The AlmaLinux OS Foundation announced the general availability of AlmaLinux OS 10.2 on May 26, 2026, codenamed “Lavender Lion”. The day stood out for the project, because for the first time it shipped two stable releases at once: the 10.2 branch alongside 9.8 “Olive Jaguar”.
AlmaLinux 10.2 is built on kernel 6.12.0-211.7.3.el10_2 and brings both the desktop and the developer and sysadmin toolset up to date.
Key highlights
- GNOME 49 desktop, which refreshes the system’s graphical experience.
- New packages and languages: Python 3.14, Ruby 4.0, PHP 8.4, PostgreSQL 18, MariaDB 11.8 and SDL3, plus tooling such as libkrun, trustee and FIDO Device Onboard.
- i686 userspace packages, which let you run legacy 32-bit software, CI pipelines and containerized workloads on AlmaLinux 10.
- Btrfs support with bootable volumes, one of the things that sets it apart from the RHEL base.
- Parallel x86-64-v2 build so older hardware doesn’t get left behind.
- Frame pointers re-enabled by default for system-wide performance profiling, SPICE support restored for virtualization, and the CRB repository enabled out of the box.
On the container and virtualization side, the release includes Podman 5.8.0, libvirt 11.10.0 and QEMU-KVM 10.1.0, along with debugging tools such as Valgrind 3.26.0, SystemTap 5.4 and GDB 16.3.
What AlmaLinux is
AlmaLinux is a free, open-source enterprise Linux distribution that is 1:1 binary compatible with Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL). Created as a CentOS replacement and run by a non-profit foundation, it makes a solid choice for servers, critical infrastructure, cloud environments and any organization that wants enterprise-grade stability without paying for licenses.
You can find downloads, support timelines and full details on its complete page at LinuxGratis.