I'm still in two minds about this. We have a lot of infrastructure build on RHEL rebuilds and there's no way we're buying enough RHEL licenses to cover it.
I can look at Devian based alternatives but switching is going to be a time consuming process. If Alma and Rocky get this figured out then I'm still tempted to stick where I am. These distributions have been very stable, and I don't need support for them. Even if RedHat don't like this I'm fine with doing it on the basis that they have an obligation to release the source (at least for GPL code).
Tbh you are best off start new projects on Debian, and slowly move your old stuff over. It's linux - the main difference will all be in the package manager and versioning.
It's a bit more than that unfortunately. Changes in conf file location, selinux Vs apparmour etc. There are a lot of little things which can catch you out if you're building something relatively complex.
Linux can and is used on airplanes, flight control systems is not where it lives. There is a layer of abstraction, the auto pilot, which allows for Linux to be used and the safety of flight risks to be mitigated.
I'm one of those rare end-users of Linux (by choice) so I'm not the best when it comes to understanding how to pop a kernel or summon daemons or whatever. But my impression of Linux is that it is adaptable. Rather than relying on proprietary systems locked into vendors, it seems to make sense to shift into a non-proprietary model going forward. But again, I'm not popping any kernels for daemons.
Given the open-source nature of the Linux kernel, it seems that a company could customize it to their needs in order to mitigate the majority of these concerns. Most of this sounds like a corporate shill making excuses rather than giving specific examples of deficiencies in the Linux kernel.
I was in a similar situation; I was a windows power user and I jumped straight into nixos. I do not recommend it for someone completely new to linux.
Having to deal with new concepts and confusing terminology like window/display/login managers, a new file system, bash, desktop environments, etc., and then having to learn nix (my first dive into a functional language), nixpkgs, NixOS, AND all the noise surrounding flakes was incredibly frustrating. After a week I gave up and jumped ship.
I played around with void linux for a bit (followed jake@linux's playlist on YT, it's a fantastic guide), had a blast ricing my desktop, got comfortable running without a desktop environment, then went back to nix a month later. By that point I was familiar enough with linux and just had to learn the nix ecosystem (still difficult, but bearable).
Things started to click, especially once I had read the nix pills in its entirety. Now with my entire system configured with flakes I just can't see myself ever going back :>
I never tried the beginner friendly distros like mint or ubuntu so I can't comment on them, but I was really happy with void. Yes it's doesn't hold your hand, but it very quickly taught me a lot about how everything fits together. I'm sure arch provides a similar experience.
NixOS is a bad choice for a new user. EndeavourOS is okay, but arch-based distros (even ones with nice graphical installers) can get overwhelming for a beginner if an update breaks something and you have to figure out why and fix it, which isn't an irregular occurence for me. Wouldn't recommend tumbleweed for similar reasons.
I think the best mix of easy customizability, beginner-friendliness, and stability are probably offered by fedora and mint, personally.
One I haven’t seen here is Arco Linux. It’s designed as a kind of learning path from getting to know basic Linux concepts to being able to install Arch on your own, so I think it’s a pretty good early choice, tho probably not that good for the first choice.
General recommendation is that you choose something with good community support or at least good documentation. You might also not want a rolling release, because they tend to be more on the unstable side.
Have distro hopped over the years - most recently Manjaro to Fedora to Endeavour, but haven't found the one that's quite perfect for me.
That said, I'd make a few recommendations based on the person I'd be "marketing" to:
New to Linux, looking for polish: Mint
Mint is built off the well-known Ubuntu, polished a step further. It's in my experience the simplest to use and most generally polished of the Linux offerings. The community generally isn't as catered to power users, but if you care more about your time than about customization, I'd recommend Mint.
Looking for Stable/Modern, willing to jump thru a few hoops: Fedora
Fedora has come a long way over the years. It's far more stable, polished, and accessible than ever before. I'd hazard to call it my top recommendation, BUT, third-party software management and installation can be something of a nightmare. COPR is approximately equivalent to the AUR of Manjaro/Endeavour/Arch below, but at this time very obtuse and difficult to learn or work with. Some day you'll want a package that exists in COPR, and that day won't be fun for you.
Need apps you can't find anywhere else: Endeavour/Manjaro
Forget bleeding-edge packages and rolling release - the Arch User Repository (AUR) is hands-down the greatest feature on offer from Arch-based distros. The AUR is a repository of packages created by users that aren't supported by the main repos. If ever there's a time you need a piece of software and you can't find it anywhere else, the AUR's your best bet.
That said, I found/find both Manjaro and now Endeavour to be a little rough around the edges, and the consequence of rolling-release and bleeding-edge software is a system that isn't always working just right.
Looking to learn, straight into the frying pan: Arch
Same benefits and drawbacks of Endeavour/Manjaro above, but if you want to set up your system service-by-service, as lean as you want, Arch is there for you. A great experience if you just need an excuse to "try" putting an OS together piece by piece, even if you don't ultimately keep it in the long run.
Desktop Environments
The great DE debate. Nobody can tell you what's right and wrong here, but I have a few general breakdowns of the "big three". GNOME: If simplicity and elegance is your style. You sacrifice customization potential for cohesion and polish. KDE: Modern. Powerful. Usually polished out the gate. Can be a bit much if you're trying to tweak it tho. My personal choice. XFCE: Less modern, more friendly to lower-end systems.
Red Hat's source code for RHEL (Red Hat Enterprise Linux) was previously publicly accessible, even if you were not a customer. Now only customers may get access to the source code (which is allowed by the GPL since source code only has to be delivered to those who have received binaries generated from it). But there are Linux distributions who use Red Hat's publicly available sources to create RHEL "clones" (in quotation marks because they obviously don't pretend to be RHEL), except without providing the corporate support one would receive for being a RHEL customer. They do have community forums though.
The superficial issue is that those "clone"-distros would have to either purchase a RHEL license or apply to one of Red Hat's other programs to access the sources for their own distro. The actual issue is that Red Hat's terms for being a customer are that they'll kick you out if you use that code to redistribute your own versions of it (or, god forbid, even create a full distro from it).
Since CentOS proper was killed off years ago, many people who wanted a Red Hat compatible server distro but didn't want or need commercial support shifted their systems to the aforementioned other "clone"-distros, which are now in danger of disappearing because of that change.
Is Red Hat legally able to do it? Yes. Is it a dick move? Absolutely. Will it help spread the popularity of RHEL or other Red Hat distros? Absolutely not.
Valve has certainly given linux a boost with the SteamDeck and all the work they've funded to make it a viable gaming platform. I just hope they release SteamOS for all platforms soon, maybe we'll see an uptick in PC pre-builds with SteamOS as an option instead of just Windows.
If you want to do a proper color calibration, lookup “color management” for your distro or desktop environment. You can load an ICC color profile, but you will need a colorimeter or spectrometer to create one.
Are you using services running on the OS, Docker or VMs?
With Docker you can set the Network and have some containers traffic egress on the vpn while others have no WAN or direct access. You can have a container join multiple networks to have the best of both worlds.
With VMs, you can set the network interface
With the OS, you might be able to set network interface for each service, but I don’t know how
I am not exactly sure what you mean by that... But the main advantage is that the command does not have to be executed manually everytime you change something. Instead entr recognizes when something changes and re-executes the command for you.
Ah, you are talking about systemd, wasn't aware of that... I imagine that to be much more complicated for many use cases. E.g. running a unit test (as I describe in the article) isn't something I would use systemd for. Setting up a path and a service seems more complicated than using entr, and it is probably also harder to get to the output as well.
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