[rhn-users] Fedora vs. Red Hat

[Greg Forte]

Sander Steffann wrote:
> See 
> http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FAQ#head-1a99791d7064a7aa4fdac4ae99694ebb2356c069 

That doesn't exactly clear up the difference ;-)

There are essentially 3 differences as I understand it:

a) stable vs. bleeding edge - RHEL only incorporates packages (and 
versions of those packages) that are well-tested and relatively stable, 
whereas FC will generally have the latest and (not-necessarily-so) 
greatest of everything (or close to it).  FC may also have packages that 
don't exist at all in RHEL, because they're too new/untested.  So in 
general, stuff is older in RHEL, but less likely to be broken.  Note 
that broken != security holes, although all things being equal, RHEL is 
less likely to have those, as well.  FC also releases once every six 
months (or thereabouts), whereas RHEL releases come much further apart 
(in general - and we're talking major releases, not update releases).

b) lifespan - each release of RHEL is supported with patches and tech 
support for 7 years from initial release.  Releases of FC are only 
patched for a year (or until the 2nd subsequent release comes out, which 
should be ~1 year), though there is a "3rd-party" community effort to 
maintain the older FC releases.

c) support & update mechanism - if you pay for a subscription to RHEL, 
you can get phone/e-mail tech support from RedHat, just like you do for 
Windows/Solaris/whatever.  And you get the RedHat Network (RHN), which 
essentially means you use up2date to patch your system(s), and there is 
a guaranteed service level (at least in theory).  There is no official 
support for FC (though you can probably find companies that are willing 
to sell it to you), and no up2date/RHN - the "standard" update mechanism 
for FC is yum, which is what most people use, and the updates are 
downloaded from public mirrors, for which there is no guaranteed service 
level (though in practice, I find yum and up2date perform about the 
same; in the past, in fact, yum was usually less problem-prone, though 
in the last year+ up2date/RHN has been pretty reliable).

-g