Q. What is Amazon Linux 2?

Amazon Linux 2 is the next-generation Amazon Linux operating system that provides modern application environment with the latest enhancements from the Linux community and offers long-term support. In addition to Amazon Machine Images (AMI) and container image formats, Amazon Linux 2 is available as a virtual machine image for on-premises development and testing, enabling you to easily develop, test, and certify your applications right from your local development environment.

Q. What are the benefits of using Amazon Linux 2?

Similar to Amazon Linux AMI, Amazon Linux 2 supports the latest Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) instance features and includes packages that enable easy integration with AWS. It is optimized for use in Amazon EC2 with a latest and tuned Linux kernel version. As a result, many customer workloads perform better on Amazon Linux 2. Amazon Linux 2 offers will be supported until June 30, 2023 with security and maintenance updates. Amazon Linux 2 is available as on-prem virtual machine images allowing local development and test.

Q. Which workloads or use cases are supported with Amazon Linux 2?

Amazon Linux 2 is suited for a wide variety of virtualized and containerized workloads such as databases, data analytics, line-of-business applications, web and desktop applications, and more in production contexts. It is also available for use on

Q. What are the core components of Amazon Linux 2?

The core components of Amazon Linux 2 are:

1. A Linux kernel tuned for performance on Amazon EC2.
2. A set of core packages including systemd, GCC 7.3, Glibc 2.26, Binutils 2.29.1 that receive Long Term Support (LTS) from AWS.
3. An extras channel for rapidly evolving technologies that are likely to be updated frequently and outside the Long Term Support (LTS) model.

Q. How is Amazon Linux 2 different from Amazon Linux AMI?
The primary differences between Amazon Linux 2 and Amazon Linux AMI are:

1. Amazon Linux 2 offers long-term support until June 30, 2023.
2. Amazon Linux 2 is available as virtual machine images for on-premises development and testing.
3. Amazon Linux 2 provides the systemd service and systems manager as opposed to System V init system in Amazon Linux AMI.
4. Amazon Linux 2 comes with an updated Linux kernel, C library, compiler, and tools.
5. Amazon Linux 2 provides the ability to install additional software packages through the extras mechanism.

Q. How can I get started with using Amazon Linux 2 on AWS?

AWS provides an Amazon Machine Image (AMI) for Amazon Linux 2 that you can use to launch an instance from the Amazon EC2 console, AWS SDK, and CLI. Refer to Amazon Linux documentation for more details.

Q. Are there any costs associated with running Amazon Linux 2 in Amazon EC2?

No, there is no additional charge for running Amazon Linux 2. Standard Amazon EC2 and AWS charges apply for running Amazon EC2 instances and other services.

Q. Which Amazon EC2 instance types does Amazon Linux 2 support?

Amazon Linux 2 supports all Amazon EC2 instance types that support HVM AMIs. Amazon Linux 2 does not support older instances that require paravirtualization (PV) functionality.

Q. Does Amazon Linux 2 support 32-bit applications and libraries?

Yes, Amazon Linux 2 supports 32-bit applications and libraries. If you are running on a version of Amazon Linux 2 that was launched before 10/04/2018, you can run “yum upgrade” to get the full 32-bit support.  

Q. Does Amazon Linux 2 come with a Graphical User Interface (GUI) desktop?
Yes, the MATE desktop environment is provided as an extra in Amazon Linux 2. Amazon Workspaces provides cloud Amazon Linux 2 based cloud desktops with a GUI. You can learn more here .

Q: Can I view the source code for Amazon Linux 2 components?

Yes. The yumdownloader --source tool in Amazon Linux 2 provides source code access for many components.