Hello All

I want to dig deep into RedHat based Linux servers. My basic priority now is to prepare/get a job in the IT dept as a Linux administrator. I'm split between RHEL7 or RHEL8. Which version is widely used in Companies/Industries? Should I go for CentOS 7 or CentOS 8? Based on this recommendation I want to download the full documentation from the Redhat website and prepare on that.

Thanks

The differences between those two are trivial; and learning CentOS/RHEL is as effective as learning Fedora, Mint, Debian, or openSUSE. ANY flavor of Linux can run the same services, things are configured the same way (for the most part), and troubleshooting is about the same. The differences are in some of the system utilities. Yum on RHEL...zypper on openSUSE. Apt-get on Debian. All do the same things, just slightly different.

The differences are minor...some config files may be in /etc on one version, while on another they may be in /opt. An administrator needs to know how to troubleshoot and figure these things out, more than 'knowing' one version very well. And bear in mind that some companies may have OLD RHEL 5/6 laying around still. They may use Ubuntu on their lab servers, and RHEL in production...what are you going to do if you have to deploy something in a lab, then roll it out? Learn the basics and learn how to troubleshoot..that will serve you far better than focusing on one distro/release.

::EDIT::
Hasn't a VERY similar question been asked before?
https://www.linuxquestions.org/quest...od-4175676420/

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Obviously there are old things still in use, but I'd go for CentOS 8. On a server, RHEL and SUSE are virtually identical, since they both use the Linux Standard Base — Debian and Ubuntu don't. The idea was obviously to ease transition from one system to another by professionals.

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Agree totally. To clarify a bit on my earlier reply, my suggestion to the OP was that they learn *LINUX*, not a specific distro. Knowing how to troubleshoot and work a problem is more valuable than only knowing one distro.

Thanks. That was just about RHEL free subscription and diff between 8.1 and 8.2 against CentOS. What I really want to know is, I got an old book from my friend on RHCSA/RHCE v7 from Michael Jang. Compared that to the new RHCE v8 certification, the syllabus is completely different. RHCE v7 certification deals with all server roles on the individual basis, whereas in RHCE v8 certification there is only Ansible, nothing about individual server roles. All server roles have to be configured 'through' ansible. And I've also heard that most companies still use RHEL 6/7 servers. Not sure how much is true.

Also, I checked 'RHEL v8 - What's new' and found that the changes are very significant from the previous version. Even the package manager is different.

So, if I have to join a company, should I be an expert on v7 or v8? Of course, I'll also be working on Ubuntu/Debian.

To add on my previoud replay, I've been using Linux from past 3-4 years now. During this time I have learned generic topics like grep/sed/awk/RegEx, package managent (apt/yum), managing linux from terminal etc. As a professional expert, which distro is good? Maybe CentOS 8?

Not so different as it may seem at the first glance. dnf is basically the yum CLI bolted on top of the libsolv library that also powers zypper in SUSE. There are some differences between yum and dnf commands, but for the most part, their subcommands are identical.

Besides, 1) dnf could be installed in CentOS 7, although it is not the default package manager there; and 2) on RHEL/CentOS 8, yum is a symlink to dnf.

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Seconding what TB0ne said. It's more important to learn Linux than any particular distribution. I've been working with Linux for more than 25 years. My first exposure was on Sun Microsystems. When I changed jobs I was working on Solaris servers. That shop migrated to RedHat...the change was "invisible" to me...I did the same things I'd always done in the same way I did them.

Also, "administration" contains a lot of sub-parts. At the last company I worked, there departments that worked on security, performance, databases, software, etc. None of those folks had to know everything, and usually didn't.

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...and...
Again, it doesn't really matter, and honestly there is NO WAY anyone here can tell you. The 'company' you join may not use either..they may use Suse Enterprise. They may use Ubuntu LTS. They may use Fedora for workstations, and Windows servers. And they can change what they use, whenever they want to. You need to learn *LINUX*...not 'be expert in CentOS". As an employer, I don't hire people with single specialties, but broad knowledge.

While your FOCUS may wind up as RHEL, what do you think is going to happen at the company? That they'll ONLY EVER have RHEL8 forever?? That you won't have to learn anything else??? Again: learn to troubleshoot, how to diagnose problems, and how to configure services. Those skills translate to ANY flavor of Linux (or Unix for that matter).

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