AlmaLinux Day: Germany - Recap

This past March, we hosted AlmaLinux Day: Germany right next to CloudFest in Rust, Germany. Similar to AlmaLinux Day: Tokyo in December 2023, AlmaLinux Day: Germany focused on the needs and desires of the AlmaLinux community. Sessions covered everything from VFX to HPC to people using AlmaLinux as an upstream provider – from all over the world. We had nearly 300 attendees, we were elated to engage with our community in such a tangible way.

The Talks

We heard from 11 speakers at AlmaLinux Day: Germany, covering all kinds of involvement in the project and what AlmaLinux’s security and stability mean for them. All sessions are now available for viewing on YouTube, and short descriptions can be found below. 

The Strength of the AlmaLinux Community

The opening keynote for AlmaLinux Day: Germany shows us where AlmaLinux came from, and some of the amazing projects that have been using AlmaLinux in different ways. benny takes you through the history of AlmaLinux this far, including the exciting trends in adoption and who is engaged with the project, and then introduces the other speakers to share their stories.

Speakers:

• benny Vasquez - Chair, AlmaLinux OS Foundation
• Igor Seletskiy - CEO and Founder, Cloud Linux
• Kenneth Tan, PhD - Executive Director, Sardina Systems
• Hidenori Ishikawa - Manager / Product Development Engineer, Prime Strategy Co., Ltd.
• Chieko Aihara - Vice President / Product Manager, Prime Strategy Co., Ltd.
• Jonas Trüstedt - Senior Orcharhino Architect, ATIX AG
• Tristan Theroux - IT Infrastructure & Security Director, SHED

language: English

Chapters:

• 0:00 Intro
• 0:39 The history of AlmaLinux
• 14:44 Igor Seletskiy from CloudLinux talks about where AlmaLinux came from and his investment in the future of AlmaLinux.
• 18:39 Kenneth Tam from Sardina Systems talks about how they picked AlmaLinux as the base for their operations.
• 27:55 Hidenori Ishikawa and Chieko Aihara from Prime Strategy talks about their incredible work in the CMS space with AlmaLinux as their base.
• 34:06 Jonas Trüstedt from ATIX Consulting talks about why ATIX backs AlmaLinux and how Ocharino benefits from an open source ecosystem.
• 41:41 Tristan Theroux from SHED talks about their move from CentOS Stream to AlmaLinux.
• 47:11 More community highlights

Building without following: RHEL compatibility for AlmaLinux’s Community

Finding our footing without using Red Hat Enterprise Linux has been an exciting venture, but the number one question we get is still “How do you build AlmaLinux?” In this presentation Andrew Lukoshko takes you through where AlmaLinux gets its code, how we confirm compatibility, and how we build.

Speaker: Andrew Lukoshko - Release Engineering Lead, AlmaLinux

language: English

Chapters:

• 0:00 Intro
• 1:50 What is AlmaLinux
• 2:45 Agenda for Andrew’s talk
• 3:15 Where AlmaLinux gets its sources
• 10:11 Build our packages
• 11:56 Confirming binary compatibility
• 12:44 AlmaLinux Security Advisories
• 15:42 Building AlmaLinux ISO images and more with Pungi tool
• 16:30 Building for our community: AlmaLinux Live media images, AlmaLinux Pi images, AlmaLinux Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL), and much more
• 19:19 How to update from CentOS 7 to AlmaLinux 8
• 22:15 How to get involved in AlmaLinux

Meet the Board: AlmaLinux OS Foundation Board

In this panel, we get to hear from some of the board members about things that the AlmaLinux community cares most about.

Speakers:

• benny Vasquez - Chair, AlmaLinux OS Foundation
• Simon Phipps - Founder, Meshed Insights Ltd
• Jesse Asklund - Chief Experience Officer, WebPros
• Alex Iribarren - Leader Of Cloud IAAS And Linux Platform Engineering Teams, CERN

language: English

Chapters:

• 0:00 Intro; benny Vasquez, Simon Phipps, Alex Irribarren, and Jesse Asklund
• 2:00 Question to benny: how did you get involved in Community work to begin with?
• 4:00 Question to Simon: where did your passion for open source start?
• 6:06 Question to Alex: why does an organization like CERN care about AlmaLinux?
• 8:29 Question to Jesse: why does WebPros care about AlmaLinux?
• 10:28 Question to Everyone: What do you see as AlmaLinux’s role in Enterprise Linux?
• 15:10 Question to Everyone: What does success for AlmaLinux look like to you?
• 19:10 Question to Everyone: What are the concerns that you have for this project?
• 24:25 Question to Everyone: What would you like to see more of from the AlmaLinux community?
• 28:49: Question to Everyone: How do you think about how your work impacts the other projects that will use AlmaLinux?
• 31:02 Audience question: How is your relationship with Red Hat?
• 32:24 Audience question: How can I become a member without having to use a google form?
• 33:51 Audience question: Will AlmaLinux look for revenue streams to solidify its funding?
• 37:38 Simon: why did AlmaLinux chose to be a 501(c)6 instead of any other options?
• 39:29 Audience question: how do you feel about the idea of a the proposed taxing of corporations to fund European open source organizations?
• 44:55 Audience question: Do you see governments or state organizations wanting control of open source software?
• 50:10 Audience question: Do you have a plan for engaging AlmaLinux users? How do we engage with AlmaLinux and contribute as users?

Keep in touch, and get involved!

If you want to stay up-to-date, here’s where to stay tuned on our forum, Reddit, X, Mastodon, LinkedIn, and YouTube. We also launched a newsletter this year, which you can subscribe to on LinkedIn or via email on our mailing list. When we get our next AlmaLinux Day set up, we will share details on the newsletter, for sure!