RHEL 6 - evaluation

opethdisciple · 7 Jan 2017 at 16:42

Trying to get my hands on an evaluation copy for RHEL 6 so I can play with it in a VM at home.

I've signed up with an account over at Red Hat but finding it difficult to download a copy to play with.

A) They offer v7
B) Signed up using a personal email address and they want a work one.

My work one is really complex, only been in the job a few times and really use email so cant remember it.

Anyone know where I can get a copy from?

lamboman · 7 Jan 2017 at 18:57

Don't bother. Just grab CentOS and be done with it as it's a direct clone.

The only difference is licensing (and having to deal with it) and CentOS's delay of major releases (hair over a month after RHEL). Usual updates are roughly inline.

You use RH software for the paid support. If you want to evaluate and test, just use the upstream open source projects, e.g. Katello instead of Satellite, oVirt instead of RHV (formerly RHEV), TripleO instead of OSP Director, etc, and pay VERY close attention to the differences if upstream is much further ahead (as you would if updating major versions).

Paying for an evaluation license, or even dealing with any hassle, isn't really worth it under most circumstances. You'll find many environments will run RHEL for mission critical only, and rely on CentOS under the same provisioning engine.

memyselfandi · 7 Jan 2017 at 21:37

Alternatively use Oracle Linux with the normal kernel rather than their Unbreakable one. As long as you are not doing clustering its basically RHEL with public repos available for patching for free (unlike Red Hat).

Tends to be closer to working straight away with our RHEL kickstarts at work than CentOS.

Avoid RHEL 7.3 though if you use firewalld ...

SMN · 10 Jan 2017 at 14:49

Looked at the Red Hat Developer License? https://developers.redhat.com/blog/2016/03/31/no-cost-rhel-developer-subscription-now-available/

I use this in my personal lab, it gives you a single-server license for Red Hat, as without a RHN (Red Hat Network) valid subscription you wont have access to the repo's etc and you'll have to use the EPEL repos - i.e. just use Centos

Or use a real Linux distro and go for a Debian-based one

*walks away quickly*

opethdisciple · 10 Jan 2017 at 21:18

On the subject of alternatives to RHEL, why does the community usually turn to Centos, when Fedora is the official Red Hat sponsored free alternative?

memyselfandi · 10 Jan 2017 at 21:33

Because CentOS is basically non-commercial RHEL so something on there will likely work on RHEL whereas Fedora is used to test things which may, or may not, eventually make it into RHEL.

SMN's point is right in some ways but not in others ... without a RHEL license you don't have access to the RHN repos which means you have no access to RHEL OS patches ... this cannot be replaced by EPEL as that doesn't have RHEL OS patches, just additional software as per the name ... and in fact could well not work properly as even for that as you wouldn't have access to the RHEL Optional repo which is sometimes needed with packages from EPEL.

You can get patches for the OS for CentOS and Oracle Linux for free ... and of course other lefty communist (debian based) distributions

Rainmaker · 11 Jan 2017 at 01:30

opethdisciple said:
On the subject of alternatives to RHEL, why does the community usually turn to Centos, when Fedora is the official Red Hat sponsored free alternative?

No, CentOS is the official RedHat alternative. RedHat took over CentOS in January 2014, although it remains 'independent' with its own governing body. Fedora is, as said above, a completely different bleeding edge distro with newer packages and a faster release cycle.