The state of Enterprise Linux - Linux Tutorial

- [Instructor] There are various operating systems that fit into the classification of Enterprise Linux. It may be advantageous to understand how Enterprise Linux is created to bring clarity to recent changes in the available choices. With that in mind, let's talk about how Enterprise Linux is developed. The most recent versions of software, as well as new experimental packages are combined into a distribution called Fedora. A Fedora is a low soft felt hat with a curled, which may make sense as the Fedora Project was created by the Red Hat Corporation. In 2003, Red Hat chose to split Red Hat Linux into Red Hat Linux Advanced Server for the commercial market, and Fedora Core for individuals. Later releases were renamed Red Hat Enterprise Linux and Fedora. Fedora Linux is managed by the Fedora Project, an independent community-governed project primarily sponsored by Red Hat. About a third of all contributions are made by Red Hat employees. Although governed by the Fedora Council, Red Hat retains legal liability over the Fedora Project. In Fedora, software is downloaded by users tested, and bug fixed, and once it reaches a sufficient level of stability, Red hat starts building the next release of Enterprise Linux from those packages. This places Fedora upstream of Enterprise Linux as code flows downstream. Enterprise Linux is generally based on a previous stable version of Fedora. For instance, when Fedora 28, 29 and 30 were available, Enterprise Linux 8 was based on Fedora 28. Although Red Hat Enterprise Linux is a commercial product, Red Hat makes the source code available, which other projects compile into distributions that are nearly identical to Red Hat's own. One of the most popular is CentOS Linux, which came out in 2004. The CentOS Project removed Red Hat's trademark images, and created CentOS Enterprise Linux. This places CentOS downstream from Red Hat. CentOS makes an excellent foundation for learning Enterprise Linux because it is nearly identical to Red Hat Enterprise Linux. It is free, but is provided without support. I've used CentOS as a basis for nearly all of my courses in the LinkedIn Learning Library. It is common to have Red Hat Enterprise Linux servers on the frontline backed by paid Red Hat tech support, and many CentOS servers in the background managed by in-house personnel. It may seem that admins are benefiting from Red Hat development without paying them. It should be noted however, that Red Hat benefits as well. The widespread usage of CentOS in production environments results in countless bug reports, and code submissions. To make the Enterprise platform even more robust, as well as increase its popularity, the relationship can however, be a bit clumsy as code submissions to CentOS are applied downstream from Red Hat and then flow upstream. This means that code is going both directions making it difficult to manage. Red Hat who took over the CentOS Project in 2014, took steps to mitigate the situation by creating CentOS Stream in 2019. Instead of being a downstream copy of Red Hat, CentOS Stream is placed between Fedora and Enterprise Linux. This means the packages from Fedora are first used to create CentOS Stream where they undergo an additional level of testing before being folded into a new release of Enterprise Linux. All bug fixes are applied upstream of Enterprise Linux making the development process simpler, and some might say more streamlined. In December 2020, Red Hat unilaterally terminated CentOS development and support ended on December 31st, 2021. CentOS Stream is to be the only supported CentOS remaining. So where does this leave you if you want to learn Enterprise Linux? Let's start by talking about Fedora. Fedora Linux allows you to gain familiarity with various tools and file system structures of Red Hat. It is not identical to Enterprise Linux but it's similar enough that the skills acquired can be useful, and in fact, you will be learning technologies before they're added to Enterprise Linux, giving you time to get accustomed to them. Note that Fedora is designed to be a software test bed, and not with Enterprise level stability in mind. I would not use it for a large commercial server installation. I would however, use it for development, and as a desktop operating system. CentOS Stream is perhaps a better choice as it is more similar to Enterprise Linux in both software package versions and stability, but caution has to be taken due to it not being considered a stable production quality operating system. It is perfectly fine for learning Enterprise Linux, and in truth would be adequately stable for any small scale projects that a user may have in mind. An added bonus is that you would be using the next version of Enterprise Linux before it's even released. A surprising replacement for CentOS is actually Red Hat Enterprise Linux. Red Hat offers the Red Hat Developer subscription for individuals. The subscription is free, and allows for installing Enterprise Linux on up to 16 machines, either real or virtual. Perhaps a good option to consider, however, limits are limits so plan wisely. If you're looking for an exact replacement for CentOS in both functionality and freedom, then better choices may include Rocky Linux, which was created by one of the original founders of CentOS and named after another, or AlmaLinux OS which was created by Cloud Linux makers of Cloud Linux OS. Both of these are binary compatible, and track Enterprise Linux software updates just as the original CentOS did. CentOS can be migrated to either Rocky Linux or AlmaLinux OS by running scripts available on their websites.