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This article mainly introduces "what is the difference between CentOS and RedHat Linux". In daily operation, I believe many people have doubts about the difference between CentOS and RedHat Linux. The editor consulted all kinds of materials and sorted out simple and easy-to-use methods of operation. I hope it will be helpful to answer the questions of "what is the difference between CentOS and RedHat Linux?" Next, please follow the editor to study!

A brief introduction to CentOS

CentOS is short for Community ENTerprise Operating System, and many of us call it the Community Enterprise operating system. No matter what you call it, it is a distribution of the Linux operating system.

CentOS is not a brand new Linux distribution, and when it comes to the name Red Hat, everyone seems to have heard of it. There is an enterprise version of the product in the Red Hat family, which is Red Hat Enterprise Linux (hereinafter called RHEL), and CentOS is a clone of this RHEL. RHEL is a Linux distribution adopted by many enterprises, which can only be used by paying for Red Hat, and can get paid services and technical support and version upgrades. CentOS can build a Linux system environment like RHEL, but it does not need to pay any fees for products and services to Red Hat, and does not get any paid technical support and upgrade services.

Among the products of Red Hat, there are Red Hat Linux (such as Redhat8,9) and Red Hat Enterprise Linux, which are issued for enterprises, which can be obtained and used free of charge through the network FTP, but in 2003, Red Hat Linux stopped publishing, and its project was replaced by the project Fedora Project, and issued under the name Fedora Core and provided to ordinary users for free use. The Linux release of Fedora Core is updated very quickly, and a new version will be released in about half a year. The current version is Fedora Core 6, this Fedora Core experiment has a strong flavor, each release has new features added to it, the successful results will be used in the release of Dow RHEL. Even so, unstable products that are frequently improved and updated are not a choice for enterprises, but most enterprises still choose paid RHEL products (which has a deep meaning, for example, enterprises use Linux to make money, the money earned is returned to enterprises, funds flow among enterprises, return to society, improve service standards, etc.).

Most of the software packages that make up RHEL are released based on the GPL protocol, which is often called open source software. Because of this, Red Hat also follows this agreement and publishes the software package that constitutes RHEL. As long as it follows the GPL protocol, anyone can redevelop and release on the basis of the original software composition. CentOS is a Linux distribution version that clones and reproduces the composition of RHEL on the basis of RHEL release. There are not only CentOS clones of RHEL, but also White Box Enterprise Linux and TAO Linux and Scientific Linux (nothing else has been heard of, have they? ).

Although it is a RHEL clone, it is not exactly the same, and the clone is 100% interchangeable (really? ). However, there is no guarantee that the software corresponding to RHEL will work 100% on CentOS. And security vulnerability fixes and software package upgrades correspond to RHEL's paid services and technical support, with days, weeks and months of delays (in fact, it doesn't seem too slow).

Characteristics of CentOS

In the full name of CentOS, we can see Enterprise OS, that is, enterprise system, this enterprise system is not an enterprise system, but it can provide the elements needed by enterprise applications.

For example:

A stable environment

Long-term upgrade and update support

Strong conservatism

Large-scale systems can also perform well.

CentOS meets the above elements, and distributions that meet the above elements also have Fedora. Fedora and CentOS are very similar, but for CentOS, Fedora provides more new functions and software, releases and updates quickly, which adds a lot of work in terms of stability and management. The system environment needed by the enterprise should be an efficient and stable system environment and a system environment that can be used for a long time after a construction, so the system environment that is updated and released frequently like Fedora does not correspond to the application of the enterprise. On the other hand, CentOS can meet the needs of the above enterprises. Among the many cloned versions of RHEL, CentOS is very outstanding.

The difference between CentOS and RHEL

Actually, why is there CentOS? What is the relationship between CentOS and RHEL?

When RHEL is released, there are two ways. One is binary distribution, and the other is source code distribution.

No matter which distribution method it is, you can get it for free (for example, download it from the Internet) and release it again. But if you use their online upgrades (including patches) or consulting services, you have to pay.

RHEL has always provided a way to distribute the source code, and CentOS is to recompile the source code released by RHEL to form a usable binary version. Since the source code of LINUX is GNU, it is legal from obtaining the source code of RHEL to compiling it to a new binary. It's just that REDHAT is a trademark, so the REDHAT trademark must be removed in the new release.

REDHAT's attitude towards this release is: "We are not really opposed to this release. The users who really pay us pay attention not to the system itself, but to the business services we provide."

So, CentOS can get all the functions of RHEL, even better software. But CentOS does not provide commercial support to users, nor does it bear any commercial responsibility.

I'm gradually transferring my RHEL to CentOS because I don't want to pay for RHEL upgrades. Of course, this is because I have many years of experience with UNIX, so the commercial technical support of RHEL is not important to me.

But if you are a pure business enterprise, then I suggest you choose RHEL software and buy corresponding services. In this way, you can save your IT management expenses and get professional services.

In a word, whether you choose CentOS or RHEL depends on whether your company has the appropriate technical strength.

Add:

1. CentOS also fixed some BUG of AS, such as package selection during installation.

2. CentOS has added yum online upgrade.

3 、

CentOS-3.1 = AS3-update1

CentOS-3.2 = AS3-update2

CentOS-3.3 = AS3-update3

CentOS-3.4 = AS3-update4

CentOS-3.5 = AS3-update5

CentOS-4.0 = AS4

CentOS-4.1 = AS4-update1

4. The use of CentOS is completely legal and does not involve copyright issues

5. It is very convenient to obtain CentOS. More than 10 site images (HTTP/ftp) are provided around the world, as well as BT (providing seeds all the year round).

CentOS (Community ENTerprise Operating System) is one of the Linux distributions, which recompiles the source code of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (mainly to remove the Red Hat trademark). Why does Red Hat tolerate CentOS's behavior? CentOS downloads the source code from the Red Hat server, compiles it, and distributes it free of charge. There is no paid commercial support. Red Hat releases the upgrade patch, and CentOS will release the patch in a few hours or at most days. CentOS is perfectly legal to do this, and there is nothing Red Hat can do about it, and its business is based on the open source model. But it is true that CentOS is gobbling up the Red Hat market, as can be seen from the Google trend. As things stand, the damage caused by CentOS has not gone so far as to force Red Hat to change its business model. The advantage is that it forces Red Hat to accelerate innovation and keep it ahead of other Linux server distributions. The real victims of CentOS's great success are other distributions, such as Novell's SLES,Ubuntu server.

At this point, the study of "what is the difference between CentOS and RedHat Linux" is over. I hope to be able to solve your doubts. The collocation of theory and practice can better help you learn, go and try it! If you want to continue to learn more related knowledge, please continue to follow the website, the editor will continue to work hard to bring you more practical articles!

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