Which Red Hat Should Be Worn in the Enterprise?

weatherbug asks: "I've recently been appointed as a member of a team to help determine the direction our organization is headed with Red Hat Linux. Currently we're using multiple versions from Red Hat 6.x through Advance Server 2.1. However, now that Red Hat has effectively separated their distributions into a 'consumer' (Red Hat 8,9, etc) and 'enterprise' (Red Hat Adv. Server 2.x, etc), we aren't sure which version we want to adopt. A Red Hat salesman recently told us that the 'consumer' version of Red Hat was mostly for hackers and hobbyists who weren't concerned about stability and wanted the most up-to-date software, while the 'enterprise' version would be more stable and have a five-year product lifetime. As a long time Linux system administrator, I feel that this is a sales tactic and that there really is no compelling reason for us to ever use the 'enterprise' version. After all, it is Linux and it is open source, and we have enough in-house talent to not need Red Hat support. Why would we ever need or care about a five-year product lifetime? Am I wrong, and if so, could you set us straight? We'd be interested to know what other large organizations have decided to do."

IMHO, you answered your own question

[aborchers]

When you said

As a long time Linux system administrator, I feel that this is a sales tactic and that there really is no compelling reason for us to ever use the 'enterprise' version.

I think its more about RPMs and patches

[AlbanySux]

If you don't care about using their patches and updated RPMs then you don't need 5 years of support. But if you don't want to have to compile the src on every server or do your own patching some other way then the "consumer" version is not thw way to go. They tend to stop releasing patched RPM's after a while.

That depends

[Anonymous Coward]

If you plan to use Red Hat's support services, then use the "Enterprise" edition but if you are using self support, then use whatever version you like.

Why bother at all?

[TCM]

If you really have enough in-house talent to not need Red Hat support why bother with Red Hat on a commercial level at all? Just download one of their ISOs (that is possible, right?) - or any other distribution for that matter - and do it all yourself. Correct me if I'm wrong but the number one reason to actually pay for a Linux distribution is the support that comes with it, isn't it?

Are you writing custom applications?

[cgenman]

If you are, you may need support for many years for that OS version 9.x. There can be libraries that your application relies upon, but those older-version libraries might not be present in newer versions of the software that contain exploits you would want to patch, or features you might like to build around.

Food for thought.

And if you don't need Red Hat's service plan... why not just run Debian -> Stable?

same situation here...

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, my org was using Red Hat 7.x, plus the $60/yr Red Hat Network stuff keeping everything up to date. When RH announced their end-of-life policy, that meant we had to upgrade a bunch of monitorless machines, we had to be physically present to do it (can't do it over the network), and we'd have to do it every year.

Our solution?

All machines now run FreeBSD and are kept up to date with CVSup. No more corporate BS. The saved $60/yr/machine covers the cost of an admin running "make buildworld" every now and then.

Once you get BSD set up just right with your make.conf and stuff like that, it's so easy to keep up to date.

I'd recommend this (or one of the Linux distros that use similar tech like Gentoo or Debian). Red Hat has made life difficult for anybody between "hobbyist" and "enterprise" .. which is a lot of folks.

Buy the Enterprise one...

[xutopia]

..and support linux. That way you are sure not going to miss out on anything that could be in the enterprise version.

Upgrade every year?

[orev]

Think about a mission critical system that needs to run 24x7. Every time you have to apply a patch or upgrade the system, that's downtime you can't afford.

"Enterprise" servers are one's that just work and you don't have to mess with them. That is contrary to what most sysadmins like to do with systems - that is, mess with them constantly.

Consider long term planning

[slacker775]

If you don't stick close to the stock RH packages (roll your own kernel or apache, etc), there would really be no reason to go with a support plan, etc. If you stick closely to the RH packages, roll your own RPMS etc, it may be helpful to go with Advanced Server or the like. One thing to consider is if your org will be the same 5-6 years down the road as it is today. If it is a nice small shop that doesn't change a lot, it may very well be. If it is a traditional corporate environment, your dept may be filled with bean-heads in the next few years and it may be very helpful to leave them with a more vendor maintained rev with a support plan.

In 5 years...

