Tbh I do not know the ins and outs of rhel based distros, so these have caught my interest. I’ve tries live usb of both and I really did like the feel of alma. Rocky I thought felt like every other GNOME system… But I clearly dont really know much about these sort of distros and their capabilities. Are these considered enterprise grade? I have no clue. Would love to hear your thoughts on alma and Rocky and what makes them different that other distros. Thanks
Alma and Rocky aren’t really distros intended for casual use, they’re designed mainly with servers in mind. If you want an RHEL-based experience designed for a desktop, go with Fedora.
I used CentOS for my servers during CentOS6/7, but since they moved to Stream I run my servers on Debian or Ubuntu instead.
This is the info I needed to know! So I dont have a server; I should probably leave them alone then huh?
Unless the application specifically demands it, there is no point to use these over Debian. If Debian is lacking in something (a package is missing and cannot be fixed for example), then the answer is almost never going to be a Rhel clone. (Fedora could be)
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I was running debian bookworm but was having issues with random Freezing And loss of touchpad and keyboard and also was having issues with my WiFi firmware or drivers idk. I mean I liked debian, but I couldn’t fix the problems so I aborted
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Man my actual technical expertise is sorta limited, so it could have been user error too. I try to follow guides or tutorials, other times if it seems simple enough, I wing it lol
Up until very recently, both Alma and Rocky were meant to be bug-for-bug duplicates of RHEL. Other than branding, there should be no difference at all between the three.
So, as far as the software is concerned, they are enterprise grade. Support is may be another matter.
Recently, Red Hat made it more difficult to create exact copies of RHEL. Without getting into it, Rocky has figured out how to continue while Alma has decided to be ABI compatible but give up on being an exact big-for-bug copy.
I do not think either Alma or Rocky has had a release since the change so they should still be identical.
Thanks for this info; kinda seems bizarre to me lol
I am building a homelab for during college (4 years) and I don’t really feel like doing a release upgrade (ie: debian 11 to 12) in the middle of schooling or over a break when i wanna relax and just chill. Debian offers 2 years of support official, and like 4 extended (unluckily, the times didn’t align so if I picked debian I would have to upgrade during college),and Rocky/alma offer 4 years official and like 8 extended.
I might be wrong (on phone rn), I recommend checking https://endoflife.date
Big difference, big enough that this factor is the singular reason companies go with them. Not having to do release upgrades as frequently means less maintenance, means less costly.
Debian offers 5 years of extended support.
Debian 12 was just released. You are not going to need to upgrade it ( until June 2028 ).
Certainly though, being able to say in the same release for a long time is one of the primary reasons to use RHEL or its clones.
My goal was to install openstack on my server, using kolla-ansible, one of the automatic installers. It officially supported debian 11. I would have had to upgrade when the openstack packagers switched over to 12.
But it also officially supported Rocky Linux 9, which goes eol in like 7 years.
I don’t see much point to enterprise distros unless you have a specific reason to use one, i.e. specific business or server applications. So unless you need it for that, you’re better off with a desktop Linux - Fedora if you want to stick with rhel’s sphere, Debian if you want super stable.
I guess that somehow RHEL has been regarded by the industry higher-ups as the golden standard, so people just want to somewhat adhere to that in fear of missing out.
I can see that, but if that’s what they’re afraid of, then unless they need enterprise, Fedora is an empirically better choice. It’s more up to date, and it’s where RHEL updates come from (well, kinda).
If you’re afraid of missing out on new fun stuff, any enterprise OS will be a bad fit for your use case. Here’s the breakdown as I see it; this is me, YMMV:
- If stability is vital, use Debian
- If stability is more important than bleeding edge but still important, use Fedora or OpenSuse Tumbleweed.
- If you want to get to know your system better and gain a better understanding of how Linux works, use Arch, but be ready to fix stuff if you break it
- If, for some reason, you have a lot of time on your hands and want absolute control over your system, use LFS.
- If you need enterprise, use Alma or Rocky
I’ll cheerfully recommend other distros for more niche needs; I don’t have anything against other distros (except maybe Arch derivatives that seem more like a GUI installer, a software set, and some user scripts…), but those are all my go-to recommendations.
Great answer! I’ve only ever really delved into the debian and Ubuntu universes. I tinkered around with some arch, fedora, opensuse, etc. But since I started out on mint, its what I’m use to and comfortable with. BUT I need to venture out of my bubble I think… Would live a firmer grasp on other linux distros
Well, if you’re going to step out of your comfort zone, then I suggest one of two paths, depending on the sort of person you are:
- If you’re a wade in slowly and learn to swim as you go sort, then Fedora or OpenSuse Tumbleweed would be your next logical choice. They’re not overly difficult, but they also don’t exactly have training wheels. They both have different, but still fairly friendly, installers, and they both have their own toolsets and ways of doing things. I prefer Fedora and the Gnome desktop.
- If you’d rather jump into the deep end, then Arch might be interesting for you. Arch comes with some warnings though. You need to be willing to read man pages, search the wiki, and do a forum search before asking Arch users for help. They’re a great bunch, really, but they get salty if you haven’t really tried to solve issues on your own. Also, archinstaller makes setting up your system a lot easier than it used to be, but it might be worth it to set things up “The Arch Way” the first time. You’ll learn a lot.
