Re: [PLUG] Lab recommendations

[brent timothy saner via plug <plug@lists.phillylinux.org>]

On 5/10/21 14:01, Ron Mansolino via plug wrote:
> I relocated and now have room to setup a lab PC and am looking for
> recommendations on what to install on it;
> usedtabe you used CentOS if you didn't want to spend on RHEL, but RH has
> EoL'd it, and I'm under the impression
> Fedora is too much of a moving target.

Worth noting that RH did not EOL CentOS. I don't know why people keep
saying that.

RedHat has ended *point releases* for CentOS and switched to rolling
release only for CentOS. They're still maintaining and releasing CentOS,
it just doesn't follow versioned releases. (But worth noting that they
still test all the package updates; it's not bleeding-edge/upstream
parity like Arch or Gentoo.)

If you're doing this for your own research or testing (or don't plan on
deploying a large production env), RHEL offers free licenses:

https://www.redhat.com/en/blog/new-year-new-red-hat-enterprise-linux-programs-easier-ways-access-rhel

Barring that, maybe OpenSUSE? Rocky Linux and the handful of other
distros contending to replace what CentOS previously was are nowhere
near mature enough yet.

> 
> I'm mostly interedted in getting ansible/container/platform experience;
> I have one VPS out in the cloud
> and may consider getting another at linode or whatever to futz around
> with, and while I'm happy with
> Debian/Ubuntu I don't see too many enterprise requirements for those.
> What are the latest toys that the
> cool kids are using these days? Thanks ...
> 

OH, yeah. CentOS (Stream) would be fine for this, but this falls
perfectly within the target purpose of a free RHEL license. I don't
think you'd be able to get RHEL proper on a Linode, though, so it'd be
suited better for your lab machine.

As for Debian, I don't see a whole lot of enterprise deployments of
those, yes. Ubuntu, however, has been steadily targeting the enterprise
space for quite a bit of time and their market share is nothing to
sneeze at. They're still dwarfed by RHEL (in the US) and SUSE (EU,
couple other places), though.

You *will* find some places using specialized distros for their purpose
or distros that allow for that level of specialization (e.g. Gentoo),
but those are by far the minority. You'd be best with CentOS Stream or
RHEL if you're aiming for getting into professional experience.
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