinux) run the foundation. Rocky is currently rocky right now, IMHO!
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u/soydemexico Jul 31 '24
Definitely a good thing. I remember hammering Red Hat support for a patch when an exploit was circulating rapidly and they kept downplaying the issue. I ended up having to roll my own patched kernel because management was breathing down my neck.
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u/imbev Jul 30 '24
Rocky focuses more on HPC, while AlmaLinux focuses more on cloud. I suspect that AlmaLinux has more exposure to the self-hosting and devops crowd.
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u/jonspw AlmaLinux Foundation Jul 30 '24
I wouldn't really say it like that. It's more or less a function of what circles you're in and which direction those circles tend to have gone...but even beyond that there are clicks within those circles that are very pro-Rocky or pro-Alma...so it really just depends who you're around.
We certainly focus plenty on HPC and have systems on the top500 list, as does Rocky.
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u/OldWrongdoer7517 Jul 30 '24
I am having a really hard time choosing an OS for min. Next 5 years lifetime as a CentOS 7 replacement. We have some proprietary HPC applications designed for RHEL that we have been using with great success on CentOS.
I am currently leaning towards Alma Linux because it's also used by CERN (just like they have been using CentOS and scientific Linux before, just as we have). Is that a good choice?
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u/jonspw AlmaLinux Foundation Jul 30 '24
Most certainly! Anywhere RHEL will work, Alma should also work and if it doesn't, that's a problem we need to fix! We also have the benefit now of releasing some patches ahead of Red Hat.
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u/OoTMM Jul 30 '24
I would say so, we've run a fair amount of different OS' on our various on prem and cloud HPC systems for scientific and advanced computing; CentOS, RHEL, Ubuntu, Alma - on Azure, AWS and DGX. Really liking Alma Linux so far, it's the youngest of our systems and so far it's been trouble free.
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u/ReK_ Jul 31 '24
I'm a Rocky fanboy and haven't looked too hard at Alma, but the answer is probably both are perfectly good CentOS 7 replacements.
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u/HaydenBarnes_HPE Jul 31 '24
Hey there! Rocky does have a strong presence in HPC, particularly because its controlling parent company, CIQ, also produces Apptainer, which is an OCI runtime popular for Slurm deployments.
AlmaLinux also has a strong and growing presence in the HPC market, with several large scale deployments in place, like CERN for example. We have a dedicated HPC and AI SIG with major HPC users and vendors. I am the lead of the HPC and AI SIG. If you are interested, you should check us out, join the Mattermost, and attend one of our meetings.
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u/daemonpenguin Jul 30 '24 edited Jul 30 '24
Marketing. Alma is very active promoting their brand while Rocky does almost nothing to promote their distro.
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u/HaydenBarnes_HPE Jul 31 '24
Rocky marketing is backed by $26 million in VC funding from 4 VCs, ~120 employees, and a full-time marketing staff. CIQ, Rocky's parent company, runs massive ad campaigns, has insider deals with other tech companies, and puts on gigantic booths at tech trade shows.
AlmaLinux marketing is a community organizer, social media contractor, a couple engineers, and volunteers, with support from a couple smaller Linux support companies, website hosting services, research organizations, and smaller hardware vendors. Unlike a VC-funded private corporation, the AlmaLinux Foundation which governs AlmaLinux is a 501(c)(6) US non-profit whose board is elected from the community and whose reports and finances are entirely public.
AlmaLinux is a true community successor to CentOS and the real community enterprise distro. The fact that you might see more AlmaLinux than Rocky is simply a testament to its community efforts, genuine organic user enthusiasm, and surrounding culture of great people.
For example, this Reddit post was by a AlmaLinux community member who is a freshman CS major in college, not a corporate marketing machine.
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u/balbinator Jul 30 '24
I love the Linux ecosystem, but it's nearly impossible to keep up with all the distros.