I know that this may come off kind of harsh but I just feel that even though I am studying hard and want to be a good Linux sysadmin, I see RH as a big joke. I might be wrong but has anyone ever thought that a team of people just got together and said "hey, lets take something free, have some guys hack the source and deliberately MAKE IT DIFFICULT for admins to work with so that we can get an annual fee from everyone that needs it. Then let's make it popular so banks and other corporations recognize it as INDUSTRY STANDARD."

Am I the only one who feels this way? I just think it is a big mess. I've got both Debian and RH and Debian BLOWS RH out of the water in every aspect. Everything seems to be deliberately misplaced and complicated with RH and of course, that makes sense, because we all need their support. Just try to use RH for a bit coming from Debian and you will ask yourself, "Am I really that stupid to have to deal with this big headache when there is Debian?" Conf files are scattered all over the place, the pkg mgmt RPM system and yum are horrible, especially with the many repos out there. ATrpms, repoforge, who knows what else. And even though Im not an expert, I just find that with Debian, stuff just WORKS and with RH, I've always got a huge headache when dealing with something and dread using my CentOS machine. It was a nightmare trying to install something simple like VLC. Kind of reminds me of a dirty mechanic if you know what I mean. Not much difference there.

Why do banks and high-end companies insist on using RH. Do they not know about Debian? What advantage does RH really have? I know (or hope) that at the top level, there must be some thinking going on. The more I work with RH, the more I think to myself...maybe I shouldn't become a Linux sysadmin because every employer requires RH and I'm just going to deal with a lot of stress and what's sad is I know that it is deliberately being done and not coincidental. I'm not sure if this is the right path.

Any comments, opinions? Maybe I'm wrong. I don't know.

Thanks,
Shawn

There is a one-word answer that covers the essence of your question: "marketing"

Who can name another SW vendor that has succeed because of marketing, and not because of any inherent advantages in their product line?

If you like Debian's streamlined simplicity, just wait until you try Slackware or Arch!

I know it is marketing. That isn't my question. My question was "why do we need to learn RH" and mainly "Why do banks and high-end corp insist on using it?"

I know I heard of Slackware. I thought it was all terminal-based but I read that link in your sig, I guess it has a GUI! I believe in minimal stuff. I didnt like fluxbox. I have gnome and when loading fluxbox, it always corrupts and reverts back to a gnome desktop and I cant even load a shell. so i nixed that idea. I heard of Arch also, is it like Debian? I know that there is Suse Enterprise Linux out there but who uses it? Why do all employers insist on RH? Maybe administration isn't for me. I'm not going to be a sucker that just slaves away at RH's deliberate whip lashings on me. I know all the headaches are purposeful. Its all money. RH is just as bad as Microsoft if not worse. They use Linus' FREE linux and made millions. At least they paid him.

Debian and Redhat have both there pros and cons.
The third party repos are only there for extended functionality. To my knowledge there not created or supported by Redhat. I can not comment on the .conf files. The package management system though. I will tell you this. I find Debian tends not to modularize its packages as much as Redhat which is good in my opinion. Sometimes it's desired to compile a package from source though, and i'll sooner do that in a Redhat system with it's modularization over Debian anyday; why? Debians package management, dpkg, which directly affects apt, works terribly with compiled source because for the hell of me it will not ignore a dependency.

Marketing

Because banks and high-end corp insist on using it!!!

Seriously, Redhat (the company) has successfully established themselves as the "respectable" source for Linux. As just ONE example, I recently retired from NASA/JPL--they supported Linux for many years---but only RHEL. As I left, they were **considering** supporting Ubuntu.

Several years ago, I mentioned to a colleague that I was a Linux user. His reply: "Linux, yes, I've heard of that----Isn't it made by Redhat?" That is the power of marketing.

Did you not find yourself going through many headaches dealing with RH? Maybe Im just speculating. I dont know. The whole RH thing just sounds shady.

root*;

May I suggest that you think about what problem you are trying to solve?----It sounds to me like you are looking at some kind of IT career. If that's true, then I'd recommend talking to various companies and find out what skills they are looking for. BUT---choose the company based on an overall assessment---not just what SW they use. As an extreme example, you might find a company that offers a great environment, but they use Windows for everything.....

Bottom line: If you don't like RedHat, don't use it---unless your job depends on it----in that case, learn to like it...

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Well I love linux and have made a decision to make a career out of it. I know that administration is one of the more popular ones, not sure of many others...yet. But upon my research, it seems a lot of employers require RedHat and I can't seem to get away from it. I mean, I'd like to work for a company that uses Debian but that isn't just likely to happen everywhere I go. And lets face it, the env you are talking about is important, too, and they might use RH. I think it is an advantage to know RH but I don't know if I'd like to deal with all the headaches. Now based on your experience, did you find RH to be smooth sailing?

No--I tried it for awhile, and then installed Arch. Even though they "officially" only supported RHEL, the main Linux guy would always try to help.

FWIW, I also do not like RedHat (or Fedora)-----but I don't think there is anything fundamentally "bad" about them....
I don't know what you mean by this

I mean that I feel RH deliberately makes it difficult to work with. That way we need their support. Simple concept right?

Perhaps you need to investigate further.
Redhat have been the major contributor to the linux kernel for years. Not Debian, not Ubuntu, or any other derivative.

If you choose not to learn RHEL, you cut your employment prospects in major companies markedly.
Your choice.

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Uesful to distiguish between the distro name and the company name......

RedHat is a company, Debian is not. I would expect that many indiduals that contribute to Debian are also kernel contributors.

Ubuntu is not a company, but they do have Canonical behind them. (Would be curious to know if Canonical provides any kernel support....)

You need to learn Red Hat if you are serious about pursuing a career as a Linux system administrator. Frankly, I'm not sure if there is a Linux career path other than sysytem administration. The more you learn, the better. Why contrain yourself to limited opportunities?

Red Hat is no more difficult than Debian. Just different, so one might just as easily say Debian is harder to learn than Red Hat. I suspect you know something about Debian and little about Red Hat. So, you're projecting your own ignorance of Red Hat on everyone else.

Commercial users have more confidence in their software when they can contract with someone to provide long-term support. Red Hat sells that support to RHEL users. You might argue that they can buy support for Debian, but, frankly, they won't because Debian is not a billion-dollar company that stands behind their product. You should look up "Red Hat and indemnification". That's something business interests want and Debian doesn't -- can't -- offer.

Whether Debian or RHEL or any other OS is easy to administer is irrelevant to these companies. That's why they hire administrators. If they though IT was fun and/or a profit center, they might do something else. But, IT is a necessary support function, like maintaining the air conditioning and having the trash collected.

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