Debian does not work as a replacement for RHEL for enterprises.. Only Ubuntu LTS is an option but it is not as good..
First because enterprises need a company behind offering support contract.
But more important, many enterprises are slow moving and unfortunately Debian lifecycle is not long enough for enterprises because of that..
I have at least one customer that migrated from RHEL 6 into newer versions last year, RHEL 6 was released on 2011, regular support ended on 2021 and extended support goes until next year. So it is currently still supported under their extended support.
The Debian version from 2011 was Debian 6 (Squeeze) that had an end of life in 2015, and long term support ended on 2016, it did not had extended LTS.
Just on the lifecycle of RHEL 6 Debian released versions 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 and with exception of the last two, 11 and 12, all other versions already reached end of life, additionally version 6 to 9 reached end of LTS, and version 7 reached end of ELTS, older versions did not had ELTS as far i could find.
Is is also worth noting that Debian LTS and ELTS are not handled by Debian security team, so anything after end of life would be a solid no from most enterprises.
Even Ubuntu is behind RedHat in this aspect, the oldest Ubuntu LTS release still supported by next year, when extended support for RHEL 6 will end, is Ubuntu 14.04 from 2014. Both Ubuntu 10.04 from 2010 and Ubuntu 12.04 from 2012, that is the last LTS release on or before 2011 and the following release, already reached end of life and support before RHEL 6 extended support ended.
(And there are many more organisations and individuals who support the OS as well.)
Otherwise, this harkens back to "nobody ever got fired for buying IBM", Microsoft's "Linux is Cancer" and their "Get the Facts" FUD campaign (See: <http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/3600724.stm>), and much spew from SCO against IBM during the former's lawsuit against the latter.
The fact that Red Hat are now IBM and the Circle Has Closed is only all the more ironic.
(Red Hat was in fact my own first Linux over a quarter century ago, though I switched to Debian shortly afterward after realising that the latter was far, farr, far easier to install and maintain, for reasons intrinsic to the Debian Project's orientation and both social and technical structure. Incentives are very curious things.)
> First because enterprises need a company behind offering support contract.
I used to think this too, but it is not as big a deal as you may think. I have supported linux in the enterprise since the late 90's. The only place that ever bought support was an Oracle shop and we had 5 support licenses for our production OEL severs.
My current company is 100% CentOS and has never had support. I was not there when the choice was made or I would have pushed Debian. Some of my colleagues came from an all Debian shop.
First because enterprises need a company behind offering support contract.
But more important, many enterprises are slow moving and unfortunately Debian lifecycle is not long enough for enterprises because of that..
I have at least one customer that migrated from RHEL 6 into newer versions last year, RHEL 6 was released on 2011, regular support ended on 2021 and extended support goes until next year. So it is currently still supported under their extended support.
The Debian version from 2011 was Debian 6 (Squeeze) that had an end of life in 2015, and long term support ended on 2016, it did not had extended LTS.
Just on the lifecycle of RHEL 6 Debian released versions 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 and with exception of the last two, 11 and 12, all other versions already reached end of life, additionally version 6 to 9 reached end of LTS, and version 7 reached end of ELTS, older versions did not had ELTS as far i could find.
Is is also worth noting that Debian LTS and ELTS are not handled by Debian security team, so anything after end of life would be a solid no from most enterprises.
Even Ubuntu is behind RedHat in this aspect, the oldest Ubuntu LTS release still supported by next year, when extended support for RHEL 6 will end, is Ubuntu 14.04 from 2014. Both Ubuntu 10.04 from 2010 and Ubuntu 12.04 from 2012, that is the last LTS release on or before 2011 and the following release, already reached end of life and support before RHEL 6 extended support ended.
[0] - https://wiki.debian.org/DebianReleases [1] - https://ubuntu.com/about/release-cycle