Ask HN: RHEL vs. Ubuntu and Debian relevance in 2023?

[profwalkstr]

A decade ago, RHEL (and its clone CentOS) was the 800 pound-gorilla in the Linux world. It was synonymous with "serious" Linux and every other distro were considered toys. Everyone was using it for production. Small business who couldn't afford RHEL were mainly using CentOS.

Then the cloud happened, and I stopped paying much attention to the infrastructure field... Now I'm back to it again and several things seem to have changed.

By reading online forums, I have the following impressions:

- It seems that nowadays Ubuntu and Debian have taken the lead, especially in the cloud and in the web development world (where CentOS previously reigned). - New projects in tech companies having a preference for Ubuntu or Debian - As a result of Red Hat killing CentOS (yes, I know about Stream), many business moving to Ubuntu or Debian instead of Rocky or Alma, many people lost trust in Red Hat - RHEL being preferred by big companies not in the tech sector (like banks, finance, healthcare, etc) - CentOS being preferred in the scientific field - RHEL, Alma and Rocky being preferred when used on expensive hardware or needed for specialized proprietary applications - RHEL being preferred by companies who need a corporate support contract - Debian and Ubuntu chosen more frequently when creating VMs in the cloud than RHEL and its derivatives - Industries with regulation (healthcare, finance) preferring RHEL - Ubuntu being more used than Debian

From what I've been reading, it seems like we're transitioning from a past where RHEL/CentOS was everywhere, used for every workload, the default (especially CentOS), to a present where this role is now fulfilled by Ubuntu or Debian; RHEL and its derivatives being relegated to specific needs in specific industries. Debian/Ubuntu as a default, RHEL/Alma/Rocky/CentOS Stream as an exception, only when needed. Like the commercial Unices a decade ago: we used to run CentOS as the default and Solaris or AIX only in exceptional cases where it was needed. Has Ubuntu taken the crown from CentOS as the default OS for most use cases?

Are these views correct? What has been your experience? What are have you been seeing regarding this subject?

Personally, I really like Red Hat's offerings, RHEL and Fedora are my distros of choice. It would be a pity to see its market share dwindle.

[sumanthvepa]

Yes. Your observation is generally correct. Many people now managing cloud fleets first cut their teeth on an Ubuntu distribution. It should not be surprising that they prefer Debian or Ubuntu on the cloud as well. Redhat enjoyed the same dynamics in the late 90s and 2000s when it was the default desktop distribution of that generation of Linux adopters. When that generation went to work they took their preference for Redhat and CentOS with them to the server room. However, RedHAT made a mistake by deemphasizing support for the desktop. There was a period from around 2008-2015 where the Fedora desktop was effectively unusable for newbies. These folks switched to Ubuntu which was much more newbie friendly. And now that they've grown up with it they prefer it even on servers. And of course Redhat did not help it's cause with the shift to CentOS stream.

In my own company, we use Ubuntu on the Desktop and a mixture of Debian and AlmaLinux on servers. But most of the younger generation prefer Debian. So as new projects ship, we are slowly shifting to Debian and Ubuntu.

[warner25 → sumanthvepa]

Coincidentally, I was a Windows user from 2008-2015, having used Linux (SUSE on my laptop and Debian on a server) prior to that and then coming back to Linux (Arch derivatives, Ubuntu, RHEL, and now Fedora) since 2015.

So what happened with Fedora during that time? Was it just choosing not to include non-free drivers, codecs, and Java? I do recall that I ended up using SUSE back then because I just couldn't get Red Hat to work with my laptop hardware (WiFi, touchpad, etc.).

[bravetraveler]

Trends aside, one thing I really appreciate about RHEL/derivatives is how most important things are scriptable. firewall-cmd, nmcli, and so on. This has likely improved since you've last seen things

I've been stuck with an Ubuntu fleet for the past ~6 years, and we're finally moving to RHEL. I can't wait for the generally much-improved interfaces

[lproven]

I think you're broadly correct, but your timing is off. I'd say it's not in the last decade, but more like this has been growing for the last 15+ years, and the trend started at the end of the 1990s.

In the 1990s, RH was Linux to the extend that there was a site called `redhatisnotlinux.org`.

