That’s Entertainment
Modern visual effects (VFX) require an enormous amount of computing power to run workstations and render farms. As a result, Media & Entertainment (M&E) pipelines require an enterprise-grade operating system that offers stability, performance, and customizability, with most large M&E companies relying on RHEL-based Linux systems.
For almost 20 years, CentOS was the operating system of choice because it supported tools like Nuke, Houdini, and Maya. That all changed when CentOS 7 reached end of life and was replaced with the upstream CentOS Stream, which lacks the long-term stability required by the M&E industry.
Support cost increases for the software used by M&E creatives also have disrupted the M&E industry. Now more than ever the industry needs a stable, community-owned, enterprise-grade Linux to replace CentOS.
AlmaLinux, with its focus on community participation and its application binary interface (ABI) compatibility with RHEL, has been quick to respond to this call. With its new M&E Special Interest Group (SIG), industry leaders can gather under the Alma-Linux umbrella to solve their problems, making AlmaLinux a solid choice.
Coming Together
The demise of CentOS 7 has forced studios to find a replacement to meet their unique needs. VFX Reference Platform, which defines a set of tool and library versions for the M&E industry to ensure a consistent build target for software, has recommended using any RHEL-based distribution.
While working as the IT Infrastructure & Security Director at SHED Inc., Tristan Théroux remembers trying different solutions and “testing to make sure it was the right community” – one that offered stability plus support via a third party if necessary.
Théroux convinced benny Vasquez, AlmaLinux OS Foundation Board of Directors Chair, to debut AlmaLinux at SIGGRAPH 2024, an annual conference and professional organization for computer graphics and interactive technology, in Denver, Colorado. After the conference, Théroux gathered industry leaders to form a new Alma-Linux SIG to create a single space where anyone in the M&E world, from big companies to freelancers, could meet and share ideas, insights, and news, as well as work toward guidelines.
Fast forward to SIGGRAPH 2025 in Vancouver, AlmaLinux held an adjacent AlmaLinux Day with a focus on M&E.
In December 2025, AlmaLinux announced its new M&E SIG, with the first SIG meeting in January 2026. In addition to Théroux (now Senior Security System Administrtor at Intelcom | Dragonfly) as SIG lead, the SIG founding members include representatives from NOX, AWS M&E, Cinesite, Disney Animation Studios, Flying Bark Productions, WeFX, and Velocity Limitless, as well as freelancers (non-disclosure agreements prevent all members from being listed). This group reflects the growing adoption of AlmaLinux in the M&E industry. In fact, Cristian Slavik, VFX Supervisor at NOX, said the industry’s response was influential:
“We observed several other studios making the transition. Knowing that AWS, a leading cloud provider, also utilized AlmaLinux further solidified our confidence in its scalability and reliability, especially considering our potential future needs for cloud or hybrid systems.”
Mission
The M&E SIG’s main goal is to be the choice of M&E studios of all sizes. It serves “as the central collaboration hub for artists, engineers, and open source developers” with the group’s collective work addressing “the unique requirements of a production pipeline, guaranteeing AlmaLinux is a seamless and reliable environment for creative work”. Specific goals include:
- Certifying and ensuring compatibility with industry standard applications (e.g., Houdini, Nuke, Autodesk Maya, etc.)
- Building and documenting reference builds and architectures required by studios (e.g., high-performance workstations, render farms, and secure storage systems)
- Aligning with VFX Reference Platform recommendations to ensure long-term compatibility
Currently, the M&E SIG is developing an M&E ISO to help students, freelancers, and small studios use AlmaLinux without needing a full IT team. If all goes well, the AlmaLinux M&E ISO will be announced at SIGGRAPH 2026.
Responsive Community
AlmaLinux’s responsive, agile community makes it an attractive choice for the M&E industry. For Théroux, “community agility was the deciding factor” when choosing a replacement for CentOS 7 while at SHED.
When talking to AlmaLinux at SIGGRAPH 2025, Slavik said:
“They weren’t just providing an OS clone; they were actually listening to the specific needs of each one. The people I met were incredibly helpful and clearly understood the direction the industry was moving. They started supporting my system questions right then and there. That level of direct, hands-on community support is exactly why we chose AlmaLinux over the other options.”
Alessio Donazza, a 3D artist who has worked in VFX and gaming for 18 years, also cited community responsiveness as a draw: “I felt, from my very earliest interactions, that my ideas, contributions, and feedback were actively listened to and acted upon, like I never experienced before.”
