On May 26, the AlmaLinux OS Foundation released two stable versions simultaneously: 9.8 (codenamed “Olive Jaguar” with kernel version 5.14.0-687.5.3.el9_8) and 10.2 (codenamed “Lavender Lion” with kernel version 6.12.0-211.7.3.el10_2). This marked the first time in the project’s history that two versions were launched on the same day. The Foundation attributed this achievement to systematic reforms made by the Build, Core, and Infrastructure SIGs to the release engineering process, which led to greater automation, stricter QA pipelines, and a build system capable of handling both release streams in parallel.
Version 9.8 introduces Python 3.14, new module streams for MariaDB, PostgreSQL, and Ruby, as well as Node.js 24. It also updates containerization and virtualization components such as Podman, Buildah, libvirt, and QEMU-KVM. Notably, ALESCo approved the early inclusion of a kernel patch addressing abnormal CPU usage by systemd and ps during task cleanup; this fix was postponed upstream and won’t be included until RHEL 9.9.
Version 10.2 brings even more new features: Python 3.14, PostgreSQL 18, MariaDB 11.8, Ruby 4.0, PHP 8.4, GNOME 49, plus new packages like SDL3, libkrun, and trustee. The i686 userspace packages have graduated from the test phase in Kitten 10 to become stable, thus supporting legacy 32-bit software and containerized workloads. Additionally, 10.2 retains several AlmaLinux-specific extensions relative to upstream: Btrfs support (including booting from Btrfs volumes), default activation of the CRB repository, parallel x86_64_v2 builds for older hardware, and inclusion of Firefox and Thunderbird in the system repositories as regular RPMs. KVM for IBM POWER has advanced from a tech preview in version 9.6 to full support; frame pointers are re-enabled by default, SPICE support has returned, and numerous outdated storage and network drivers previously dropped upstream have been reinstated (covering Adaptec, Dell PERC, HP, Mellanox, QLogic, etc.). Both versions include patches for multiple high-profile CVEs disclosed over the past month, including Copy Fail, Dirty FRAG, Fragnesia, nginx Rift, and SSH Keysign Pwn.