[NathanE]

I think one thing to keep in mind is what will your tech department look like in 5 years. Shoot, 5 years ago who would have guessed things would be like they are now? Say your staff is halved in 5 years for whatever reason. Will not having official support matter at that time? I'm not trying to advocate buying Advanced Server, but you should at least keep in mind that crazy things can happen over the course of 5 years.

To some, the extra money is well worth the insurance you get.

For what it's worth

[npietraniec]

For what my opinion it worth... We've got about 200 workstations (a decent enough size network) and we've got several RH servers... we standardize on every 3rd release (6.2, 7.2, and now 9) and don't have any problems. We've got redhat network subscriptions for updates and everything is rock solid. I see no need for "enterprise editions." Upgrading the servers every few years before end of life isn't that horrible for us... And there's usually compelling reasons like journaled file systems and new versions of ssh that justify it.

But you need to evaluate your own needs obviously.

Re:I'm more worried about...

[SN74S181]

On the Enterprise it's not an issue. However, when a member of a landing party.....

But seriously, folks. It's Linux. Either it's Open Source and companies with expertise can admin and update it themselves, or you're paying somebody else to do that for you. And why pay Red Hat big bucks unless you need their expertise? Are they going to stop chasing bugs in the consumer division because of the obvious conflict of interest with their revenue stream selling support? Red Hat can either sell one or the other (well supported expensive enterprise or cheap you're-on-your-own consumer distros) otherwise it's obvious they don't care what happens to you if you buy the latter.

It depends

[darthtuttle]

It depends on how much you rely on RedHat after you install the product, and how much the company wants to continue to do that.

First remember to think in terms of the company. While you and your fellow admins might be uber-gurus you might not be with the company forever. Will they find other slashdot reading uber-gurus to replace you, or will they be left with less capable people?

Then consider what you do on your own. Do you install RPMs from RedHat, or do you "use the source"? Do you update your own kernel? What do you do if there's a security flaw or bug in a software package? Do you use the source or the RPM.

RedHat offers an attractive model for companies who don't want to depend on having "Bob the admin" around and would rather depend on the idea that "RedHat" will be around (the former usually isn't there as long as is around.)

Everyone company has a different culture and answer, those are some of the questions to consider.

Re:What My Organization Did:

[damiam]

Seriously, if you don't need Redhat support and don't want their Enterprise features, why would you use Redhat on a server? *BSD or Debian would be more reliable, and Gentoo, LFS, or Debian would be much more customizable.

It's not entirely a sales tactic.

[Rimbo]

Not every organization, large or otherwise, has the in-house talent to do their own open-source maintenance and support. Maybe they have most of their machines running Windows, maybe not.

Beyond that, a lot of experienced tech executives, having been burned by a lack of support in the past, are not going to chance it without a service contract like the one Enterprise offers.

The arguments for and against are like the arguments for and against buying insurance, because the support contract is a form of insurance. You will never convince me that the full coverage I pay for on my vehicle isn't worth it, because at the moment my car was stolen and totalled, I received more money back than I'd ever paid the insurance company. On the other hand, you'll never convince my girlfriend -- who drives an '83 Accord -- that anything other than the minimum liability insurance the law requires is necessary.

We're both right, because our situations are different.

Stable Software *is* worth money.

[Chandon Seldon]

There is a significant difference between the correct stability/reliability tradeoff for a desktop/hobbyist operating system and a production server operating system.

This difference is especially apparent with Linux distributions. A distribution intended for desktop use will, by nessisity, include unstable software and libraries so as to allow constantly-unstable software like media players to work. On the other hand, a server distribution will run tested, stable versions of everything.

If Red Hat is actually claiming 5 year product lifetimes for their server products then it's probably worth getting them. That will allow you to not do a reinstall until your application needs a OS upgrade - instead of needing to reinstall because Red Hat no longer supports the old version.

There's more to it than just Red Hat's support...

[gak313]

In my organization, we use Oracle applications (Collaboration Suite, iFiles, etc.), and Oracle will not support installations on any Linux distribution other than AS 2.1. The way that they package updates and installers makes it impossible to use anything else. My point is that you need to look at the requirements of any software you may be running before making a decision.

This is a management question

[lawpoop]

I think from an administration standpoint, you're right on. But you might want to look at it from a management perspective.

