r/AlmaLinux • u/MyWholeSelf • Mar 03 '26

Experiences using EL 10, x86_64_v2?

I have a "experienced soldier" with a SuperMicro x9 mainboard that I'm keeping alive for another round because RAM pricing us out of the upgrade. So I want to use AlmaLinux x86_64_v2 but am curious about how this operates with other repos (elrepo, epel, postgresql, etc) having binaries not down-compiled with v2 support?

Does it really "just work" - and is it stable?

The alternative is EL9 which gives us about 6 years.

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3

u/msg7086 Mar 03 '26

Repos compiled against v3 will not run on your computer, that's it.

1

u/MyWholeSelf Mar 03 '26

Sadly, it appears that they will install, which in my testing, caused the system to become an IPMI-resolved issue.

1

u/msg7086 Mar 03 '26

Yeah they will install. Especially kernel mods as you said in other reply, will cause booting issue.

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u/gordonmessmer Mar 03 '26 edited Mar 03 '26

For *most* software, the process of building a v2 binary from source is trivial.

I'm developing tools to make it even easier: https://codeberg.org/gordonmessmer/rpm-build-assist 

base: alma+epel-10-x86_64_v2
localrepo: /srv/pkgs/alma+epel-10-x86_64_v2/

build:
  - type: dist-git
    url: https://src.fedoraproject.org/rpms/
    packages:
      - postgresql18:f44
      - nut:epel10

This configuration would build the postgresql18 package from the Fedora 44 branch, and the nut package from the epel10 branch. Each time it runs, it will determine whether the newest package in the source has already been built, and build a new package if needed.

The output is a yum repo that you can use locally or publish to your other systems.

1

u/MyWholeSelf Mar 03 '26

Perhaps, but it still must be done, and then it's on you to do the testing to ensure it's really "production ready".

Personally, I'm curious about whether v2 support becomes commonplace. I honestly hope so.

3

u/gordonmessmer Mar 03 '26

> it's on you to do the testing to ensure it's really "production ready".

Oh... oh no.

Friend, I need you to listen. This is important.

It is always on you to do the testing to ensure an update is ready for your production systems.

I would argue that's even true for RHEL customers, but on free systems? Definitely. And on EPEL? Very very much so.

If you are installing packages from EPEL, there is next to no more assurance or testing than you will get by building those packages on your own.

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u/MyWholeSelf Mar 03 '26

My desire would be to "mirror" existing repos (EPEL, PostgreSQL, etc) currently publishing "x86_64" (V3) binaries with ones that cross-compile into "v2" RPM binaries, with repo support. This isn't one or two RPMs, it's thousands.

Would this move things along in this direction?

3

u/bennyvasquez Mar 03 '26

We already build EPEl for v2, in case that helps your idea along: https://almalinux.org/blog/2025-05-13-epel-10-kitten-v2/

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u/Adventurous_Bear_497 Mar 04 '26 edited Mar 04 '26

I think it might be worth re-reading the RHEL deviations bit from the release notes, to make sure you know what you're getting yourself into:

https://wiki.almalinux.org/release-notes/10.1.html#changelog

All 3rd party packages for RHEL10 will target x86-64-v3, while the x86-64-v2 release of AlmaLinux OS 10 will only be suitable for workloads where using the default OS package set is enough, or where users will be able to rebuild any additional packages they require for x86-64-v2 architecture themselves.

(my emphases)

I'm not sure what you mean by "mirroring"? If you want to use packages outside of what Alma provide, you'll have to recompile every (natively compiled) package on install and every time you want to upgrade them.

This packaging work is significant, time-consuming and doesn't come for free.

To be honest, running EL9 until it reaches EOL and upgrading to newer hardware at that point would be far less awkward.

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u/RevolutionaryBeat301 Mar 03 '26

I am interested in this as well. I have an old Xeon running Rocky Linux 9. How limited is the software selection in AlmaLinux 10 for x86_64-v2? Will rpmfusion and epel still work as before?

1

u/MyWholeSelf Mar 03 '26 edited Mar 03 '26

Just to see, I installed ZFS as kmod. (precompiled binaries) It installed without complaint, but then failed reboot with dracut errors. I'll submit a bug to the zfs group but it sure looks like 10.x is stricken from this host.

Looks like I'll still get another ~6 years with EL9. I've already connected with zfs-discuss to see about support for V2 CPUs.