4 ms·

I have to say - my reaction to all this uncertainty isn't to rush out and buy RHEL licenses. Quite the opposite actually. For the first time in my life, I'm co

by Alupis 3y ago

I have to say - my reaction to all this uncertainty isn't to rush out and buy RHEL licenses. Quite the opposite actually. For the first time in my life, I'm considering Debian (and derivatives) for my systems. Rocky and Alma might be able to survive the changes, this time. What happens when IBM doesn't squeeze enough revenue out of RH? More changes?

amluto 3y ago
I was seriously considering migrating from Ubuntu to RHEL. Now I’m less interested.
candiddevmike 3y ago
Why not Fedora?
- Alupis 3y ago
  Fedora is excellent for workstations - not for servers. It's just not stable enough, and the update/upgrade cadence is too fast and short-lived. I've used Fedora on my personal workstations forever it seems. But, spend enough time in linux-land and you'll find out there's two very different ways of doing things. There's the Debian Way, and the Red Hat Way. You tend to want to know one really well, even if you can "get by" on the other. (yes, other ways do exist - but they are much more niche) So, if my servers go Debian (and/or derivatives), so will my personal workstations.
  - Shared404 3y ago
    > But, spend enough time in linux-land and you'll find out there's two very different ways of doing things. There's the Debian Way, and the Red Hat Way. For enterprise Linux at least. On my home systems I usually use Alpine or Arch, both of which are distinctly unlike both Debian and RHEL.
    - freedomben 3y ago
      Arch for the most part does things the same way that Fedora does. At least, way more the Fedora way than the Debian way. I would consider Arch as part of the "Red Hat" way of doing things.
      - Shared404 3y ago
        I see the argument, but I would disagree. Arch moves fast, but that's about all that it really feels like it has in common with Fedora to me. I suppose that's really a matter of taste though,
        Shared404 3y ago
        Have some time now, so can elaborate further. Yum/DNF are _extremely_ featureful package managers. They have many nice capabilities, a higher degree of logging, etc. However, they're complex and slow. From the UX side of things, RHEL-like distro's seem to put the most focus on ease of use/vring a complete system out of the box. Arch/Alpine focus on a being much lighter, in the UI, default packages, and distro config. I would probably classify Arch/Alpine as their own minimalist family of distro's
      - Alupis 3y ago
        Arch is awesome - if you like tinkering with your system. I don't know if you could call it stable enough to run servers reliably. I am aware some masochists do just that, however. It's wonderful to have a lot of choices within the linux community.
  - candiddevmike 3y ago
    What are you running these days where you need that kind of stability? For a lot of folks, their apps run on containers or are static binaries, where the underlying host packages don't need stability.
    - dboreham 3y ago
      The kernel still needs to be stable, and support the machine's hardware.
    - Alupis 3y ago
      We have a ton of legacy in-house codebases that do all sorts of things, and were designed with RHEL/CentOS in mind (scripting, etc). Our k8s containers are generally either the build-tool's default (usually ubuntu or debian) or we specify the alpine version. You are right though, for containers, caring about the distribution is generally not a concern.
  - freedomben 3y ago