What makes your boss feel more secure? Is your boss the kind to totally trust you and your judgement, or do they like to see some 'backup'?

Also, would you like to be totally on your own, or would you like to be able to say "Know what? I'm sick of this problem!" and call up Red Hat support? This could be helpful in shifting blame away from yourself.

Re:It depends

[Chris_Stankowitz]

> First remember to think in terms of the company. While you and your fellow admins might be uber-gurus you might not be with the company forever. Will they find other slashdot reading uber-gurus to replace you, or will they be left with less capable people?

In other words, untill the job market/econmy turns around. Drop RH. To easy to write yourself out of a job.

LFS should be a good start. Also, don't document anything! This way at minimum they have to keep you around to train your replacement.

Re:benefits

[photon317]

You can get both from standard source on kernel.org as well. I think what the original poster is *really* asking is "What features exist in RH AS 2.1 that are truly unique and worth the money, as opposed to stuff any good linux hacker could've thrown together on his own?". Redhat would do well to answer this.

A few ways of looking at it

[digidave]

There are a few ways of looking at it. The most simple being that Red Hat 9 et al are great for the desktop because they include the newest desktops and office apps without hassle. The AS edition is for the server where stability, lifecycle and support are more important.

If you are running commercial apps on the server, then have a look at what they officially support. We have two Websphere 5 servers and IBM supports Red Hat 7.3 and Suse 8.1 Pro (I may be wrong on that Suse version) on the server and Red Hat 8 for a development system. In this case, we also want support from IBM, so using AS makes sense even though Websphere works fine on Red Hat 9, Debian, etc.

The answer is really just a combination of what you're looking for. For a team of Linux experts who will update their own software, Red Hat is merely an installer. If you're going to update with RHN, then a long product lifecycle is important to keep your system secure.

It's about support

[afidel]

If not from redhat then from third party vendors. I think that eventually people like Oracle, Peoplesoft, etc are going to support their software on RH AS exclusivly because they won't have to come out with a new version every couple of months but will instead have to follow the 3-4 current versions of AS. If you don't think you will need this kind of third party support, or will only need it for some of your servers then maybe split your shop, RH AS for those platforms that need to be more stable and less of moving targets, and the standard distro for webservers, whatever that can afford to be broken once in a while because it's tracking the bleeding edge.

Re:IMHO, you answered your own question

[johnnyb]

It depends on how you answer the following questions:

* Do you want to recompile each package every time you want to update it, or do you want to do rpm -i?

* Do you want to backport source patches to your current version, and then install it, or do you want to do rpm -i?

* Do you want to have to watch every mailing list for possible security problems on your software, or do you just want to look in the errata section of the RedHat web site?

I think there's essentially five options:

* Continually reinstall your servers to the latest RedHat

* Buy Advanced Server

* Form a community group dedicated to keeping up with older versions of RH - making the above changes as a group

* Use a distro that already has a community group (i.e. - Debian)

* Do it all yourself

Or you could just leave your machine unpatched :)

Re:What My Organization Did:

[stand]

Seriously, if you don't need Redhat support and don't want their Enterprise features, why would you use Redhat on a server? *BSD or Debian would be more reliable, and Gentoo, LFS, or Debian would be much more customizable.

While I agree with this sentiment mostly, you have to realize that to the people that are paid to make these decisions (The Boss, the CIO, whatever) customizable == bad, at least as far as operating system decisions are concerned.

It's impossible to know if you'll always have the expertise to maintain all your wonderful customizations and since, if the operating system can't be made to work, everything fails, it's extremely important that your os configuration be very transparent.

Of course there are sacrifices in power, flexibility and so forth that you make when you choose this route, but to the CIO, ease of maintanence (not to mention replacability of maintenance staff) tends to trump those considerations.

Redhat realizes this and I think this is the source of their success.

Re:It depends

[digidave]

Think in terms of the company? Sorry, but CYA (cover your ass). If you can get a huge amount of "now value" out of your decisions and you know that it will increase your company's dependence on you, then go for it. It's not as if you're the only one who can maintain these systems, but you'd be giving someone of your skill a job rather than someone of lesser skill. This gives you more room for a promotion and/or raise.

Do you think that's unethical? Show me a company that values its employees more than its own well-being and I'll show you an administrator who values his own well-being most of all.

