AlmaLinux OS 9.8 & 10.2 Released Simultaneously for the First Time — Btrfs Boot, i686 Userspace, and More
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AlmaLinux OS 9.8 & 10.2 Released Simultaneously for the First Time — Btrfs Boot, i686 Userspace, and More
In a milestone for its release engineering pipeline, the AlmaLinux OS Foundation has shipped two stable versions on the same day, bringing Python 3.14, PostgreSQL 18, frame pointer restoration, and legacy 32-bit support to enterprise Linux.
The AlmaLinux OS Foundation announced on May 26, 2026 the simultaneous general availability of AlmaLinux OS 9.8 “Olive Jaguar” and AlmaLinux OS 10.2 “Lavender Lion” — the first time the project has ever shipped two official stable releases on the same day. The achievement reflects months of investment in build automation, QA pipelines, and the project’s release engineering infrastructure by its Build, Core, and Infrastructure Special Interest Groups (SIGs).
AlmaLinux OS 9.8 “Olive Jaguar”
AlmaLinux 9.8 delivers a range of updated tooling under its kernel. Key additions include Python 3.14 as a new package, along with new module streams for MariaDB, PostgreSQL, and Ruby, plus an updated Node.js 24 module stream.
Container & Virtualization
Container and virtualization components see updated versions of Podman, Buildah, libvirt, QEMU-KVM, and skopeo.
Security
Security improvements span OpenSSL, OpenSSH, GnuTLS, SELinux policies, and crypto-policies.
AlmaLinux 9.8 ships an ALESCo-approved kernel backport ahead of upstream: a fix for excessive CPU consumption by systemd and ps during task cleanup. The AlmaLinux team submitted the fix to CentOS Stream 9, but its upstream inclusion was deferred to at least RHEL 9.9. ALESCo voted to include it in 9.8 now, resolving the CPU spike for users immediately rather than a quarter later.
AlmaLinux OS 10.2 “Lavender Lion”
AlmaLinux 10.2 is a substantially updated release, introducing a broad set of new language runtimes, database engines, and system-level improvements.
New Packages & Tooling
Container and virtualization support is updated with the latest Podman, Buildah, libvirt, QEMU-KVM, and skopeo. Security improvements include OpenSSL, OpenSSH, SSSD, SELinux policies, crypto-policies, and Keylime.
Continued AlmaLinux Differentiators
AlmaLinux 10.2 continues to ship features that distinguish it from its upstream source: Btrfs boot support (including the ability to boot from a Btrfs volume, first introduced in 10.1), the CRB repository enabled by default, and a parallel x86_64_v2 build with matching EPEL coverage for older hardware.
What’s New in 10.2
New additions in this specific release include:
Frame pointers re-enabled by default, allowing system-wide profiling to work out of the box without extra configuration. SPICE support is restored for both server and client applications. KVM for IBM POWER is now fully enabled in the virtualization stack, graduating from its tech preview status in AlmaLinux 9.6. Firefox and Thunderbird now ship as regular RPMs directly in the system repositories. Additionally, a wide array of older storage and networking drivers — including Adaptec, Dell PERC, HP, Mellanox, QLogic, Emulex, LSI, and Broadcom adapters — have been re-added after being disabled upstream.
i686 Userspace Support
AlmaLinux 10.2 adds i686 userspace packages, enabling legacy 32-bit software builds, CI pipelines relying on 32-bit glibc, and containerized workloads. This support was first previewed in AlmaLinux Kitten 10 in April 2026 and now crosses into stable. Note that this is userspace only — no bootable 32-bit installer or 32-bit kernel is provided. The rationale is that some proprietary enterprise software still ships only in 32-bit i686 format, requiring a compatible userspace environment even on modern 64-bit systems.
Recent CVE Patches Included
Both 9.8 and 10.2 ship with patches for a series of high-profile CVEs disclosed over the past month, including Copy Fail (CVE-2026-31431), Dirty FRAG, Fragnesia (CVE-2026-46300), nginx Rift (CVE-2026-42945), and SSH Keysign Pwn (CVE-2026-46333). Users upgrading from 9.7 or 10.1 will receive these patches as part of the release.
Availability
Installation ISOs for AlmaLinux 9.8 are available now for x86_64, aarch64 (ARM64), ppc64le (IBM PowerPC), and s390x (IBM Z). AlmaLinux 10.2 additionally provides an x86_64_v2 ISO for older hardware.
Cloud images (AWS, Azure, Google Cloud, Oracle Cloud, OpenNebula, and Generic Cloud), container images, Vagrant boxes, Raspberry Pi images, and Windows Subsystem for Linux builds for both versions are expected to follow shortly.
Bugs may be reported on the AlmaLinux Bug Tracker. Community discussion is available on the AlmaLinux Community Chat, forums, and Reddit.
