Is it legal to run RHEL on a desktop?
 

My Friend recently gave me his old server, that he doesn't need anymore. I was planning to use this as my main Desktop computer at home. I fixed some things to make it work like a desktop. I noticed it had "Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6", with Support and updates. I Was thinking if it is legal to use RHEL on my computer, and I thought it would be a shame to format it, and it has Updates and support from RedHat.

---------- Post added 29th Oct 2011 at 15:20 ----------

Note: I used CentOS before, So I know how to use RHEL

Hi,

Running RHEL 6 on your box isn't illegal at any time. If you want to be able to download files/patches from the rhn network you do need a paid subscription. Without being able to update/upgrade your box it will be become kinda useless.

You do mention that this box does have support. 2 possible issue;s with that:
1) Did your friend hand over this support exclusively to you or does he use this subscription himself on another box? If he did hand it over you can use that for the time this subscription lasts (normally a subscription is for one year). Which brings us to point 2.

2) The current subscription is ending at a certain point (runtime is one year), after that you need to pay for a new subscription.

If this new box is for home use I would put CentOS on it and forget about RHEL.

Just my 2C.

Ok, Thanks. My Friend told me that ther is 1 year of support left, So I will keep RHEL, and when support ends, I will connect to CentOS update stream and repositries. Centos Updates work on RHEL, I already tried it on a Virtual Machine.

BTW, The reason why I don't want to format is because it has a 1TB HardDisk and it would be a pain to format 1TB.
So Thanks.

Hi,
Now that would be illegal ,if you ask me (IANAL).

I don't rally think so, I heard of many people that do that, also RHEL is still published under GPL. Anyway If that was illegal , Centos would be illegal too. Since Centos is just a rebranded Version RHEL with Different Repositories.