Re:For what it's worth

[vondo]

Except now the end of life is just one year. Do you want to move to RH 10 on April 30, 2004? Then do it again every year after that. Redhat is targetting groups like you (and me). How to handle this has become a more complex issue recently.

Re:Which do we use?

[Anonymous Coward]

And with 7.3 end-of-lifing fairly soon, the up2date channel for it should disappear. What's your plan at that point?

This is what it boils down to for me

[tuxlove]

When deciding whether to use enterprise vs. consumer Red Hat, I have to ask myself if I mind rolling over to a new version of Red Hat *every year*. The answer is usually yes. Since they apparently will not be supporting a particular consumer product for more than a year at a pop, using the consumer version may require frequent and burdensome updating of the OS. The only options are:

1. Use a consumer Red Had product and reinstall all of your systems every year.
2. Don't care about updates and simply live with bugs and security holes.
3. Monitor the security/bug lists and build custom patches yourself (or find a third party to do it for you).
4. Use a Red Hat enterprise product.
5. Don't use Red Hat at all.

The most palatable option for our business has so far been option 5, mainly due to the cost and hassle of self-maintenance or using an enterprise product. Not to mention that Linux in general is not mature enough in certain areas that are important to our business. Our only viable option to date has been other Unix/Unix-like products.

Re:benefits

[Thomas A. Anderson]

I think you answered your own question here. Red Hat, more than likely, does not market the enterprise edition to "good linux hackers". Rather, it's for companies that don't have a large *nix I.T. staff, want to save moeny over traditional unix, but expect the support options of traditional unix.

my question is then why chose red hat at all?

[NoRefill]

If you have the in house talent to provide your company with support and do your own upgrades, then what reason would you use red hat? Grab a free, unadulterated distribution, like Slackware, and do it from scratch.

I think red hat's strategy in having "consumer" and "commercial" versions is pretty much what you stated that they rh salesman stated. "consumer" versions can have the latest and greatest, while the "commercial" versions can be slightly older, but stable, production proven versions. In any evolving software, the more time you can let people bang on software, the more stable it will prove to be. Also, more companies will target those stable versions than they will the bleeding edge stuff, unless they are forced to through a new kernel feature.

Young and inexperienced

[louissypher]

From the nature of the question, it would seem that you have not had to make very many enterprise tech decisions. You are not thinking like a manager. Let me explain.

There is value to RH ADV SRV. You yourself mentioned a few of them. Inexperienced decision makers tend to error on the side of being cheap instead just buying the right product. The end of life support is enough to tip the scales. Upgrading a out of date RH distro that has been hacked all to hell is not something you would want to do in the enterprise level numbers.

The cost of licensing ADV SRV is a very small portion of the lifetime costs.

Re:What My Organization Did:

[reallocate]

>> It's impossible to know if you'll always have the expertise to maintain all your wonderful customizations and since, if the operating system can't be made to work, everything fails, it's extremely important that your os configuration be very transparent.

Hear, Hear!!

I've had the experience of having someone else's highly customized creations dumped in my managerial lap after the customizer bolted for greener pastures. We had to bring in someone on contract to rebuild from scratch.

Running the slickest software is all well and good, but the people who pay the bills and salaries value reliability and trust more than they value squeezing out the last n'th of performance.

DEBIAN (was: Are you writing custom applications?)

[pergamon]

I thought RedHat was the greatest thing in the world until I tried Debian. I now use Debian 'stable' on servers, 'testing' or 'unstable' on workstations/etc.

It is hard to beat having security patches backported for keeping a system stable. (The other main reason I switched to Debian is that its the only distro that will install run on all the different hardware I use like PA-RISC, Alpha, Sparc{32,64}, and MIPS without jumping through any hoops).

Before anyone jumps on me with a "this other distro is even better", let me clarify that I'm posting this only to say that I think there's a better option than RedHat. In particular, other great distros like Slack and Gentoo that don't have binary package management systems (for better or worse) aren't really comparable to RedHat. Mandrake, from the few days I've used it, just seemed like a flashier and even more bloated version of RedHat.

The only downside I've found to using Debian over RedHat (or the other distros that are based on RedHat) is that some commercial apps are geared towards RedHat and only release RPMs. In particular, Compaq's Linux support software/drivers are almost exclusively in RPM format. Now 'alien' does indeed convert them to installable .debs for me, but hand tweaking is usually necessary.

