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Linux at Yale: Red Hat Enterprise, CentOS, and openSUSE

Linux Systems Design & Support (LSDS) currently supports Red Hat Enterprise Linux, CentOS, and openSUSE.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) has emerged as an industry standard Linux distribution. LSDS prefers deploying RHEL over other distributions because it is well supported by Red Hat, Inc., which offers long term security and stability updates for this operating system.

Red Hat Enterprise tends to offer slightly older versions of Linux and associated software compared to more bleeding edge Linux distributions. Major releases of RHEL only occur every two to three years. There are minor updates released in the interim, but these updates mostly just add support for new hardware. However, you can also expect that RHEL is more stable and bug-free than other operating systems. If you want to deploy a production server or a desktop which will be used for years to come, Red Hat Enterprise Linux is almost certainly the right choice.

RHEL is available to academic users for a small yearly fee. There have been some minor price changes over the years, but RHEL will likely cost less than $100 per year for the foreseeable future.

CentOS

As a free alternative to Red Hat Enterprise Linux, Linux Systems Design & Support also supports CentOS. CentOS (The Community Enterprise Operating System) is a full featured and freely available clone of Red Hat Enterprise Linux. Though there is no company behind it, the CentOS developers promise long term support for this operating system.

Since CentOS is a clone of RHEL, it also offers slightly older versions of software, but is generally more stable and bug-free than other Linux distributions. In addition to offering older versions of software, CentOS is also slower at releasing service packs for their distribution. CentOS service packs are generally released two to three months after the corresponding RHEL service pack.

If you cannot afford the small fee for RHEL, and are deploying a production server or a desktop that requires long term support, CentOS may be the best option.

openSUSE

openSUSE is a much more bleeding edge distribution than RHEL and CentOS. A new version of openSUSE is released one to two times a year, and always consists of the very latest versions of Linux and associated software. Compare this to RHEL and CentOS, which take two to three years between major releases. openSUSE also offers updates for longer than other bleeding edge Linux distributions, usually releasing security updates for 18 months to 2 years after the initial release.

However, you can expect that openSUSE will be more buggy than RHEL or CentOS. Another downside is that although openSUSE is supported for longer than most bleeding edge Linux distributions, the 18 month to 2 year support period is still shorter than the lifetime of most computer hardware, so you will need to plan on upgrading to a newer release of openSUSE regularly. Performing major upgrades of an operating system can be very disruptive to your work, so you need to carefully consider whether openSUSE is appropriate for your environment.

If bleeding edge software is more important to you than system stability, and you are willing to upgrade the computer on a yearly basis, openSUSE may be the right choice for you.

other Linux distributions

Linux Systems Design & Support only supports Red Hat Enterprise, CentOS, and openSUSE. If you choose another distribution, we will not be able to provide full support for it. However, if you insist on choosing something other than our supported operating systems, we recommend that you do not choose short-term distributions such as Ubuntu or Fedora. These distributions only provide support for about a year after their initial release. Almost all computers will be in production for longer than a year, and these distributions do not provide support long enough to last for your computer's lifetime.

Which Linux distribution is right for me?

LSDS recommends Red Hat Enterprise Linux for almost all deployments. The only exceptions are if you cannot afford the small yearly fee or if you require bleeding edge software. If you do not want to pay for Red Hat Enterprise, you should choose CentOS. If you require bleeding edge software, and can upgrade on a yearly basis without disrupting your work, we recommend openSUSE.

What is LSDS doing?

Linux Systems Design & Support provides system administration services for our recommended operating systems. If you would like more information on our services, please send an email to linux.support@yale.edu.