Pioneer of the Open Source Model
Introduction
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Red Hat, Inc. is the company behind the distribution, while Red Hat Linux & currently Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is the distribution
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Became biggest open source provider prior to be acquired by IBM
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Currently RHEL is a trusted partner to 90% of Fortune 500 companies
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Red Hat Inc. has rigid trademark rules restricting re-distribution of their officially RHEL versions but still provides its source code freely
Philosophy
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Committed to promotion, support, & defense of software freedom
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Mission statement:
to be the catalyst in communities of customers, contributors, and partners creating better technology the open source way
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Strive for more inclusivity in programic language & documentation:
- Push for removal of controversial terms like “master” & “slave”
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Give back to project and communities they engage with
History
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1993: Company founded by Marc Ewing
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1994: First Red Hat Linux release
- Released in October & appropriately named as Halloween
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2002: RHEL release
- Pioneered the open source subscription model
- Fully replaced Red Hat Linux in the following year
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2019: Most recent version of RHEL: 8 (Ootpa)
- Current release: 8.5 as of 11/9/21
Popular Derivatives
RHEL has many community-driven distributions:
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Fedora
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CentOS
There are also some commercial distributions of RHEL too:
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Oracle Linux
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Amazon Linux (primary AWS distribution)
Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)
Enterprise? Red Hat is NOT free?
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Still open source
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Subscription packaging model:
- RHEL Server Standard
- RHEL Server Premium
10+ Years of Support
- Stable & reliable, although maybe a little behind on the times
Fedora Linux
Community-driven & free
More experimental
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Less stability
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Short version lifespan
- Release every 6 months & 13 months of updates
Red Hat typically starts with Fedora when making new releases & polishes it to their own standards
CentOS Linux
Claimed to be middle ground between RHEL & Fedora
Community-driven, free, & stable
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Mainly just Red Hat with branding thrown out
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Many CentOS board members also work for RedHat
CentOS Stream is the new and upcoming version of CentOS that will be used as a development ground to make releases of Fedora into the new Red Hat releases
Package Manager
The default package managers for Red Hat distros are both RPM (Red hat package manager) and YUM/DNF.
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RPM
- Allows for distribution, management, and ability to update software
- Powerful in terms of installation of packages as well as inspecting and provisioning them
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YUM/DNF
- Front-end tool for RPM which solves dependencies for packages
Desktop Environments
Typically with the more common RHEL distros, they come with the following built in with the installer:
- GNOME (Default)
- KDE
Others for Installation on CentOS & Fedora:
- Cinnamon, MATE, XFCE, i3, Deepin Desktop
Community vs Enterprise Linux
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Community:
- Free
- Great for beginners
- Great for experimentation
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Enterprise:
- Paid
- Supports long periods of time for servers
- Supports business desires