And yes, it is much easier to use 'apt-get' than dealing with the RHN to get 'up2date' working.

Debian

[conan_albrecht]

I have to concur with the posters here and throw my (non-red but debian) hat into the ring. I used many different distros (most RH based) until I grew up to Debian. It might be harder to install, but I don't believe anything else, including RH, can come close to Debian Stable. It is simply a whole level of stability higher than anything else in the Linux world.

Off the shelf != stable

[Anonymous Coward]

If you expect any off the shelf software -- whether it's DOS 4 or RedHat SuperAdvancedServer 99.2 -- to run with stability in the (presumably corporate) environment you manage, you're not doing due diligence as a sysadmin.

Regardless of what you choose, you need to do a soft rollout and test it to death (excessive load, lose a disk, simulate a crash and restore) before you unleash it on the unwashed masses. Once it has been rolled out, you need to watch for security updates and apply them manually, always expecting to have to back it out a minute later because it's flawed.

The only thing that enterprise editions buy you is the ability to point a finger at someone else when something goes wrong.

Re:go with RH 9

[Majix]

Python-base is a package for Mandrake only, in RH there exists only two python packages, python and python-devel. You should never install Mandrake specific RPMs on Red Hat. You do not need python-base, I have bittorrent installed (from RPM) and it does not require python-base unless you are installing the Mandrake specific version!

Another tip for keeping your RPM database in good shape: don't ever use --force or --nodeps. If you do, you might as well go ahead and reinstall from scratch, it will come back and bite you later on. The RPM DB does not usually simply corrupt itself, in 90% of the cases, in my experience, it's because someone did a --force at some point, the rest is because of HW problems (sig 11's, flaky memory).

Re:Security Patches

[MiniChaz]

DreadSpoon said:
"There are at least several glaringly obvious major problems in every release."

Care to point one out? Anything in Red Hat 7.3, 8.0 or 9 will do but it must be "glaringly obvious" and "major".

I really hate it when people throw claims like this around and don't back it up with something. I hope you can.

Thanks.

Re:IMHO, you answered your own question

[KewlPC]

* Do you want to recompile each package every time you want to update it, or do you want to do rpm -i?

I hate to be the one to tell you this, but lots of open source programs have both RPMs and SRPMs available from their website. No need to wait on RedHat, and you can still use RPM.

* Do you want to backport source patches to your current version, and then install it, or do you want to do rpm -i?

This statement is just untrue. I ran RedHat 7.2 long after everyone else went to 7.3 and then to 8.0. There was no "backporting" to do. If a newer version of a program came out, I just downloaded the new version and installed it.

* Do you want to have to watch every mailing list for possible security problems on your software, or do you just want to look in the errata section of the RedHat web site?

You don't have to watch every mailing list. It wouldn't hurt to be on the mailing list for the programs you use the most, though, and there are places on the web besides RedHat's site where you can find out about different programs' security problems fairly quickly.

Besides, there are a lot of commercial programs for Linux where the company that makes it will only offer support if you're running a specific version of RedHat. I think, as far as your company is concerned, having support for those (often expensive) programs is more important than getting RedHat's support, since you can do the OS support yourself, whereas you are entirely dependent on your commercial program's developers if you run into problems and the last thing you'll want to hear is "Oh, well, see, we don't support the program on that [distro | RedHat version]."

Support costs, lock-in negate Redhat's luster

[bmcent1]

Disclaimer: I am an avid Linux enthusiast. I've loved it since I started running it in '93. I was thrilled when it started making inroads into the corporate environment.

Still, I fear Redhat's motives. Their code and RPMs are frequently found to be full of security vulnerabilities and remote root exploits. Now they are only going to release patches for "consumer grade" versions for one year?! Sounds almost as bad as the offerings from Redmond. Redhat should offer patches for security flaws and bugs for much longer than one year.

The other thing not to loose sight of is that Redhat is charging an arm and a leg for the Advanced Server options and for support. Advanced Server seems to be somewhat proprietary (and likely to become more so.) Redhat's offering looses something that was once a positive aspect of Linux -- relative freedom from vendor lock-in. Watch out for rising prices once they have a captive audience!

