(often abbreviated to '''RHEL''') is a
Linux Distribution produced by
Red Hat and targeted toward the
Commercial market, including
Mainframes . Red Hat commits to supporting each version of RHEL for 7 years after its release. All of Red Hat's official support, all of Red Hat's training and the
Red Hat Certification Program center on the Red Hat Enterprise Linux platform.
New versions of RHEL are released every 18 to 24 months. When Red Hat releases a new version of RHEL, customers may upgrade to the new version at no additional charge as long as they are in possession of a current subscription (i.e. the subscription term has not yet lapsed).
Red Hat's first Enterprise offering (Red Hat Linux 6.2E) essentially consisted of a version of Red Hat Linux 6.2 with different support levels, and without separate engineering.
The first version of RHEL to bear the name originally came onto the market as "Red Hat Linux Advanced Server". In 2003 Red Hat rebranded Red Hat Linux Advanced Server to "Red Hat Enterprise Linux" (RHEL) AS, and added two more variants, RHEL ES and RHEL WS.
Verbatim copying and redistribution of the entire RHEL distribution is not permitted due to trademark restrictions.http://www.onlamp.com/pub/a/onlamp/2005/06/30/esr_interview.html]
As Of 2005 Red Hat distributed four variants of RHEL (AS/ES/WS expansions are unofficial):
- RHEL AS (“Application Server ” or “Advanced Server”) – for mission-critical/enterprise Computer System s.
- RHEL ES (“Edge Server”, “Economy Server”, or “Entry-level Server”) – for supported network servers
- RHEL WS (“Workstation”) – for technical Power-user desktops or high-performance computing
- Red Hat Desktop – for multiple deployments of single-user desktops
There are also "Academic" editions of the Desktop and Server variants. They are offered to schools and students, are less expensive, and are provided with Red Hat technical support as an optional extra. Web support based on number of customer contacts can be purchased separately.
People sometimes mistakenly refer to ES as "
Enterprise Server", in contrast to AS (Advanced Server). This may be because
Novell has a server distribution called
SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES). However, nowhere on its site or in its literature does Red Hat say what AS, ES and WS stand for.
In RHEL 5 there are new editions that substitute former RHEL AS/ES/WS/Desktop:
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- RHEL Advanced Platform (former AS)
- RHEL (former ES)
- RHEL Desktop with Workstation and Multi-OS option
- RHEL Desktop with Workstation option (former WS)
- RHEL Desktop with Multi-OS option
- RHEL Desktop (former Desktop)
Red Hat also announced its Red Hat Global Desktop Linux edition "for
Emerging Markets "
[http://www.linuxtoday.com/news_story.php3?ltsn=2007-08-03-031-26-OP-RH-SW
Originally, Red Hat based RHEL on
Red Hat Linux , but using a much more conservative release cycle. Later versions leveraged technologies from
Fedora which is a community distribution and project that Red Hat sponsors. Roughly every third version of
Red Hat Linux (RHL) or
Fedora forms the basis for a version of RHEL, thus:
- RHL 6.2 → RHL 6.2E
- RHL 7.2 → RHEL 2.1
- RHL 9 → RHEL 3
- FC 3 → RHEL 4
- FC 6 → RHEL 5
See Also: Red Hat Enterprise Linux clones
Originally, Red Hat's enterprise product, then known as ''Red Hat Linux'', was made freely available to anybody who wished to download it, while Red Hat made money from support. Red Hat then moved towards splitting its product line into ''Red Hat Enterprise Linux'' which was designed to be stable and with long-term support for enterprise users and '
Fedora ' as the community distribution and project sponsored by Red Hat. They use trademarks to prevent verbatim copying of Red Hat Enterprise Linux. However, some people found the new products lacking: those who could not afford or did not wish to pay for enterprise-level support but valued the stability and long-term update cycle of the enterprise product.
Since Red Hat Enterprise Linux is based completely on ,
Scientific Linux ,
White Box Enterprise Linux and
Lineox . Oracle Corporation has also recently come out with its own repackaging of Red Hat Enterprise Linux called Oracle Enterprise Linux as part of its
Unbreakable Linux program but does not provide a free mechanism for applying updates without paying a service fee as with Red Hat.
Rebuilds of RHEL are free but do not get any commercial support or consultancy services from Red Hat and lack any software, hardware or security certifications. Also Red Hat services like
Red Hat Network or Red Hat Satellite server, products like Red Hat developer suite are not available for the rebuilds.
See Also: Commercial products based on Red Hat Enterprise Linux
A number of commercial vendors use Red Hat Enterprise Linux as a base for the operating system in their products. The most well-known is the Console Operating System in
VMware ESX Server.
- RHL 6.2E ( Zoot ), 27 March 2000
- RHEL 2.1 AS ( Pensacola ), 26 March 2002
- RHEL 2.1 ES ( Panama ), May 2003
- RHEL 3 ( Taroon ), 22 October 2003
- --- Update 1, 16 January 2004
- --- Update 2, 18 May 2004
- --- Update 3, 3 September 2004
- --- Update 4, 21 December 2004
- --- Update 5, 20 May 2005
- --- Update 6, 28 September 2005
- --- Update 7, 15 March 2006
- --- Update 8, 20 July 2006
- --- Update 9, 15 June 2007
- RHEL 4 ( Nahant ), 15 February 2005
- --- Update 1, 9 June 2005
- --- Update 2, 5 October 2005
- --- Update 3, 7 March 2006
- --- Update 4, 11 August 2006
- --- Update 5, 1 May 2007
- RHEL 5 ( Tikanga ), 14 March 2007
- Linux kernel 2.6.18
- Apache 2.2.3
- PHP 5.1.6
- PostgreSQL 8.1.4
- MySQL 5.0.22
