For example Red Hat Enterprise Linux or SUSE Enterprise Linux.
I’m considering switching to RHEL, to get a “professional” Linux, since it’s free if you register an account, but is it worth it?
Is the experience very different from Fedora?
Older software is the most noticeable thing. Enterprise does not mean it is better - just that it is supported for a long time and they do that by not changing much on them. They are more designed for servers rather than workstations and generally not a great experiences unless you are running hundreds or thousands of them in an enterprise situation.
Professional just means payed for. What you are paying for is support in managing the systems, not a great user experience.
For home desktops it is far nicer to be on newer software rather than things that came out 5 to 10 years ago.
Can I assume you’re not actually running an enterprise distro?
I mean, me neither, yet, but:
- Both SUSE and Red Hat have had a minor release this year, with their software being less out of date than Debian
- I feel like enterprise distros seem to be very different in the areas where differences between distros actually matter: Package management (which can be fine-tuned a lot more with application streams, security updates, package modules, etc.) and complete, up-to-date documentation (which is the thing most people miss in Linux).
I was really looking for real world experience, not a re-hashing of unvalidated opinions that have been around for >10 years (when they might have actually been true).
It looks like you have your mind made up and are looking for affirmation, not discussion. Next time, say that instead of being an ass to people trying to help you.
I think I was pretty clear with what I was asking in this thread:
“Is anyone here using an enterprise Linux distro?”
Not anymore because all the reason I mentioned. Has the experience change in recent years? Not likely. It is the same software as in other distros - just years out of date. That has not changed as the goals of these projects have not changed. They might be on newer versions then 10 years ago but they are still way behind more frequently updated distros - or at least will be very shortly. That is fundamentally how these enterprise distros work. Their target audience is businesses needing support, not lots of end users.
The big attraction towards these distros are the support that enterprise people will pay for - which you do not get with the free version. If you don’t mind older versions of things then it might be nice for you. If not then I would stay clear of them.
Yes, Debian.
If you’re looking for something like this, but not paid for, try Debian stable. Same idea but free. Ubuntu also have an LTS version and I’m sure others.
The “Enterprise” in the title just means “support”, which is a check box for a lot of organisations. Not so much home users.
Not worth it imo. You’ll end up installing everything you use regularly from 3rd party repos (or building yourself) to get up to date features. Just use Fedora.
These days, you also have the options of Flatpaks and Distrobox. Do not nearly as big a problem as previously. No need to build from source.
I mean, for most things, why even rely on EPEL when you can install something like Arch in Distrobox. A super stable base with totally up to date apps is a great combination.
I manage a number of RHEL/Rocky and Ubuntu machines for work. EL is fine as a server distro but it doesn’t make a great desktop distro. The packages are old and I’ve found it to be missing a number of packages I use on a desktop system. For a desktop, Fedora or Ubuntu is a better fit.