The thing that made Linux viable as a desktop OS was KDE, the first FOSS desktop for Linux. There had been commercial ones, such as IXI X.desktop, and Xfce which only became FOSS later, but KDE was FOSS from the start.

But not FOSS enough for RH, which took a Stallmanite position over Qt and excluded KDE from its distro.

That led to Mandrake, which was basically Red Hat Linux with KDE, but it also fostered non-RH distros such as SUSE, Caldera and Corel LinuxOS.

Rather than getting on board the movement, RH forced a split in the community and sponsored GNOME instead. Down with Qt, down with C++, down with dual licensing: we'd rather reimplement the entire thing from scratch than sully our hands with a toolkit that is sold -- ew -- and C++ -- doubleplus ew.

Result, RH starts to get sidelined.

GNOME does great, though, and GNOME 2 brings harmony to the FOSS Unix world. Even Solaris adopts it.

So Microsoft attacked.

Result, GNOME 3 and dozens of new and revived desktops.

RH made one good move: it found a funding model, and a great one.

It should never have bought CentOS in the first place. That was a huge, stupid mistake and it harmed both the company and RHEL. It finally did the right thing killing it off. Stream is probably good for those in the community contributing but it's of no appeal to anyone else.

[jcal93]

One big thing RHEL has going for it is that it has a DISA STIG, which Ubuntu/Debian/other distros lack, so it's firmly cemented as the distro of choice for some DoD networks. Otherwise I think Ubuntu and its plethora of spinoffs seem to be taking the lead.

[warner25 → jcal93]

I thought there were STIG checklists for Ubuntu now, no? https://ubuntu.com/security/disa-stig

With that said, you're right that RHEL is firmly entrenched in the DoD. I previously worked in a DoD shop that ran a fleet of RHEL servers (still enjoying, and paying a lot of money for, Extended Life-cycle Support to RHEL 6...), and when I left that job I decided to start using Fedora on my personal laptop to stay in touch with Red Hat stuff, in case I ever wanted to go back to a job in that world.

[anthonyhn]

Alpine Linux is also pretty relevant in the container space due to its small base image size. If you look at the downloads on Docker Hub [0], Alpine Linux, Ubuntu, Debian, and CentOS (although CentOS was deprecated by Red Hat) all have 1 billion+ downloads.

[0] https://hub.docker.com/search?q=

[wmf]

At this point maybe you should leapfrog legacy distros and investigate NixOS and immutable distros (CoreOS, Flatcar, Talos, etc.) instead.

[suprjami → wmf]

Spoiler: Red Hat own CoreOS

[wmf → suprjami]

That's true, but I'd advise people to learn the tech first then worry about the politics.

[synack]

I don't think it matters much these days, all of the mainstream distros are going to provide more or less the same functionality.

IBM and Canonical will both sell you support contracts if that's something you need. If you're on AWS, consider Amazon Linux too, their paid support is quite good and covers the whole platform, not just the OS.

[acomjean → synack]

We use red hat / CentOS on our compute cluster (academia/genetics). But I use the poorly names “PopOS”(an Ubuntu variant) on my local machine. I don’t notice any difference.

Red hat will sell support and know how. A long time ago, when I was at a hpux and Solaris shop they sent us who worked with the Os to a Linux kernel internals class at red hat, for us to learn what they had for us (scheduling and such). Such knowledgeable people. I’ve moved onto different development but I can see why companies would pay for the support.

[comprev]

The explosion of containers where Debian is the default distribution for many “official” images has certainly accelerated the adoption of Debian and Ubuntu.

Using AWS Amazon Linux is the only place there days I’d type “yum …”, and often because AWS Amazon Linux is the ideal choice for base systems in their ecosystem.

[nubinetwork]

> Has Ubuntu taken the crown from CentOS as the default OS for most use cases?

Considering CentOS is dead, I hope something takes its place, I don't care if it's RHEL or Ubuntu. People need to get themselves off CentOS already.

[mikebos]

It depends. RHEL does very nicely in the large corporate environments, at least here in Europe. Red Hat has a large portfolio of applications and great consultancy. The cost may be prohibitive for smaller companies though.