What's the closest free distro to Red Hat Linux?

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  1. #1
    Great White Shark proxops-pete's Avatar
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    What's the closest free distro to Red Hat Linux?

    My work uses Red Hat but it costs $50 for single license.
    Is there a free distro (like Ubuntu) that's practically identitcal to Red Hat?
    Or are all Linux distrbo, by def., more or less the same??

  2. #2
    Hammerhead Shark
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    I'd look at either Fedora or CentOS. If you want as close to Red Hat as you can get, I think CentOS may be better (it is supposed to be 100% compatible). I've posted DistroWatch.org's synopsis on both below.

    Quote Originally Posted by DistroWatch.org
    The Fedora Project is an openly-developed project designed by Red Hat, open for general participation, led by a meritocracy, following a set of project objectives. The goal of The Fedora Project is to work with the Linux community to build a complete, general purpose operating system exclusively from open source software. Development will be done in a public forum. The project will produce time-based releases of Fedora about 2-3 times a year, with a public release schedule. The Red Hat engineering team will continue to participate in building Fedora and will invite and encourage more outside participation than in past releases. By using this more open process, we hope to provide an operating system more in line with the ideals of free software and more appealing to the open source community.
    Quote Originally Posted by DistroWatch.org
    CentOS as a group is a community of open source contributors and users. Typical CentOS users are organisations and individuals that do not need strong commercial support in order to achieve successful operation. CentOS is 100% compatible rebuild of the Red Hat Enterprise Linux, in full compliance with Red Hat's redistribution requirements. CentOS is for people who need an enterprise class operating system stability without the cost of certification and support.
    The base of most Linux OS's are the same, but there can be many difference. The default software installs are obvious differences. Beyond that package management (Red Hat/Fedora/Mandrake/CentOS uses rpm's, Debian/Ubuntu use deb's, Gentoo compiles from source, etc.) is different between sets of distributions. The way runlevels are handled can be different. Essentially, lots of things could theoretically be different and distributions differ in many ways (both small and large). I know one distribution completely redefines the file structure in a non-standard way (I can't remember the name, though). What to use is a matter of taste.
    Last edited by Nick_B; 02-21-2008 at 01:28 PM.
    Nick_B
    Currently running Ubuntu and Windows 7.

  3. #3
    Great White Shark
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    CentOS is basically RHEL with the branding removed, and compatability maintained.

    Fedora Core is considered the test platform for features that will eventually be integrated into RHEL.

    Either way, you will have the functionality of RHEL.

    However, with CentOS, you will maintain the "enterprise" feel of the OS.

    *Edit: Out of curiousity, are you building the SFF system and using this OS to bone up on skills for a promotion, or just to keep your skills sharp?
    Last edited by James; 02-21-2008 at 01:44 PM.

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  4. #4
    Great White Shark proxops-pete's Avatar
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    Thanks guys! I will look into CentOS.

    Quote Originally Posted by James
    *Edit: Out of curiousity, are you building the SFF system and using this OS to bone up on skills for a promotion, or just to keep your skills sharp?
    the latter would be more accurate reason. I mostly do CFD and related computing on Linux-based clusters (both at Beoing and NASA's Columibia Supercomputer). Lately, I've been tasked to install/compile a new CFD code but I've been running into many walls ... esp. with MPI and compilers. I wanted to see broader perspective/experience in dealing with the core of the Linux as an OS (I've dealt with Unix/Linux since college in '91) to better understand it as an overall.

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