    This is exactly the reasons I think Red Hat has really messed up here. Fedora has been steadily gaining adoption among desktop linux, and truly is a remarkably great OS. This in turn leads to people choosing EL for server-side because they already know the conventions, packages, etc. That is going to stop. I've been on Fedora non-stop since Fedora 17 (and a few times distro hopping before that) and 3 days ago I would have said there's no way I'd consider switching. But I'm putting serious thought into it. I'm going to wait and see how this shakes out, but if the end result of this is that there isn't a workable free RHEL clone, I might just switch. I don't like the Debian way of doing things, but I don't see any other viable options for running the same thing on both local and server. It's really too bad there isn't an Arch server version :-D
    - ArclightMat 3y ago
      Exactly my concerns. Fedora is significantly tied to Red Hat currently, and honestly if Red Hat keeps pulling in moves like that, I fear for the project's health in the long run. As matter of fact, yesterday I wiped one of my machines for Arch to probe it as an alternative for it and honestly I can think of is how there is nothing quite like it anywhere else, so I hope it doesn't come to that. I've learned to enjoy sane defaults and fresh up-to-date packages OOTB! I also had the unfortunate experience of just moving one of my servers from Debian to Alma Linux to match my desktop, but I'll likely rollback now.
  - progmetaldev 3y ago
    I've always found the Red Hat way to be less intuitive than the Debian way, and I got my start on Slackware then Red Hat (before it was Fedora, included with a book around 1998). I see a lot of people complain about using apt for package management, but I've never had any issues. I've run game servers, database servers, and web servers, all on Debian without issue. I've done light administration to CentOS and RHEL servers, and I've always been confused because I reach for the Debian way. I realize that is my lack of knowledge, and as a software developer I have to adapt constantly, so I'm not really sure why it never "clicked" with me.
sam0x17 3y ago
Having been stuck on RHEL when I worked for the DoD I'm shocked there are still people out there who willingly choose to be in that ecosystem, and to a certain extent I've always been surprised that Fedora is widely popular and well maintained. Like I understand that it is a true statement that people like it, but what was their progression that landed them there I just don't get it. OpenSuse is even more mysterious in that way. And I say this as someone whose first distro was CentOS. That died long ago. Were there actually people who didn't migrate to Ubuntu/Debian who went from CentOS to [other stuff]? It just blows my mind Though now I'm on arch sooo... there are many paths I suppose
- c00lio 3y ago
  The reasons why (afaik) people use SuSE are YaST, localisation and accessibility.
  - SEJeff 3y ago
    Or they work for a European company that mandates it. Outside of the desktop, yast is the first thing many sysadmins disable. Source: I once professionally managed a cluster of SLES and OES servers for delta.
    - c00lio 3y ago
      Sure. I've only ever seen small-scale setups by less experienced people use YaST. Say, windows admins that do one or two Linux servers on the side.
      - SEJeff 3y ago
        I’d agree what that. Linux folks who don’t know Linux use Yast. Linux folks that know Linux disable it. One of the first things we did was “chmod -x $(which yast2)” and disabled some of the other tooling so people didn’t run it and mess up configs we did with config management.
- dylan604 3y ago
ikiris 3y ago
I honestly don't understand how people didn't learn when the whole killing centos thing happened to begin with.
nh2 3y ago
I thought that a key value of a RHEL subscription is the support. E.g. that if you hit a bug with the kernel, GNOME, Ceph, OpenShift, libvirt, or any such software, you get priority (and phone) support from the company that employs many developers of said software, and they are paid to fix your bugs more quickly. Since I have not had a RHEL subscription myself: Is this accurate in practice?
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]

