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Why Redhat is in demand/preferred over Debian

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raspbian
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Why Redhat is in demand/preferred over Debian

#1 Post by raspbian »

Friends,

I was just wondering if Debian & Redhat were released around the same time then why Redhat is in demand. What they have done in all those years that companies prefer using it or pay for their support as well? Is it only because of their available certifications or something else?

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Re: Why Redhat is in demand/preferred over Debian

#2 Post by kedaha »

You've answered your own question:
raspbian wrote:companies prefer using it
because they
raspbian wrote:pay for their support
And we all know the saying:
He who pays the piper calls the tune.
But you'll find a long list of commercial firms that prefer Debian at debian.org/users/#com. And some companies contribute to Debian as in www.debian.org/News/2013/20130404
Paid support is also available for Debian: Consultants
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raspbian
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Re: Why Redhat is in demand/preferred over Debian

#3 Post by raspbian »

So if had there been no paid support then Debian would have been the preference? What if Debian starts providing such support? I am not in a debate mood, just was curious to think and know once I saw in Wikipedia that they both were released around the same time.

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Re: Why Redhat is in demand/preferred over Debian

#4 Post by kedaha »

raspbian wrote:What if Debian starts providing such support?
It never will.
Red Hat is a commercial linux distribution and it is in business to make money by offering services.
Debian is non-commercial distribution and is not out to make money; the project:
is an association of individuals who have made common cause to create a free operating system.
As detailed at About Debian.
But is Red Hat preferred over Debian? According to one site:
Debian is used by 32.6% of all the websites who use Linux.
whereas Red Hat is used by only 4%. So the topic question should be:
Why is Debian in demand/preferred over Red Hat?
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HuangLao
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Re: Why Redhat is in demand/preferred over Debian

#5 Post by HuangLao »

[quotelWhy is Debian in demand/preferred over Red Hat?[/quote][/quote]

You nailed it! We have to remember that Red Hat's business tactics are similar to the AMA and MD's. Just because you provide the certification, provide the legal framework for an industry and tell people what they can and cannot do, does not make you a better healer or even the best. If the AMA says Chinese Medicine is bunk...then it just is dammit. If Red Hat says swallow this code because its good for GNU/Linux....then grab your cup of water. :wink:

Debian allows alot more freedom and that is what many people prefer.

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thanatos_incarnate
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Re: Why Redhat is in demand/preferred over Debian

#6 Post by thanatos_incarnate »

A community-based problem resolution means more in-house staff, no?

But there are companies that offer support for Debian. I know at least of small ones that do it.

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Re: Why Redhat is in demand/preferred over Debian

#7 Post by Bulkley »

Corporate-think is not always good-think. Corporations tend toward the Bell Curve which is all about mediocrity.

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Re: Why Redhat is in demand/preferred over Debian

#8 Post by HuangLao »

wizard10000 wrote:Look at this from an enterprise standpoint. I spent a bunch of years working for Department of Defense and there you simply can't deploy an operating system that doesn't have paid vendor support available so that pretty much limits your choices to Redhat, SuSE or Ubuntu.

I currently do geek work for a rather large gas and electric utility in the midwestern US and all the Linux instances here are SuSE.

If your business can lose thousands or millions of bucks an hour during an outage you're going to make real sure you have third-level support available. I spent a couple of years as an IT critical incident manager and you'd better believe that if there's *any* hesitation from support teams when resolving an issue we require the support team to engage the vendor.

The business requirement drives the support model. I'm a big supporter of community-based problem resolution, but my shareholders wouldn't be nearly as understanding if stuff's broke and their revenue stream is impacted :)
Never understood this type of rationale. If an IT or Sys Admin. needs to contact a third party for support, then perhaps they are not in the correct field. In house support will always be more secure and understand the systems better then third party. Do you really think RedHat, Suse or Ubuntu care about your company and its systems? They care about selling you contracts and having you upgrade...no different than Windows or Apple in that aspect.

There are plenty of community based GNU/Linux distros that offer all of the same or similar programs as the "paid" distros. So access to programs is not the reason, and sorry but usually internet search and/or forum posts will produce solutions much faster than those paid for subscription service packs. ;)

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Re: Why Redhat is in demand/preferred over Debian

#9 Post by geekosupremo »

HuangLao wrote: If an IT or Sys Admin. needs to contact a third party for support, then perhaps they are not in the correct field.
I don't think it's entirely right to degrade the quality of the Sys Admin because the company wants/needs a support contract. Some of us, point to self, became the sys admin because we know enough, were willing, and no one else was any better. If the company needs a certain software to move forward that is beyond their technical skill of IT to produce but the software vendor is willing to do support it can be a way to keep progress going.

Also in the case of large corporate deployments having a service contract is actually a nice safety net. Say your in office team is good, the best even! But say you have a remote office, in another country. That office doesn't have your IT team, your in house team might be glad to help the remote office, but if they're in a time zone where this is extremely difficult to impossible having an additional group that can support the office is going to be invaluable.

This is not to say that service contracts are "the best", just saying they have a place.

