openEuler

openEuler is an open-source enterprise Linux distribution initiated by Huawei and now incubated under the OpenAtom Foundation — one of the most important community projects in China’s server OS ecosystem. It originated from the open-sourcing of EulerOS (Huawei’s in-house commercial distribution), is now community-governed, and serves as the base for products from Huawei Cloud, telecom carriers, and many Chinese OS vendors.

Origin and Governance

September 2019: Huawei announced the open-sourcing of EulerOS at HUAWEI CONNECT and launched the openEuler community
2021: the project was donated to the OpenAtom Foundation, completing its transition to foundation governance
The community runs many SIGs (Special Interest Groups); releases are maintained collectively, and any vendor or individual can contribute

Like Anolis OS (Alibaba-led), openEuler represents China’s “build our own” response to the CentOS shutdown — but the two took different technical routes (see below).

Release Cadence

openEuler ships two releases a year, with an LTS every two years:

Version	Type	Notes
22.03 LTS	Long-term support	Based on Linux 5.10, ~4-year lifecycle (with SPs)
23.09 / 25.03 / 25.09	Community innovation	Short-cycle previews for new features
24.03 LTS	Long-term support	Based on Linux 6.6
26.03	Long-term support	The latest LTS branch on the two-year cadence

LTS releases deliver fixes and new features through SPs (Service Packs), similar in rhythm to RHEL minor releases.

Technical Characteristics

Not a RHEL Rebuild

This is the most fundamental difference from AlmaLinux and Rocky:

It started from CentOS 8 code but diverged quickly: its own kernel branch (with scheduler, memory, and filesystem patches merged in) and an independent full-package build system
It keeps the RPM/DNF package system, so operational habits match EL — dnf, systemctl, and SELinux skills transfer entirely
There is no compatibility promise with RHEL, and the version correspondence drifts further apart over time

Broad Hardware Architecture Support

Support for domestic and emerging architectures is a core community investment:

x86_64 and aarch64 (Kunpeng, Phytium, and other ARM platforms) are the primary targets
LoongArch (Loongson), RISC-V, and Sunway (sw_64) are also supported
This is a key reason it is widely chosen for China’s Xinchuang (IT innovation/localization) programs

Main Feature Directions

Kernel enhancements: scheduler and memory management optimizations (memory tiering and related features)
Cloud-native and containers: Kubernetes and the wider cloud-native stack; the lightweight container engine iSulad and the multi-sandbox runtime manager Kuasar ship built in
Desktop experience: community ports of UKUI and DDE desktop environments, with an openEuler desktop edition

Use Cases

Scenario	Fit
Huawei Cloud ECS, Kunpeng servers	Native recommendation — the fullest driver and performance optimization
Xinchuang / localization projects	A mainstream choice with broad hardware coverage
General x86 servers	Usable, but verify compatibility of RHEL-certified commercial software yourself
”A free RHEL replacement”	Not the right fit — choose AlmaLinux or Rocky instead

Installation and Download

Download: openeuler.org/en/download — ISO, cloud images, and container images
Huawei Cloud ECS offers a public image directly; other platforms can import the qcow2
Containers: docker pull openeuler/openeuler

$ cat /etc/os-release
$ uname -r

Migration Tooling

The community ships x2openEuler, an assessment and migration tool that analyzes software compatibility from CentOS 7/8 and generates in-place migration plans. The general approach (back up, assess, migrate, verify) matches the ELevate route — only the target system becomes the corresponding openEuler release instead of EL 8.

Relations with Other Chinese Distributions

Project	Led By	Relation to RHEL
openEuler	Initiated by Huawei, under OpenAtom	Independent fork; keeps RPM/DNF habits only
Anolis OS	Alibaba Cloud	Anolis OS 8 highly compatible with RHEL 8; 23 onward independent
OpenCloudOS	Tencent	Independent kernel, no RHEL compatibility promise
Kylin V10, UOS Server	Commercial vendors	Mostly built on openEuler/CentOS bases