by Alupis 3y ago

amluto 3y ago

I was seriously considering migrating from Ubuntu to RHEL. Now I’m less interested.

candiddevmike 3y ago

Why not Fedora?

Alupis 3y ago
Fedora is excellent for workstations - not for servers. It's just not stable enough, and the update/upgrade cadence is too fast and short-lived. I've used Fedora on my personal workstations forever it seems. But, spend enough time in linux-land and you'll find out there's two very different ways of doing things. There's the Debian Way, and the Red Hat Way. You tend to want to know one really well, even if you can "get by" on the other. (yes, other ways do exist - but they are much more niche) So, if my servers go Debian (and/or derivatives), so will my personal workstations.
- Shared404 3y ago
  > But, spend enough time in linux-land and you'll find out there's two very different ways of doing things. There's the Debian Way, and the Red Hat Way. For enterprise Linux at least. On my home systems I usually use Alpine or Arch, both of which are distinctly unlike both Debian and RHEL.
  - freedomben 3y ago
    Arch for the most part does things the same way that Fedora does. At least, way more the Fedora way than the Debian way. I would consider Arch as part of the "Red Hat" way of doing things.
    - Shared404 3y ago
      I see the argument, but I would disagree. Arch moves fast, but that's about all that it really feels like it has in common with Fedora to me. I suppose that's really a matter of taste though,
      - Shared404 3y ago
        Have some time now, so can elaborate further. Yum/DNF are _extremely_ featureful package managers. They have many nice capabilities, a higher degree of logging, etc. However, they're complex and slow. From the UX side of things, RHEL-like distro's seem to put the most focus on ease of use/vring a complete system out of the box. Arch/Alpine focus on a being much lighter, in the UI, default packages, and distro config. I would probably classify Arch/Alpine as their own minimalist family of distro's
    - Alupis 3y ago
      Arch is awesome - if you like tinkering with your system. I don't know if you could call it stable enough to run servers reliably. I am aware some masochists do just that, however. It's wonderful to have a lot of choices within the linux community.
- candiddevmike 3y ago
  What are you running these days where you need that kind of stability? For a lot of folks, their apps run on containers or are static binaries, where the underlying host packages don't need stability.
  - dboreham 3y ago
    The kernel still needs to be stable, and support the machine's hardware.
  - Alupis 3y ago
    We have a ton of legacy in-house codebases that do all sorts of things, and were designed with RHEL/CentOS in mind (scripting, etc). Our k8s containers are generally either the build-tool's default (usually ubuntu or debian) or we specify the alpine version. You are right though, for containers, caring about the distribution is generally not a concern.
- freedomben 3y ago
  This is exactly the reasons I think Red Hat has really messed up here. Fedora has been steadily gaining adoption among desktop linux, and truly is a remarkably great OS. This in turn leads to people choosing EL for server-side because they already know the conventions, packages, etc. That is going to stop. I've been on Fedora non-stop since Fedora 17 (and a few times distro hopping before that) and 3 days ago I would have said there's no way I'd consider switching. But I'm putting serious thought into it. I'm going to wait and see how this shakes out, but if the end result of this is that there isn't a workable free RHEL clone, I might just switch. I don't like the Debian way of doing things, but I don't see any other viable options for running the same thing on both local and server. It's really too bad there isn't an Arch server version :-D
  - ArclightMat 3y ago
    Exactly my concerns. Fedora is significantly tied to Red Hat currently, and honestly if Red Hat keeps pulling in moves like that, I fear for the project's health in the long run. As matter of fact, yesterday I wiped one of my machines for Arch to probe it as an alternative for it and honestly I can think of is how there is nothing quite like it anywhere else, so I hope it doesn't come to that. I've learned to enjoy sane defaults and fresh up-to-date packages OOTB! I also had the unfortunate experience of just moving one of my servers from Debian to Alma Linux to match my desktop, but I'll likely rollback now.
- progmetaldev 3y ago
  I've always found the Red Hat way to be less intuitive than the Debian way, and I got my start on Slackware then Red Hat (before it was Fedora, included with a book around 1998). I see a lot of people complain about using apt for package management, but I've never had any issues. I've run game servers, database servers, and web servers, all on Debian without issue. I've done light administration to CentOS and RHEL servers, and I've always been confused because I reach for the Debian way. I realize that is my lack of knowledge, and as a software developer I have to adapt constantly, so I'm not really sure why it never "clicked" with me.

sam0x17 3y ago

Having been stuck on RHEL when I worked for the DoD I'm shocked there are still people out there who willingly choose to be in that ecosystem, and to a certain extent I've always been surprised that Fedora is widely popular and well maintained. Like I understand that it is a true statement that people like it, but what was their progression that landed them there I just don't get it. OpenSuse is even more mysterious in that way. And I say this as someone whose first distro was CentOS. That died long ago. Were there actually people who didn't migrate to Ubuntu/Debian who went from CentOS to [other stuff]? It just blows my mind Though now I'm on arch sooo... there are many paths I suppose

c00lio 3y ago
The reasons why (afaik) people use SuSE are YaST, localisation and accessibility.
- SEJeff 3y ago
  Or they work for a European company that mandates it. Outside of the desktop, yast is the first thing many sysadmins disable. Source: I once professionally managed a cluster of SLES and OES servers for delta.
  - c00lio 3y ago
    Sure. I've only ever seen small-scale setups by less experienced people use YaST. Say, windows admins that do one or two Linux servers on the side.
    - SEJeff 3y ago
      I’d agree what that. Linux folks who don’t know Linux use Yast. Linux folks that know Linux disable it. One of the first things we did was “chmod -x $(which yast2)” and disabled some of the other tooling so people didn’t run it and mess up configs we did with config management.
dylan604 3y ago

ikiris 3y ago

I honestly don't understand how people didn't learn when the whole killing centos thing happened to begin with.

nh2 3y ago

I thought that a key value of a RHEL subscription is the support. E.g. that if you hit a bug with the kernel, GNOME, Ceph, OpenShift, libvirt, or any such software, you get priority (and phone) support from the company that employs many developers of said software, and they are paid to fix your bugs more quickly. Since I have not had a RHEL subscription myself: Is this accurate in practice?

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]