What is your preferred EL distro to use with CloudStack?

[rohityadavcloud]

What is your preferred EL (Enterprise Linux) distro to use with CloudStack - when esp when using them to run CloudStack management & usage server, or use as KVM/hypervisor host?

Note: this isn't about distros from the Ubuntu/Debian or SUSE family, this is about which EL distros users prefer or use. EL distros generally are 1:1 binary compatible with each other.

[SmaIIBug]

Ubuntu/Debian like

[rohityadavcloud]

Thanks, I love & use Ubuntu & Debian too - but to be clear, this isn't about that; it's about which type of EL distro people use with ACS.

[SmaIIBug]

Oh sorry, we're not using actually an Enterprise Linux Distro, we have only Ubuntu 24.04 on all our KVM and MGMT host. Also i'm asking why this poll ? What is the advantage of having an EL Distro rather than another, apart from benefiting from the support for updates, which we also have with Ubuntu LTS for example. Is there better hardware support? Or maybe there are better possibilities for managing primary storage with KVM? I have only used RHEL very little

[SmaIIBug]

I just realized that EL Distro refers to Redhat like and not Enterprise Linux. Sorry for the confusion.

[rohityadavcloud]

The purpose of this poll is to ascertain distribution of users across EL distros. This data helps us to know where & how much to put our efforts in CI/CD and supporting the distros as management server & KVM hosts for use with ACS. AlmaLinux for example has gone in a different route (~forked, not 1:1 binary compatible with RHEL/OL/RL), Fedora has a rolling release model & not suitable for LTS users.

It's not a Ubuntu/Debian vs EL distro thread.

[DaanHoogland]

Fedora

[rohityadavcloud]

Not a EL distro too, pl don’t edit the poll - editing seems to remove previous votes

[DaanHoogland]

why isn’t fedora an el distro? it is redhat based, isn’t it?

[rohityadavcloud]

Fedora has a rolling release model and is actually upstream to RHEL, it's also not comparable with EL distros which follow LTS model and is not 1:1 compatible with RHEL. EL distros are generally 1:1 binary compatible, which was true for AlmaLinux initially but not anymore.

The purpose of this poll was not to create a popularity contest, but to assess usage of EL distributions. I'd appreciate if you don't edit my submissions.

[btzq]

We started with Ubuntu, now moving to Almalinux.

[rohityadavcloud]

Any reason of specifically moving to AlmaLinux?

[btzq]

@rohityadavcloud We did some storage IO benchmarks and found Almalinux provides better throughput out of the box. Since its also a RHEL clone, it gives us better confidence that its better tested and secure than Ubuntu.

Support from Almalinux is more affordable too than Ubuntu.

[rohityadavcloud]

Thanks for sharing @btzq - my understanding is AlmaLinux is no longer RHEL clone but a fork now

[btzq]

Yea thats right its unfortunate. But my understanding is that Alma and RHEL are built from CentOS Stream

i also feel like if theres any other more advanced tool or software built, they are more likely compatible for RHEL and hence Alma compared to Ubuntu

ive come across situations where things like kenel bypass libraries are only supported on rhel and not debian. So its hard to support and all

[rohityadavcloud]

Thanks all, closing this.