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Linux at Yale: SuSE and Red Hat

The two Linux distributions that are most common at Yale are Red Hat and SuSE. Linux Systems Design & Support (LSDS) is currently supporting more SuSE installations and prefers it over Red Hat Linux. There are applications that require Red Hat, which dictate the use of it over SuSE in some cases.

RedHat Linux and the Yale environment

Red Hat Linux has emerged as an industry standard and a full-fledged commercial product. There have been some recent changes in the pricing and distribution of Red Hat that will impact the Yale community of Linux users. This document outlines the current Red Hat product line, and notes for the support of legacy versions of the Linux operating system on campus.

Support for older versions Red Hat Linux

The free community editions of RedHat, which include 7.x, 8.0, and 9, are no longer supported by RedHat. That leaves basically two options for upgrade if you wish to use a Red Hat product: Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) and Fedora.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)

Red Hat Enterprise Linux is the newest commercial product release from Red Hat. It is fully supported, meaning that patches and bug fixes will be distributed over a three year life cycle. RPM updates are planned to extend to five years. This product differs from the previous design philosophy of Red Hat - it does not include bleeding edge versions of software. In fact, some applications are six to nine months behind the rest of the Linux industry. The Enterprise Linux line is also not a free product, but there is a substantial educational discount. The licensing model used is "Last in First Out". So if you have to manage several RHEL licenses, the last one you paid a license for is the first to loose it's license!
If you are interested in installing RHEL at Yale, you can read about it here: http://www.yale.edu/its/amt/linux/docu/LINUX/.

There are two products available to Academia: RHEL Academic Server Edition and RHEL Academic Desktop Edition. RHEL Server Edition includes more server applications like: NIS server and DHCP server. You can read more about these products here: http://www.redhat.com/solutions/industries/education/products/.

The yearly subscription fee for RHEL Academic Desktop is $25. A yearly subscription to RHEL Academic Server is $50. These fees will include permission to download the product, read errata and download RPM updates. It does NOT include phone or email support. You can purchase an individual yearly subscription from: http://www.redhat.com/solutions/industries/education/indiv/

Fedora

The Fedora Project is an open source community project sponsored by RedHat that was developed to maintain the spirit of the former community editions. This is an effort to continue a free distribution that allows for development and enhancement over shorter time periods. You will get the most recent versions of software in the distribution, along with free updates and patches. The life cycle is only six to twelve months. There is no phone or email support from RedHat. You can read more about the Fedora Project here: http://fedora.redhat.com/.

Support for legacy RedHat Linux distributions

The Fedora Project includes support for legacy RedHat Linux distributions (7.x, 8.0, 9 and older versions of Fedora). The support for legacy distributions has not been very successful. There are often long delays before critical updates are posted, and in some cases the updates are never created. You can read more about the Fedora Legacy Project here: http://www.fedoralegacy.org/.

SuSE Linux and the Yale environment

SuSE Linux has also emerged as an industry standard and a full-fledged commercial product supported by Novell. The licensing allows for the distribution and installation of SuSE for free across the entire Yale Community when a single copy if purchased. LSDS always has the latest release of SuSE, as well as updates available online. SuSE has the latest revisions of all the open source applications. If you are interested in installing SuSE at Yale, you can read about it here: http://www.yale.edu/its/amt/linux/docu/SUSE/

Which Linux distribution is right for me?

In most cases, SuSE Linux will work for you. You can download a version for free from the LSDS site, it has the latest versions of all the applications, updates are easy and you can get installation instructions from the LSDS site. If you have a requirement that you must run RHEL, then you can get the installation instructions from the LSDS site to do that. If you find you need the latest versions of software, Fedora may suit for your needs, but be ready to upgrade every six months.

What is LSDS doing?

The current strategy for LSDS is to use SuSE Linux in desktop and servers where ever possible. The main reason for the switch away from RHEL is that the licensing model (Last in First Out) just becomes a nightmare to manage when you have several machines to get licensing for. The staff time far exceeds the actual nominal price for the yearly subscription. There are some key missing applications in RHEL and the time delay in getting the latest releases into the RHEL distribution is also problematic. Deploying Fedora on a large scale is just not practical since you are forced to upgrade when the latest release comes out.