Finally, and this may be the weakest point, but the fact that Linux runs on commodity hardware and has such a large community for grass-roots support contributes to its cost effectiveness. If the intent is to run high end hardware, and pay through the nose for support contracts... what's the benefit over HP-UX, Solaris, AIX? All of those are proven operating systems from companies with years of experience providing support. HP's support is the best I've ever seen.

There's a lot of freedom in sticking with the most widely deployed versions of Linux, the ones with the biggest communities behind them. Give Debian and SUSE a good long look.

Slashdot ignorance

[jregel]

I'm surprised at the level of ignorance shown in some of these posts. Deploying Linux in the enterprise is different from installing it on your own machine. The company I work for has several Linux installs including 6.2, 7.2, 7.3 and 8.0. The rapid release cycle just doesn't work for us. We have enough things to do (such as running a business) to keep updating multiple servers to the latest release.

The Red Hat Advanced Server product is just what we want. It is stable, well tested and has a long support life. The cost goes towards an annual support contract which removes the fear that Linux has no backup when there's problems. Knowing that pay for, commercial software (such as Oracle) and specific hardware models are certified for this platform makes life very easy. You need to think how some of our customers who are used to Sun or Microsoft feel about using a "toy" operating system. To them, the financial costs are not the issue, having a mature, stable and supported platform on which to run their applications is all that counts.

We've standardised on Red Hat Advanced Server ES for our Linux customers, but we're still using 8.0 internally. We have enough UNIX experience to manage our own boxes, but for customers, Advanced Server is perfect.

Red Hat may not be the most hardcore distribution, but it is the most respected in the business world. That's why we are happy to use and recommend it.

Re:benefits

[opkool]

Paying so much more for a few little kernel config options, their claim that it is more 'stable', the Red Hat layer of obfuscation over the text files in /etc, and the RPM jail in the long run can make administration as problematic as one of those sick little MSWindows Wizards


cow manure!

Obviously you've never seen/used/pushed-to-the-limit a RH AS 2.1 in a big machine (many CPs, several GBs RAM, external storage, cluster environments). And, my guess, is that you've never gotten into serious Windows server administration past the 'use the wizard'.

Repeat after me: my home machine is not an enterprise computing system.

Please, FUD somewhere else.

Peace --

Use Debian instead

[Anonymous Coward]

I recently migrated some of the (tens) of servers I manage to Debian. I was a little worried initially because I was afraid to waste all the years of expertise on redhat.
Well, after a couple of weeks of studying and testing, I must say I'll never go back.

Debian simply rules.

Try it out.

Alex

Re:I'm more worried about...

[Natalie's Hot Grits]

"Um, this has *got* to be a troll. First off, any company that doesn't chase and fix bugs should (and will) go out of business."

This is where you don't understand the differences between their "Enterprise" and "standard" editions...

First of all, microsoft doesn't chase and fix bugs, and they are not out of business. In fact, they are the most profiting company in this half of the world (probably the whole world).

Secondly, That is what RedHat means about a "5 year product life" It means that the "Enterprise" edition of their software will be supported for five years, as opposed to RedHat Linux 9.0's support which will last maybe 1.5 years if your lucky.

The point is that if you are a hobbiest, you will want the latest and greatest version of linux. And you will be forced to upgrade to the latest and greatest version if you want support (Read: patches and updates to the software). If you want support (Patches and updates) for more than a typical hobbiest needs, then you need to go with the "Enterprise" version, which will be officially supported by redhat with updates and security patches for at minimum of 5 years.

If you don't need the telephone support and just need updates and patches, I suggest bypassing redhat's services altogether and going with Debian Linux, which has simlar long term support networks in place by default.

The bottom line is that if you go with the "enterprise" version, RedHat will train and maintain a technical support staff that is capeable of troubleshooting your version of Enterprise Linux for five years. They will also release security updates to your version for five years. If you don't go enterprise, no matter what kind of support services you need, your version of Redhat will be defunct (read: no more security updates on unsupported versions) in probably less than a year. This is not good for enterprise servers that don't need to be upgraded to the latest and buggiest software every 9 months.

Re:Red Hat 7.3, with bugfixes

[Micah]

What are you going to do if a nasty exploit was found in, say, glibc?

