This will probably sound dumb, but when should an enterprise operating system be used? Does an enterprise os specifically mean it's meant to be used for servers or is it meant for workstations as well? Thanks in advance for answering a most likely dumb question.

You can use enterprise OSes both on servers and workstations. RHEL (and CentOS) is a good enterprise OS and many people use it on their workstations as well as on servers.

The big attraction for enterprise distributions on the workstation is the length of support. If you want to keep the same versions of your browser, mailer, office suite, and other tools for several years -- just getting fixes for security holes and major bugs -- then go enterprise. If you like getting new releases of your desktop tools, and new kernel features such as "tickless" for power savings on laptops, pick a distribution with quicker release cycles.

i agree with dmarti. CentOS and other enterprise linux distros will probably offer you the most reliable desktop and server experience from an administration stand point. the problem, as dmarti pointed out, is sometimes, in fact often times when talking about desktops, you'll want a newer version of a software package that isn't get supported by the enterprise class distro you're running. something to keep in mind when you upgrade to newer versions of your favorite applications is that they sometimes require several dependency packages to be installed as well. once you upgrade enough packages your rock solid enterprise distro really isnt the same unstoppable beast it was when you first began using it. this is why "enterprise" linux distributions are usually associated with servers. but we run RHEL 4 here in a thin client environment, and our users are doing just fine with older versions of firefox, thunderbird, open office (well we actually run star office), etc. whether or not you go with an enterprise distro really all depends on how you plan on using your system, and the type of applications you'd like to run.

I use centos 5 on my laptop and it just works, wireless - everything. It has an ATI card which was a bit of hassle initially but if you aren't bothered eye candy so what. It is rock solid. It will be some time until I upgrade.