I wanted to get various opinions about what people like better, Fedora Core or the traditional Red Hat Linux operating system. The two are pretty similar, from installation to execution, but also have their differences. I currently run a (very small) web server which I use Fedora Core 3 (been meaning to update to 4) which I love, but I remember not enjoying Red Hat as much when I first tried that about a year ago. Can't wait to see your opinions.

Well, I'm assuming what you actually want is Fedora vs Red Hat Enterprise Linux. Red Hat Linux is discontinued, so it is not a good idea to run servers with it.

I'd say Red Hat Enterprise is much more stable, rarely changes within a release, and has an incredibly long support time for updates. Fedora is more bleeding edge, so it may be better if you want the latest version of PHP or something like that.

RHEL costs $$$ - Fedora is free

RHEL has professional support - Fedora doesn't

CentOS is RHEL without support and without price, but doesn't come with RHN support. Security updates trail RHEL's by about 3 or 4 hours normally (during a service pack release, there may be a few days of delay as it is compiled and tested).

Fedora was initially created as a "test bed" for applications that, if proven stable and suited to their business plan, would later be implemented in RHEL. While Red Hat still uses Fedora for this purpose, the OS has now taken on a life of its own. I have been using Red Hat since version 8.0 and Fedora Core since its inception and I can say that all of the differences I have seen (with the exception of the kernel changes) have been relatively minor. There isn't much that you can add or take away from one distribution that you couldn't do with the other. Fedora Core 3 should be more than adequate for running a web server, but if you desire professional support, better go with RHEL. Otherwise, with the standard Red Hat Linux discontinued, you might as well go with Fedora. I think it's great.

Fedora was initially created as a "test bed" for applications that, if proven stable and suited to their business plan, would later be implemented in RHEL. While Red Hat still uses Fedora for this purpose, the OS has now taken on a life of its own. I have been using Red Hat since version 8.0 and Fedora Core since its inception and I can say that all of the differences I have seen (with the exception of the kernel changes) have been relatively minor. There isn't much that you can add or take away from one distribution that you couldn't do with the other. Fedora Core 3 should be more than adequate for running a web server, but if you desire professional support, better go with RHEL. Otherwise, with the standard Red Hat Linux discontinued, you might as well go with Fedora. I think it's great.

I'm not sure why, but everyone ignores alternatives like CentOS. It has all of the software level benefits of RHEL, without certification and licensing costs. I think Fedora makes a better desktop in some cases (I do run CentOS on my primary desktop, but my switch to FC4 at some point in the future) but for something like a webserver, I would no doubt choose CentOS, as I know I don't have to worry about security patches (Fedora has a short lifespan, and Fedora Legacy has trouble with timely security patches).

However, if I were to ever run something like SAP or Oracle, I would no doubt choose RHEL or SLES. (You sort of have to to get support)

That was and still partially is an inaccurate marketing statement about the initial goals with Fedora Core. You make it sound much worse than it is. Re: "Test bed", well, considering that Fedora Core 1 was the direct successor of Red Hat Linux 9 and even started its usual beta-cycle as Red Hat Linux 9.0.93, it is a bit like "you can't please everyone".

The increased number of non-security relevant online-updates is a trade-off between stability (as with old Red Hat Linux) and up-to-date software which includes bug-fixes and improvements. Just as with Red Hat Linux, you won't see major version upgrades after a stable release of Fedora Core, or anything similar which would make a release like FC3 or FC4 a moving target.

But--as an example--hardly any enthusiastic user would understand sticking to KDE 3.4.0 if KDE 3.4.2 is current, even if the 3.4.0 release was tested a lot in several Fedora Core Test releases. If, however, the newer KDE introduces unwanted changes or side-effects, the affected users would cry loudly about the instability they seem to see.

Conversely, if the latest Fedora Core release contained less up-to-date but longer tested versions of software, different users would make that out as a drawback and point the finger at the first distribution they find which contains a newer selection of software versions.

You give one answer yourself. Lack of certification. For some usage scenarious this is a show-stopper. Further, by using CentOS, you switch to pure consumer mode, where you don't and can't give anything back to Red Hat who develop, maintain and support Red Hat Enterprise Linux. They don't even get customer feedback from you since you don't talk to their support or sales people when there's something you want to see changed or when you encounter misbehaviour which may be only due to the repackaging/recompiling of CentOS rpms. On the contrary, with Fedora, you are at the base of what is planned to enter RHEL in a future release. You can comment on development early, even get in direct contact with developers through communications channels, bugzilla or via participation in active development.

That is absolutely false. If you report a bug to CentOS's bugzilla, and then they determine that the bug comes from upstream, they will and do report it to Red Hat. In-fact, you are helping just as much. Finding a bug in Fedora is going to affect RHEL 5 which is going to be released in what, late 2006? Finding a bug in CentOS 4 that is reported to Red Hat though, will lead to a fix to an already widely deployed enterprise platform.

I was reponding to Bushidozen, who said Fedora Core 3 would make an adequate web server. If you are going to be running Fedora for a webserver, you obviously don't care about certification or support. So why not CentOS?

Helping Red Hat is great, but I wouldn't help them test software on a server. On my desktop, however, I definately would. I just see no reason at this point to upgrade from CentOS 4 to Fedora Core 4.

Anyways, we have different opinions, which is great. We'll just have to agree to disagree

misc, don't get me wrong, I like Fedora Core. I have used it exclusively since it first came out. But the fact of the matter is, Red Hat uses Fedora to test the viability of programs before they implement it into RHEL. I'm sorry if I upset you. Like I said, I think Fedora is great.

I got this from the official Fedora website:

One can browse bugzilla.centos.org and find so many open (and older) tickets describing a variety of issues, it doesn't give the impression that forwarding of PRs works well. It needs more than a few volunteers to do bug triaging. You would need a good knowledge base, plenty of hardware to test with, clean RHEL systems where to try and reproduce a problem, and for several areas a good bit of expertise. And then it still needs somebody to enter a bug into bugzilla.redhat.com and be available in case developers request more information. Quite a bottleneck. Communication with customers is not limited to bugzilla tickets anyway. CentOS cannot really be compared with an evaluation version of Red Hat Enterprise Linux. Without support contracts they cannot guarantee that they look into every PR in a timely manner or with appropriate priority. Just not possible. It leads to a false view of what CentOS gives you compared with RHEL.
A quote is not enough input for discussion. Either you've made special experience which you want to share or not. Actually, it would need quite a bit of an explanation as what you think is bad about "a proving ground for new technology". Can you give examples of new technology, which you think was not usable enough at all for a Linux distribution with a target group like Fedora? Red Hat Advanced Server was made out of parts from Red Hat Linnux 7.2 and 7.3. Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3 was derived from Red Hat Linux 8.0 and 9. Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 was derived from Fedora Core 2.

hi everyone i know im a newbie to linux but i read somewhere that for pro use that RHEL was better and for private home use with less pro use that fedora core was better i cant remember where i read that if it was forums or red hat site but as i scroll through the fc4 there are alot of pro. applications. but ive never used RHELso its all from browsing not knowing.

The term "pro use" is much too vague as it doesn't say _how_ you intend to use Linux. Surely, with its life cycle of 7 years, certification, commercial support, and things like that, RHEL is superior compared with the short-lived Fedora releases. But that doesn't restrict Fedora to home users. A rough comparison can be found at: http://fedora.redhat.com/about/rhel.html

thank you for clearing that up.