SUSE (SLES) vs RedHat (RHEL)

Let me first start out by stating that I am a HUGE SUSE Linux fan!! I have been using there server platform for more 10 years now.

SUSE has always had superior support and an outstanding product development team. The instances where I had to place a call with RedHat, if I was not calling from a government agency I can expect poor/little technical support. Installation of software Oracle/MySql etc., seemed to be a breeze. The SUSE administrative tools that are offer by SUSE seem to be far superior to RedHat (WebYast, AutoYast, Yast2). Although I work with both OS platforms i much more prefer SLES. Just wanted to get the tech communities opinion.

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Comments

demonfurbie

it all depends on where you are, in the states redhat is used more than suse, its the exact opposite in europe

personally i prefer debain based systems

petedude

demonfurbie wrote: »

personally i prefer debain based systems

I dig Debian-based systems (especially Mint), but the most stable end-user distro I've run into yet was probably OpenSUSE.

lsud00d

I'm in a Novell/SLES/SLED shop and I enjoy it as a linux OS. I've played around with other OS's but not near as much as I have with SUSE so I don't have much for comparison...

log32

SLES is definitely more familiar in europe/asia than in the US, but RHEL (versions 4.x/5.x/6.x) in my company & for me.

ally_uk

Redhat or Debian allday for me, Didn't really get on with SUSE i'm sure it is good but right now Deb and Redhat are my focus and they both do what I want them to do and are easy to use.

Chivalry1

Looking at it from more of a enterprise solution...I wish more companies in the US would take advantage of SUSE Enterprise solution. In comparison to cost SUSE beats out the competition. Of course in most companies I have worked...the technical OS solution must be supported; so that meant SUSE or RedHat. No corporate experience with Debian or some of the other freeware linux; since most of my installs were supporting SAP, Oracle MySQL and other enterprise applications. Also supporting major enterprise services such as Web, DNS, DHCP and Proxy servers.

Primarily my home desktop is openSUSE and MAC OS X. In the end it is all Linux....guess I prefer SUSE Linux over the other.

ChooseLife

@OP - I don't see a question?

Seems like you've already got an opinion

exampasser

I prefer RHEL/CentOS but I've also gotten used to Debian after having it running on my Raspberry Pi for a while.

W Stewart

I've only used opensuse but I've seen some suse enterprise cds lying around at work some I'm sure we have some customers using it. Most of the servers I've dealt with so far are RedHat, CentOS or Ubuntu server but I'm more of a RedHat/CentOS fan myself.

marco71

I've been working with both enterprises (SLES, RHEL) linux for more than 5 years now and can tell that each one has strong and weak parts; for example, I hate how SUSE network configuration is initiated, via eth hw IDs/MAC (of course this can be manually changed to the classic way via persistent names), or etherchannel (bonding) configuration (bonding config via yast is not always working) ... is far way simple to do it in RedHat linux (and derivates)...
Since both distros are rpm-centric and daily-basis tasks are pretty much same (yum works also with SLES, along with yast and zypper), is better to know both variant, so the switching from one to the other will be easier in real world (for example when you got a new job and the new company is using the other linux entreprise solution than your previous company you worked for is using).

Chivalry1

Cool. Just wondering what other people are using out there in the corporate environments and there opinions.

Chivalry1

Marco.....Did you find the Novell CLA difficult? I have often toyed with the ideal.

it_consultant

The linux guys I talk to can't forgive SUSE for working closely with Microsoft. I would hate to think that has anything to do with deciding one distro over another, but every time I have asked a linux pro why they preferred RHEL SUSE's cooperation with Microsoft is not far from their lips...which is interesting because Fedora/CENTOS/and RHEL work great in Windows domains.

marco71

Chivalry1 wrote: »

Marco.....Did you find the Novell CLA difficult? I have often toyed with the ideal.

No, no difficult at all (or maybe because of my experience with linux);
just lost focus on a couple of questions at the exam (http://www.techexams.net/forums/novell-certification/58622-passed-cla-today.html)...
Anyway, I intend to follow more linux certs path in 2013 (for both SLES and RHEL) and I recommend this to anyone who wants to follow a career in linux

lsud00d

Chivalry1 wrote: »

Marco.....Did you find the Novell CLA difficult? I have often toyed with the ideal.

