Converting CentOS 8 to AlmaLinux 8

Hello,

In this week’s feature highlight, we look at How to Convert CentOS 8 to AlmaLinux 8

In this Article we will learn how to convert an existing CentOS 8 system to AlmaLinux 8. This guide includes the link to the conversion script maintained by the official GitHub repo for AlmaLinux.

AlmaLinux is a binary fork of RedHat Linux Enterprise Linux (RHEL) which is created as an alternative to CentOS. The current AlmaLinux version is based on RHEL 8.3. Almalinux is aimed to fill the gap left by the demise of CentOS stable Linux.

Before we begin

Please note that this is still in development phase and it is not recommended on Production environments yet.

Make sure you have a backup of your data if anything goes wrong.

Download the Script

Download the almalinux-deploy.sh script from official AlmaLinux repo.

curl -O https://raw.githubusercontent.com/AlmaLinux/almalinux-deploy/master/almalinux-deploy.sh

Executing the Script

Run the downloaded script,

bash almalinux-deploy.sh

You’ll get similar Output:

Complete!
Run dnf distro-sync -y                                                OK

Migration to AlmaLinux is completed, please reboot the system

Once migration is completed reboot the system.

reboot

To check the current version of OS.

cat /etc/redhat-release

Output:

[root@vps ~]# cat /etc/redhat-release
AlmaLinux release 8.3 Beta (Purple Manul)

To check the system boots AlmaLinux kernel by default.

grubby --info DEFAULT | grep AlmaLinux

Output:

[root@vps ~]# grubby --info DEFAULT | grep AlmaLinux
title="AlmaLinux (4.18.0-240.el8.x86_64) 8"

Done! Your CentOS 8 system has now been converted over to AlmaLinux 8