You should be compiling stuff like Apache from source anyway, so that's no problem. But if it's a big monster system-critical package like glibc, you'll have to get the SRPM, patch it yourself, and build another RPM. It can be done, but it might take a few hours of work when all is said and done.

Of course, unofficial support might continue, by community members releasing fixed SRPMs. But do you want to count on that?

Re:What My Organization Did:

[Natalie's Hot Grits]

You can't do this with debian either. The kernel is updated in major releases, so you must reboot to change the kernel.

I guess you were sleeping when you wrote that comment tho, so I won't hold it against you...

Re:Red Hat 7.3, with bugfixes

[wossName]

If I kept every single piece of software up-to-date myself, I wouldn't need a distribution.

Re:I'm more worried about...

[IdleTime]

You would use the Enterprise Edition on servers at least if you want to run lets say an Oracle Database as it is not supported with the regular editions and you would not get any fixes for any problems if you run it on a non-enterprise edition.

As for the workstations in the company, you can use whatever you want. The most important machines are the servers and you would want support from RH on those. The support includes bugfixes, drivers etc and for a stable environment for the next 5 years, just as if you had bought Solaris, HP-UX, AIX or any other enterprise UNIX flavour.

Re:I reccomend...

[scott_evil]

I heartily agree. The first thing the fools should be doing is switching to Debian stable if they want an easy free system.
Just because redhat is the most popular doesn't mean it's the best. The learning curve when switching from RH to Debian is minimal and the benefits far outweigh the "support" that redhat provides. Support shouldn't be needed if you've got a decent IT team.

Re:I'm more worried about...

[aggieben]

First of all, microsoft doesn't chase and fix bugs, and they are not out of business. In fact, they are the most profiting company in this half of the world (probably the whole world).

just to inject a little reality: Yes, MS _does_ chase and fix bugs. They have 2,500 full time developers and 2,500 full time testers devoted to that one task. I know. I used to work at MS in the windows division while windows xp was under development. Even when they create a new branch in their revision control for the next release of windows, the number of devs initially working on it is small. They don't even put the bulk of their team on the next release until a couple service packs are released to fix major stuff in the current release. If they didn't do this, they would most certainly lose a ton of business, if not all of it. Also, they aren't the most "profiting" (try profitable) company in the world. They aren't even in the most profitable industry (pharmaceuticals), and they aren't the most profitable in the software industry (http://www.worldtechtribune.com/worldtechtribune/ asparticles/buzz/bz12102002.asp; InfoSys Technologies, EDS).

If you don't like MS for whatever reason, that's fine --- but be rational.

Re:Support for Oracle...

[ces]

I know that if you have Oracle in your environment, Red Hat is going to push you to use Advance Server 2.1. Too be honest there is not really that much difference between the two except how they configured the kernel and advance server is specialized for clustering. Which you can do on your own. But if you are looking for support for products like Oracle or any other corporate solutions go with advance server. If you are just using it for email, web server, file server, etc (isn't linux wonderful) then stick with the "consumer version". It's cheaper.

If you are spending the kind of cash Oracle, DB2, SAP, or other enterprise software licensing requires you might as well spend the cash required for the enterprise versions of RedHat or SuSE. You also want to be sure to run EXACTLY the version of the distribution your application vendor and hardware vendor support. When you are spending 5 or 6 figures to roll out an application it really isn't worth fucking around on something as basic as OS support.

Even if you are just using the linux box as a web server, email server, DNS server, etc. it is worth getting both the support and product lifetime the enterprise distributions provide. I've got better things to do with my time than test, certify, and deploy to multiple locations a new version of the linux distribution every 12 months. Besides at 3am I need to be sure I can get support, that my hardware is supported by my OS vendor, and that my OS is supported by my hardware vendor.

With IT staff costing roughly $40/hr each or more if you are using consultants paying for stablity and real support starts to look cheap. Add in the cost to the company of downtime and support is a bargan.

Re:Straight from the source

[ChoyLeeFut]

Actually, there is an apt-get for Red Hat:

http://freshrpms.net/

As we like to chant around here whenever our RH boxes get automagically updated, "apt-get is great, apt-get is good, apt-get is great, apt-get is good..." ;)