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Is anyone here using an enterprise Linux distro?

For example Red Hat Enterprise Linux or SUSE Enterprise Linux.

I'm considering switching to RHEL, to get a "professional" Linux, since it's free if you register an account, but is it worth it?
Is the experience very different from Fedora?

31 comments
  • We use Alma Linux at work and it's fine, I suppose. I see two main reasons why you'd choose an EL linux distro:

    1. You have (professional) software that officially supports it. RHEL's release model makes it an attractive target for proprietary software and many vendors choose to support it.
    2. You need/want very long support cycles. You can run 10-year-old software even though you probably shouldn't.

    Apart from those, it's a competent distro, Red Hat know what they're doing. If you want the equivalent to an Ubuntu LTS / Debian in the Fedora world, it get's the job done. I quite like their approach of keeping the core OS stable while updating drivers, tools, and compilers (e.g., the kernel version number has very little meaning in RHEL).

    Is the experience very different from Fedora?

    Yes. the age of the core packages is very noticeable. The number of fully supported packages is also very small and you need to go to EPEL very quickly (at which point you're no longer getting enterprise support...). On the plus side, it's much more stable than Fedora in my experience.

    Edit: My main recommendation for a stable distro would probably be Debian unless one of the above points applies.

  • I manage a number of RHEL/Rocky and Ubuntu machines for work. EL is fine as a server distro but it doesn't make a great desktop distro. The packages are old and I've found it to be missing a number of packages I use on a desktop system. For a desktop, Fedora or Ubuntu is a better fit.

  • I tried a couple of times but prefer fedora over redhat on lab servers and desktops. Fedora is easier to upgrade between releases and you get features faster and it's just as stable. The only time I use enterprise oses in my lab is for things that are picky about the os they run on

  • I think it depends on your use case. For my gaming desktop I use Fedora to get the latest packages. For professional scenarios I've been using Almalinux the past couple of years. It started life as a RHEL clone, but since RHEL changed their code distribution rules I see them more parallel in the stream rather than down. It's completely free, but there are options to purchase support and live kernel patching if required.

    If you want to go the Suse route, Opensuse Leap will give you the closest experience to Suse enterprise. I believe Suse actually offers conversion tools to convert Leap to the full enterprise OS. I don't have personal experience with it, but have considered it in the past and this is the information I recall.

31 comments