The community-based AlmaLinux OS alternative to Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) continues exploring ways to better differentiate it from upstream RHEL and other derivatives. The latest difference is AlmaLinux OS Kitten 10 adding i686 user-space packages for those wanting to run on a RHEL 10 based platform but still needing x86 32-bit user-space software compatibility.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10 dropped support for 32-bit packages and 32-bit multilib packages were removed with customers recommended to stick to RHEL 9. AlmaLinux OS Kitten 10 has now added back i686 user-space software that in turn will trickle down into future AlmaLinux 10 stable releases.

AlmaLinux will not be providing install images for AlmaLinux 10 i686 or the like but this is strictly about user-space i686 packages:

"32-bit x86 has not gone away. Software that only ships as i686, CI pipelines that need a specific 32-bit glibc, containers that should look like a normal distro but for linux/386 — all of these still exist and still need a maintained package set behind them.

Vendors care about this too. Arista moved EOS from CentOS 7 to AlmaLinux 9, and their tooling relies on i686 packages being available alongside x86_64."

Those interested in this i686 user-space software support for AlmaLinux OS Kitten 10 can find the details announced today on the AlmaLinux.org blog .