Red Hat vs. Centos?

[akhunaton]

I will be ordering the dedicated server but I need to know the pros and cons of each one. thanks for your help.

[GatorLBrower]

There is no real difference between Red Hat and Centos. Centos is a clone of RH and basically takes all RH releases and updates, removes the Red Hat logo and other stuff covered by trademark or copyright and then re-brands it as CentOS and releases it. Their primary goal is to release an OS which is 100% compatible with Red hat Enterprise Linux for the public to use without having to pay Red Hat for a "subscription" in order to receive updates. The only actual downside that I can see from this is the fact that CentOS can not release updates until Red Hat has done so. This causes any major releases of CentOS to be at a minimum 2 - 4 weeks behind the Red Hat release.

[gwyneth]

Originally Posted by GatorLBrower

The only actual downside that I can see from this is the fact that CentOS can not release updates until Red Hat has done so. This causes any major releases of CentOS to be at a minimum 2 - 4 weeks behind the Red Hat release.

Which is actually perceived as a benefit by some--like a food taster to work out any poison issues before the emperor eats.

[junkstuff]

Originally Posted by GatorLBrower

There is no real difference between Red Hat and Centos.

As a long-time Red Hat Certified Technician (RHCT) I know a few things here. From the view of running binaries/applications there is NO difference at all. That is the point of Centos. 100% compatibility.
It is in copyrighted apps included in the RH distro and things like Centos uses yum while RH uses its own (RPM) Red Hat Package Manager (both use RPM type packages) for installing applications but these have little value for the user on a web server.

Originally Posted by GatorLBrower

The only actual downside that I can see from this is the fact that CentOS can not release updates until Red Hat has done so. This causes any major releases of CentOS to be at a minimum 2 - 4 weeks behind the Red Hat release.

Yes Major releases are several weeks. But Security fixes and other updates are usually within a few days. And it should be noted that the people on Centos like most community driven distros does do extensive testing before release. In some cases as RH already tested, its the second go round. Some people say that makes Centos better and more stable.

[gwyneth]

Originally Posted by junkstuff

Some people say that makes Centos better and more stable.

That's what I meant by "food taster"--working out the issues.