FWIW it's a bonus cert (along with the LPIC-1 and Novell DCTS) if you pass CompTIA's Linux+

log32

or just LPIC-1

W Stewart

it_consultant wrote: »

The linux guys I talk to can't forgive SUSE for working closely with Microsoft. I would hate to think that has anything to do with deciding one distro over another, but every time I have asked a linux pro why they preferred RHEL SUSE's cooperation with Microsoft is not far from their lips...which is interesting because Fedora/CENTOS/and RHEL work great in Windows domains.

I kind of like the idea of linux working with Microsoft. That just means more support for linux in mainstream applications in the long run. I also know a few linux people who hate RedHat because it's a corporate distro that charges for support but I don't see anything beneficial career-wise about being anti-corporation.

Chivalry1

W Stewart wrote: »

I kind of like the idea of linux working with Microsoft. That just means more support for linux in mainstream applications in the long run. I also know a few linux people who hate RedHat because it's a corporate distro that charges for support but I don't see anything beneficial career-wise about being anti-corporation.

At some point in time all Enterprise Linux solutions (RedHat & SUSE) worked with Microsoft; whether they admit it or not.

pwjohnston

As someone who is new to Linux administration I have to say I’m very disappointed in the amount general SLES support available. I worked at a company previously that had about 6 CentOS boxes, but I mostly did Windows Admin(8 years) so I have a couple years real world Linux admin. I’ve also been using Fedora for the last couple of years as my desktop.

This new job I’m at we have RHEL 5.5 on our baremetal servers and SLES 11 R2(free with our VMWare so we only use it for virtualized Linux instances). They’re doing that to save money only. I have to say that confuses the crap out of me. I know the differences are slight, but enough to be annoying and it’s more a problem of me not being a seasoned Linux guy. I can ALWAYS seem to find the answer I need with the RHEL distros online or otherwise, but with SLES they are few and far between. Other than the online manual, which is good, the most relevant book I could find is over 2 years old, SUSE Linux Enterprise Server Administration (Novell, Eckart). There’s just not a great book like the Practical Guide to RedHat (Sobell). When I got on the OpenSUSE forums to try and find out if there was a version of OpenSUSE(ie 11.1, 12.1) similar to our version of SLES(11sp2) so I could load it on my home machine, they basically ripped me a new one.

If it were my choice, we’d be using RedHat/CentOS.

UnixGuy

I have been a Solaris support guy for many years now, and I was part of the professional services at Sun Microsystems. Honestly, if you have mission critical financial system or something critical like a military base server, I think Solaris win for the stability and support. It's more expensive to have a Solaris SPARC setup though.

As everyone said above, the quality of support depends on your geographical location. At the end of the day it's a matter of sales and marketing. If the sales guy can sell your manager something, then that's what you will be using

I'd choose Red Hat over SUSE specially that IBM is backing them up big time.

UnixGuy

W Stewart wrote: »

...but I don't see anything beneficial career-wise about being anti-corporation.

+1 bias to or against a vendor is complete insanity to me, career-wise and personal-wise.

ally_uk

Sorry about the language but I have worked alongside some opinionated dicks in my time

Some of the Linux vets as soon as you mention Microsoft that is it cue endless rants and ridicule for even considering deploying a Microsoft platform or Windoze as they call it.

Then there is the whole GUI vs CLI debate why waste energy even arguing about this trivial thing my approach is use what you are comfortable with and use whatever gets the job done.

I use both Windows and Linux both have there flaws and positives if you can use and support both I see it as a bonus right?

Chivalry1

UnixGuy wrote: »

I have been a Solaris support guy for many years now, and I was part of the professional services at Sun Microsystems. Honestly, if you have mission critical financial system or something critical like a military base server, I think Solaris win for the stability and support. It's more expensive to have a Solaris SPARC setup though.

As everyone said above, the quality of support depends on your geographical location. At the end of the day it's a matter of sales and marketing. If the sales guy can sell your manager something, then that's what you will be using

I'd choose Red Hat over SUSE specially that IBM is backing them up big time.

Dont have much experience with Solaris. I knew of some institutions running the older sun platform but most have upgraded to RedHat. From what I hear most Solaris administrators swear by the new SPARC technology/superiority.

Good point regarding the geographical location and support. I think where most supported linux companies fail (SLES, RHEL, Solaris) is there lack of strategic marketing. RedHat does somewhat of a better job than the others, but not significantly.

N2IT

Chiv Last enterprise I worked in used RHEL 5.5 and 6 I believe for their Java Developers client side OS. They also used Red Hat for the Linux server OS's.