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Re: Why Redhat is in demand/preferred over Debian

#10 Post by HuangLao »

geekosupremo wrote:
HuangLao wrote: If an IT or Sys Admin. needs to contact a third party for support, then perhaps they are not in the correct field.
I don't think it's entirely right to degrade the quality of the Sys Admin because the company wants/needs a support contract. Some of us, point to self, became the sys admin because we know enough, were willing, and no one else was any better. If the company needs a certain software to move forward that is beyond their technical skill of IT to produce but the software vendor is willing to do support it can be a way to keep progress going.

Also in the case of large corporate deployments having a service contract is actually a nice safety net. Say your in office team is good, the best even! But say you have a remote office, in another country. That office doesn't have your IT team, your in house team might be glad to help the remote office, but if they're in a time zone where this is extremely difficult to impossible having an additional group that can support the office is going to be invaluable.

This is not to say that service contracts are "the best", just saying they have a place.
Above post was not meant to degrade anyone, many apologies if anyone felt that way.

Your point is completely understandable.

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Re: Why Redhat is in demand/preferred over Debian

#11 Post by geekosupremo »

HuangLao wrote:Above post was not meant to degrade anyone, many apologies if anyone felt that way.
No worries. :) Just thought I'd offer my point of view from this perspective.

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Re: Why Redhat is in demand/preferred over Debian

#12 Post by Chiefahol »

Here's a radical idea.

Perhaps an outside commercial entity could try offer commercial support for Debian. Donate a small slice of what it makes to the non-profit Debian foundation.

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Re: Why Redhat is in demand/preferred over Debian

#13 Post by dasein »

Chiefahol wrote:Perhaps an outside commercial entity could try offer commercial support for Debian. Donate a small slice of what it makes to the non-profit Debian foundation.
Such an intrepid band of entrepreneurs would end up in direct competition with RedHat. They'd need a metric crap-ton of capital to have the tiniest chance of success. (And even then, they'd probably get creamed.)

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Re: Why Redhat is in demand/preferred over Debian

#14 Post by HuangLao »

Isn't that what Ubuntu/Canonical is/has been trying to do? Or do you mean support for just "pure" Debian?

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Re: Why Redhat is in demand/preferred over Debian

#15 Post by andre@home »

Chiefahol wrote:Here's a radical idea.

Perhaps an outside commercial entity could try offer commercial support for Debian. Donate a small slice of what it makes to the non-profit Debian foundation.
It already exists... know your Debian roots...
https://www.debian.org/consultants/index.en.html
Debian is free software and offers free help through mailing lists. Some people either don't have the time or have specialized needs and are willing to hire someone to either maintain or add additional functionality to their Debian system. The following is a list of people who make at least part of their income from doing paid support for Debian.....

Please note that some consultants donate a portion of their income (derived from Debian) to supporting Debian. This is up to each consultant or company. Of course, this is pointed out to you so that it will hopefully influence your choice ...

The list is provided as is, without any guarantee or endorsement by the Debian Project. Entries are the sole responsibility of the corresponding consultant.

raspbian
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Re: Why Redhat is in demand/preferred over Debian

#16 Post by raspbian »

@HuangLao

AMA & MD?? What do you mean?

@wizard10000

I understand the support part so that means that is the only reason. But it would be quite good to get some certification on Debian to test our skills. Getting certified on one and then using Debian is all together a different story.

I am not sure about the support of Redhat as never took that but MS Pro support is not always good, at times they do take time to solve an issue.

@HuangLao

I guess he means the inhouse support and if they can't resolve in time then need to contact Vendor for immediate resolution to avoid $$ loss

And if a server is down then waiting for a forum reply or searching multiple places over the net could be time consuming and a wrong move can bring more downtime. Lets say if I need to setup a PKI infrastructure for my Organization then I can't rely on a thread:

http://forums.debian.net/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=126606

Though I need to do it for personal experience, as of now so can test, research and ask more. However, for enterprise can pay the Vendor and get things up in timely manner.

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Re: Why Redhat is in demand/preferred over Debian

#17 Post by Head_on_a_Stick »

Ha!

I should probably warn you that I'm just a random spod sitting at home with my laptop, I have no training or expertise in IT :D
deadbang

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Re: Why Redhat is in demand/preferred over Debian

#18 Post by kedaha »

raspbian wrote:...it would be quite good to get some certification on Debian to test our skills.
For the opposite point of view, see, for example Hacker_culture#Ethics_and_principles where such certification might well be included along with other bogus criteria. :wink:
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Re: Why Redhat is in demand/preferred over Debian

#19 Post by Soapm »

I think it has to do with rain, when it rains, a red hat is better than no hat at all...

Felix Carbury
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Re: Why Redhat is in demand/preferred over Debian

#20 Post by Felix Carbury »

The question is why is Red Hat preferred at all by anyone? $350 per year for a workstation computer is outrageous for an individual. Consider an analogy.

If you own a home and the toilet breaks you have to fix it yourself or pay a plummer time and materials as you go to fix it. You have to take a day off from work to let him in. If you rent a home and the toilet breaks you call the landlord and he is responsible for fixing it. You don't even have to be there.

If a company has hundreds of workstations they don't want the responsibility of fixing them when (not if) they break. Some of these consultants make $350 per hour.

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