I've been considering getting my RHCT and possibly other Red Hat certifications, and even though I've dealt with Linux pretty extensively both at home and on the job, I've no experience with Red Hat Enterprise.

I've been aware of the CentOS project for a while, and my understanding is that CentOS is RHE without a) the logos/distinguishing trademarks and b) the support bill. I've downloaded CentOS and plan on installing it on my home machine to familiarize myself with what RHE has to offer...

So the question is this: Is CentOS close enough to the "real thing" to be worth checking out? If what I've been told is true, then it will be...but I wanted to double check with the knowledgeable folks here at LQ. Thanks!

Yep, it is a 100% binary compatible clone of RHEL and is at the AS/ES level. CentOS attempts to follow what Red Hat does as closely as possible.

Hint: know your console commands well

Excellent! Thank you for the quick response.