RISC-V is a free and open instruction set architecture (ISA) based on RISC principles. Unlike proprietary ISAs such as x86 or ARM, the RISC-V specification is openly available, allowing anyone to implement it without licensing fees. Hardware platforms based on RISC-V are becoming more widely available, from microcontrollers to application-class processors capable of running full Linux distributions.
We are excited to announce that AlmaLinux OS Kitten 10 is now available for the RISC-V architecture.
AlmaLinux Kitten 10 for riscv64
AlmaLinux OS Kitten 10 is built for the riscv64 architecture targeting the RV64GC profile. Package repositories are publicly available and served by the AlmaLinux Mirror Service as usual, so you can install and update packages with dnf just like on any other supported architecture.
Docker containers
Official Docker container images for AlmaLinux OS Kitten 10 riscv64 are available now. If you’re on an x86_64 or aarch64 host, you can run them using QEMU user-mode emulation:
docker run -it --rm --platform linux/riscv64 almalinux:10-kitten bash
Make sure you have QEMU user-static and binfmt_misc configured on your host for cross-architecture emulation. On most systems this can be set up with:
docker run --rm --privileged tonistiigi/binfmt --install riscv64
GenericCloud VM image
A GenericCloud VM image with cloud-init support is also available for riscv64. This image can be used with QEMU to run AlmaLinux OS Kitten 10 RISC-V virtual machines, making it easy to test and develop for the architecture without dedicated hardware.
Hardware images: VisionFive 2 and P550
Images for the StarFive VisionFive 2 (JH7110) and the SiFive HiFive Premier P550 (ESWIN EIC7700) will be available very soon. Support for these platforms was recently merged into the CentOS Stream 10 kernel, and we are working on producing ready-to-use images for both boards.
Get involved!
RISC-V is an exciting and fast-moving ecosystem, and we’d love your help testing and improving AlmaLinux on this platform. If you have RISC-V hardware or are running riscv64 containers or QEMU VMs, please share your experience with us.
Report any bugs on bugs.almalinux.org, join the conversation in the SIG/AltArch channel on our Mattermost chat, or post on our forums.