Or, if you’re a complete crazy-pants like I was when I first started getting into FOSS operating systems, you’ll set up a FreeBSD desktop. Don’t… don’t be like me.
Another great answer. You are super knowledgeable and helpful. I’ve experimented with everything but am only comfortable with debian/Ubuntu based. Fedora was fairly easy, but still tricky to pick up on some things, didn’t give it a longer chance.
Also same for opensuse tumbleweed, I liked it and I was getting around OK, but I felt it was maybe fragile or their security(?) Settings are too tight because it seemed like I kept breaking crap on accident lol. Would definitely be willing to give it another shot.
Now Arch… This ones so different. I used manjaro when it first released and I liked it and surprisingly picked up on using it kinda quick, but again, I eventually accidentally broke it and couldn’t figure out how to fix it due to limited knowledge. But arch distros seem to differ so vastly; its sort of an overwhelming world. Now just pure arch, yea I dont think I could figure that one out, unless its a little more user friendly these days… So thats about that then pretty much. All the main distros in my nutshell, not including forks or spinoffs or flavors or whatever… Yet alone DEs lol. I get bored easily with just all the same out of box distros so I tend to explore but yet there’s so much I dont know about what actually does into a distro and desktop and everything else
I dont know about what actually does into a distro and desktop and everything else
Well, if you want to learn, check out the Archwiki. Arch has amazing documentation. Just reading through the installation instructions can teach you a lot:
You’re forgetting OpenSUSE Leap for your first point, as well as Gentoo for your third point. 😉
I think the corporate world won’t necessary be looking for new fun stuff tech wise. They’ll just be looking for what the next door store is using. The fact that there are sought-after RHEL certifications kinda proves this.
Yes, I’m with you. People should just choose whatever they want. The corporate is a whole different beast.
I wasn’t forgetting either, I just don’t generally recommend either of those distros.
I don’t recommend OpenSuse Leap because I honestly can’t, for the life of me, see a use case for it. Debian is better for stability, Fedora is more up to date and still pretty solid. Tumbleweed represents another step into cutting edge land with its rolling release model, and I like it for that, and Yast is great and all, but Leap has outlived its purpose. It also seems like Suse agrees with me since last I heard, Leap was going to be discontinued.
I don’t generally recommend Gentoo because it’s a weird middle ground between Arch and LFS, and I’m not sure what it’s for anymore. Don’t get me wrong - I’ve done the Gentoo thing, and it really is excellent… but these days, it seems weird to me to want to go that far and not take the last couple steps to just build from scratch. Unless you’re in it for portage, which I can totally understand. Portage is awesome.
Thanks, thats pretty much what I was thinking. Trying to explore other areas of linux lol
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I use Alma Linux on one of my production servers. It’s very stable. Never used Rocky Linux, but I would guess it’s also similar i.e enterprise grade.
They were both created to replace CentOS, a free version of RHEL that Red Hat killed.
I’m not familiar with that world of linux, what sets rocky and alma aside from the rest of the distros
They are both supposed to be versions of a “free RHEL”. You’ll mostly find them used in the enterprise space where the big players are RHEL, OpenSuse Leap, Ubuntu, Oracle Linux etc.
Gotcha, I knew they were more enterprise oriented but wondering if there’s any benefit of using an enterprise oriented distro just as an individual lol its foreign to me
Only benefit you’ll get is rock solid stable support at the cost of new kernel and desktop features trickling in very slowly (This is how everything in enterprise in general moves).
I would recommend using a distro geared towards desktop use such as Fedora.
Thank you, I never quite knew the differences between enterprise oriented distros and just regular workstation or personal use distros
Both are meant to be close copies of RHEL. That is what makes them different than other distros. Red Hat will also give you a free developer license for 16 machines of actual RHEL, so that is also an option. By following RHEL, Rocky and Alma intend to be enterprise grade, they have long-term support.
The main surface thing that differentiates Alma from Rocky is the default artwork. Otherwise there is governance stuff on the project itself.
Red Hat itself, when installed with a GUI, is pretty much the definition of “every other GNOME system” since they keep it more or less vanilla.
Awesome info man, thanks
I really did like the feel of alma. Rocky I thought felt like every other GNOME system
Unless you used different versions of each, shouldn’t they feel exactly the same?
Idk but they felt quite different to me…
I moved everything over to Rocky from CentOS when RH moved to stream. I don’t run a GUI on my Rocky Linux servers but as a command line distribution it is working really well for me.
I don’t like how CIQ taking away 30% of Red Hat Customer, that lead to Red Hat doing shit… Rocky shouldn’t done that in first place… and their brand, trademark are transferable to CIQ from RSEF… so I don’t know, I don’t have respect to Greg… after Rocky Fiasco… Red Hat did communicate about CentOS Stream long way before, and they already give signal in 2014/2015, but they burry it… and Greg profit a lot of it from RHEL Engineering, without even contribute much after the money gotten to his pocket… so… Welp call me greg hater, but I hate him so much… with his decision and his press release that make Red Hat always bad…
