When we talk about Linux distros, the same ones almost always come to mind: Ubuntu, as an entry distro for all types of users, Arch, for more advanced users, Red Hat, for companies, CentOS for servers… and the many derivatives that are among them: Mint, Rocky, Manjaro… However, what we probably don’t know is that Amazon itself has its own Linux system: AL.
AL, or better known as Amazon Linux, is a distro developed by the online shopping giant as part of its Amazon Web Services (AWS) infrastructure. This system, which is now 4 years old, offers users who contract its infrastructure a system focused on security, performance and stability, everything that any user looking to set up a system in the cloud needs.
This system uses the well-known Fedora distro as a base, so it is a widely known system in the sector, and it has already undergone extensive and exhaustive tests that guarantee the stability, performance and security that it boasts.
Main features
It is a system specially optimized for your Amazon EC2 systems, so it comes well integrated to take advantage of all the features of the AWS cloud, as well as several specific tools.
Being based on Fedora, this system receives the same frequent quarterly updates on its own to keep all users up-to-date and protected against all kinds of vulnerabilities. Amazon releases new versions of its Linux distro every two years, and each version comes with 5-year long-term extended support.
Security is another of the basic pillars of this system. Thus, within this system we can find SELinux, live revisions of the kernel in 64 bits and ARM, OpenSSL 3.0 and a large number of revised cryptographic policies. In addition, administrators can create their own policies at the time they start the system.
Of course, we can find all this for free, since Amazon offers this Linux at an additional cost. Of course, we will have to pay for Amazon EC2 and AWS the prices stipulated by the service contract.
If we want more details about Amazon Linux, we recommend read their documentation.
Can I use this system on my PC?
This is where the bad news comes in. AL is a Linux system intended exclusively for use in Amazon Web Services. That is to say, when we contract a server in the Amazon cloud, we find ourselves with the possibility of installing this operating system in the same way that we can choose, for example, Windows Server. The advantage is that this Linux is totally free, so we don’t have to pay for any additional license.
But all bad news is accompanied by hope. And it is that, on GitHub, we can find a project that allows us to install Amazon Linux inside Windows Subsystem for Linux as a separate instance. In this way, we can convert our PC into an Amazon Web Services instance, with its own Linux distro, to use it with total security and the same compatibility as if we were running it in the Amazon cloud.