Customization
AlmaLinux’s ABI compatibility with RHEL (rather than bug-for-bug compatibility) allows it to address issues ahead of other RHEL-based OSs. As a result, AlmaLinux has been able to move forward and fix industry pain points, including a glibc regression and native support for NVIDIA drivers and Btrfs.
When Théroux’s colleague at SHED, Inc., Samuel Bissonnette, reported a glibc regression that caused issues with Houdini in RHEL 9.4 in May 2024, Théroux said AlmaLinux “didn’t just acknowledge the issue; they leaned into it.” Although the problem was patched upstream in glibc by the end of June and merged into CentOS Stream 9, it had not been fixed in RHEL 9.4. Instead of waiting for RHEL 9.4, AlmaLinux sped to fix the problem. Andrew Lukoshko, AlmaLinux Lead Architect, said, “While this is not a bug we would normally fix before it is merged into RHEL, we see the needs of our community and are strongly considering it.” By the end of July, AlmaLinux had called for testers and moved the patch to AlmaLinux 9.4 by early August, ahead of RHEL and other OSs.
Another pain point for M&E workstations has been NVIDIA drivers. For computers with an NVIDIA graphics card, Linux users must take extra steps to get the required NVIDIA drivers. AlmaLinux recognized this problem and solved it. Starting with AlmaLinux 9 and 10, the open source NVIDIA drivers, along with associated CUDA components, are now integrated into the AlmaLinux repository, allowing Linux users to skip manual installation. While RHEL and Ubuntu have also fixed this, AlmaLinux provides this for free.
For Btrfs support, which is important for data protection and disaster recovery, you historically had to rely on Fedora or openSUSE. Because of faster upgrade cycles, neither could offer the long-term support required by the M&E industry. Starting with AlmaLinux 10.1, native Btrfs support is now available.
Stability
Because M&E projects can span several years and M&E pipelines need to run 24/7, the industry needs, as Slavik says, “a stable, production-ready environment where we know our software won’t break overnight.”
On the typical M&E machine, you have many different pieces of software that need to work together, running side by side. As a result, Théroux notes that the M&E industry prefers “to stay on a stable major version as long as possible, and AlmaLinux respects that.”
AlmaLinux has a 10-year lifecycle in addition to a “choose your own support” model that lets an organization extend the AlmaLinux OS lifecycle to 20 years with additional third-party commercial support (e.g., TuxCare).
Technical Debt
AlmaLinux also reduces technical debt. Before AlmaLinux, Slavik noted that his company struggled with an OS that wasn’t built for their type of professional work – unnecessary tools and background processes that overloaded the system. He said:
“We were constantly battling registry errors, driver conflicts, and forced background bloatware. It felt like the system was always working against us – whether it was slow boot times, tablet drivers that would randomly stop working, or login screens demanding online accounts just to get to a desktop.”
With AlmaLinux, NOX’s pipeline team can improve its tools rather than address OS bugs and forced updates. Slavik said, “AlmaLinux has allowed us to stop fixing the platform and start focusing on the art.”
Helping the Little Guy
The M&E SIG also wants to make AlmaLinux usable for smaller studios, freelancers, and students who lack a full IT department. Théroux plans to standardize the workstation experience by providing a production-ready desktop out of the box. With contributions from Donazza, Théroux has been working on AlmaLinux Creative Installer, a QT application that “provides a clean graphical interface for freelancers, students, and beginners to install essential creative software with one click.”
Conclusion
The AlmaLinux community has stepped up to partner with the M&E industry by providing a free, stable, production-grade Enterprise Linux OS that addresses their particular pain points. As Slavik succinctly puts it, “the OS finally gets out of the way” and lets M&E professionals focus on their creativity.
To help with the M&E SIG, see the “Get Involved” box to learn more.
Get Involved
The AlmaLinux M&E SIG needs individuals with expertise in systems engineering, pipeline TD, packaging, or technical artistry. The SIG’s focus areas include packaging, testing and benchmarking, documentation, and upstream collaboration. Virtual Meetings are held on the first Wednesday of the month at 18:00 UTC. To join, contact the SIG at ~sig-media-entertainment on chat.almalinux.org or via their mailing list. Everyone is welcome!
This article was made possible by support from AlmaLinux OS Foundation through Linux New Media’s Topic Subsidy Program.
