Enterprise Linux suggestions

After taking a break from Linux in favour of Windows 7 (and now Windows 8), I'm looking to start using it again on a daily basis, for both general consumer tasks and also to simply refresh my brain. My preference is for an enterprise distribution, as I hope to leverage my knowledge and experience in the workforce. Would people suggest using OpenSUSE (as it is the "testing" branch of SLED) or one of the RHEL clones (e.g. CentOS or Scientific Linux)?

 

centOS is the best

 

Any particular reason why you feel that way?

 

Because it is binary compatible with Redhat.
I personally use Ubuntu/Debian for home use but for work, we use CentOS. That is because most of the major "commerical apps" are designed only for redhat. They including visualization, cad, gfx.
E.G. Maya is only certified for Redhat but you can run it on centos.

 

Thanks. It's been a while since I last paid attention to the enterprise Linux world, so I wasn't sure which would have the larger distribution. The last major not of news I remember was HP starting to roll out Ubuntu Server.

 

Another vote for CentOS here.

 

Scientific Linux is worth looking at as well:

https://www.scientificlinux.org/

 

I also recommend Centos. I have always used Red Hat products at work and Centos at home. It is rock solid and is certified with every major piece of enterprise application software, so the skills transfer very well to work. Although I experiment with the latest versions of Ubuntu, Debian and Fedora in order to support cutting edge hardware and/or get the most up to date applications, Centos is very conservative with updates so it is nice to know that it is pretty much guaranteed to boot each and every time and my programs and setup are not going to get scrogged after an update.

 

https://www.suse.com/promo/pd/els-sles-free-eval.html

 

openSUSE. IMHO, a much nicer desktop environment for use in an office setting than RH clones like CentOS. And you don't need to jump through hoops to avoid Gnome3. Eclipse, Oracle, DB2 - all work flawlessly.

 

I'd go for Scientific Linux also. That's what I use...but I'd definitely stick with a RHEL clone. I just put Xfce on SL 6.3, and it's rock solid, period. There's also CentOS, but that's up to you as for practical purposes they're the same. But I'd say based on history SL is more reliable, and won't have any major hiccups or delays because they are Govt funded.

 

CentOS - solid distro. However, and don't take this the wrong way - it is just a personal preference, but you COULD take a lood at FreeBSD or Debian - you will be amazed. I know, not enterprise (hell, FreeBSD is not even GNU/Linux), but not one gram bellow CentOS.


____________________________________
Just got my new Horize P150HM Notebook!
____________________________________
Intel Core i7-2860QM
Geforce GTX485M @ 2GB
12GB RAM @ 1600Mhz
250GB SSD

 

Red Hat and CentOS are my preferences for enterprise. Have used quite a few distros but the company that I worked for used Red Hat and their support at the 11th hour is quite important.

 

Stella Linux ( DistroWatch.com: Stella)

 

For rock solid main battle tank quality and top notch support over a 5+ year life time, RHEL is THE choice. They have fast response to bugs and security issues, and they focus on enterprise level support.

If you want all the solid main battle tank robustness of RHEL but have no money for licenses and don't need the official hand holding and personalized bug fixing, then Centos is a great choice. Some combo of the two can save you money while still both getting you support AND supporting RedHat.

If you want a rock solid distro with a 3 year or so life span and lots of user input, Debian is a good choice. It is generally geared more to the linux user and in my opinion is a little simpler to admin than RHEL.

If you want slightly longer LTS version with 5 year support but still like the way Debian works look at Ubuntu SERVER. Commercial support is available but it's not as good or as responsive as RedHat's. It's based on Debian so all the admin tricks that work in debian work here too. The desktop is generally better supported for Joe Sixpack so it's a good compromise server OS that lets you run the same base distro for servers and desktops, also allowing developers to use the same basic packages as the servers they're developing for, thus saving a lot of testing time.

There are plenty more distros that scratch and itch, depending on what you want, and it's not uncommon for a decent sized IT op to have 2 or more different linux distros based on their needs, like web servers running debian, app servers running ubuntu and database servers running RHEL, often an older version to boot.