AlmaLinux OS 10.2 “Lavender Lion” Officially Released
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AlmaLinux OS 10.2 “Lavender Lion” Officially Released
Restores 32-bit Support, Ships GNOME 49, and Marks a Historic Same-Day Dual Release
Historic milestone: For the first time in the project’s history, the AlmaLinux OS Foundation shipped two stable releases on the same day — AlmaLinux OS 9.8 “Olive Jaguar” and AlmaLinux OS 10.2 “Lavender Lion” — on May 26, 2026. The feat was made possible by major improvements to the Foundation’s build automation, QA pipelines, and release engineering infrastructure.
The AlmaLinux OS Foundation has officially announced the general availability of AlmaLinux OS 10.2, codenamed “Lavender Lion” — the second point release in the AlmaLinux 10 series, built on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10.2. Arriving roughly six months after AlmaLinux OS 10.1, the new release delivers substantial improvements across virtualization, developer tooling, desktop software, hardware compatibility, and security.
i686 Userspace Packages Return
One of the most impactful changes in 10.2 is the reinstatement of i686 (32-bit) userspace packages. While AlmaLinux provides no 32-bit bootable installer or kernel, the userspace layer enables legacy 32-bit software, CI pipelines that depend on 32-bit glibc, and containerized workloads relying on 32-bit libraries to run natively. The Foundation has committed to maintaining this stream through 2035, ensuring long-term project continuity without requiring hardware replacement.
GNOME 49 Desktop Environment
AlmaLinux 10.2 ships with GNOME 49, bringing an updated desktop experience to users who deploy AlmaLinux in workstation or desktop environments. This is a notable addition not mentioned in all early coverage of the release.
Virtualization Enhancements
The release delivers full enablement of KVM virtualization on IBM POWER, giving Power architecture users complete virtualization capabilities. Additionally, SPICE protocol support has been reinstated for both server and client applications, streamlining graphical remote access to virtual machines. Container and virtualization runtimes — including Podman, Buildah, libvirt, QEMU-KVM, and skopeo — have all been updated accordingly.
Btrfs Boot Support & Legacy Hardware
AlmaLinux 10.2 adds Btrfs support including the ability to boot from a Btrfs volume — a significant filesystem milestone. The team has also re-enabled numerous storage and network drivers that were disabled upstream, improving compatibility with legacy servers, dedicated storage appliances, and specialized network hardware that enterprises rely on for long-running mission-critical workloads.
Frame Pointers Enabled by Default
Frame Pointer has been restored as a default-enabled feature. This allows performance analysis tools such as perf and SystemTap to capture accurate call stack information without additional configuration, improving fault diagnosis and system tuning in production environments.
Firefox & Thunderbird Return to Official Repos
Standard RPM packages for Mozilla Firefox and Mozilla Thunderbird have been reinstated in the official AlmaLinux software repository. This makes browser and email client management more consistent with the system package manager, simplifying deployment in enterprise desktop and office environments.
Comprehensive Development Toolchain Upgrade
AlmaLinux 10.2 ships a modern, refreshed development stack across languages, compilers, and databases:
Security Updates
Core security components have been updated throughout: OpenSSL, OpenSSH, SSSD, SELinux Policy, crypto-policies, and the Keylime remote attestation framework all receive new versions incorporating the latest security fixes and enterprise hardening improvements.
Supported Architectures
AlmaLinux OS 10.2 installation images are available for the following platforms:
Live images, cloud images, and container images are being released on a rolling basis following the initial stable launch.
How to Upgrade to AlmaLinux OS 10.2
sudo dnf update
Restart after the upgrade to activate the latest packages. Beta testers upgrading from 10.2 Beta should use the additional repo-reset commands detailed in the official release notes.
