Red Hat Enterprise Linux derivatives are

Linux distributions A Linux distribution (often abbreviated as distro) is an operating system made from a software collection that includes the Linux kernel and, often, a package management system. Linux users usually obtain their operating system by downloading one ...

that are based on the source code of

Red Hat Enterprise Linux Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is a commercial open-source Linux distribution developed by Red Hat for the commercial market. Red Hat Enterprise Linux is released in server versions for x86-64, Power ISA, ARM64, and IBM Z and a desktop version ...

(RHEL).

History

Red Hat Linux Red Hat Linux was a widely used Commercial software, commercial Open-source software, open-source Linux distribution created by Red Hat until its discontinuation in 2004. Early releases of Red Hat Linux were called Red Hat Commercial Linux. R ...

was one of the first and most popular

Linux distribution A Linux distribution (often abbreviated as distro) is an operating system made from a software collection that includes the Linux kernel and, often, a package management system. Linux users usually obtain their operating system by downloading one ...

s. This was largely because, while a paid-for supported version was available, a freely downloadable version was also available. Since the only difference between the paid-for option and the free option was support, a great number of people chose to use the free version.

Red Hat Red Hat, Inc. is an American software company that provides open source software products to enterprises. Founded in 1993, Red Hat has its corporate headquarters in Raleigh, North Carolina, with other offices worldwide. Red Hat has become ass ...

made the decision to split its Red Hat Linux product into two:

for customers who were willing to pay for it, and

Fedora A fedora () is a hat with a soft brim and indented crown.Kilgour, Ruth Edwards (1958). ''A Pageant of Hats Ancient and Modern''. R. M. McBride Company. It is typically creased lengthwise down the crown and "pinched" near the front on both sides ...

that was made available free of charge but gets updates for every release for approximately 13 months. Fedora has its own beta cycle and has some issues fixed by contributors who include Red Hat staff. However, its quick and nonconservative release cycle means it might not be suitable for some users. Fedora is somewhat a test-bed for Red Hat, allowing them to beta test their new features before they get included in Red Hat Enterprise Linux. Since the release of Fedora, Red Hat has no longer made binary versions of its commercial product available free-of-charge.

Motivations

Red Hat does not make a

compiled In computing, a compiler is a computer program that translates computer code written in one programming language (the ''source'' language) into another language (the ''target'' language). The name "compiler" is primarily used for programs that ...

version of its Enterprise Linux product available for free download. However, as the license terms on which it is mostly based explicitly stipulate, Red Hat has made the entire

source code In computing, source code, or simply code, is any collection of code, with or without comments, written using a human-readable programming language, usually as plain text. The source code of a program is specially designed to facilitate the wo ...

available in

RPM Revolutions per minute (abbreviated rpm, RPM, rev/min, r/min, or with the notation min−1) is a unit of rotational speed or rotational frequency for rotating machines. Standards ISO 80000-3:2019 defines a unit of rotation as the dimensionl ...

format via their network of servers. The availability of the complete source code of the distribution in RPM format makes it relatively easy to recompile the entire distribution. Several distributions were created that took Red Hat's source code, recompiled it, and released it.

Features

The Red Hat Enterprise Linux derivatives generally include the union set, which is included in the different versions of RHEL. The version numbers are typically identical to the ones featured in RHEL; as such, the free versions maintain

binary compatibility Binary-code compatibility (binary compatible or object-code-compatible) is a property of a computer system, meaning that it can run the same executable code, typically machine code for a general-purpose computer CPU, that another computer syst ...

with the paid-for version, which means software intended for RHEL typically runs just as well on a free version. Relatively few changes need to be made to the distributions. However, RHEL used to use Red Hat's own

Up2date up2date, also known as the Red Hat Update Agent, is a tool used by older versions of Red Hat Enterprise Linux, CentOS and Fedora Core that downloads and installs new software and upgrades the operating system. It functions as a front-end to th ...

technology for providing updates. For convenience, several of the free alternatives ship with yum replacing up2date, something that makes providing mirrors for upgrades significantly easier. Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 and above releases use yum as their native system for providing updates, with up2date being just its front end.

Legal aspects

Free redistributions are expressly permitted by the

GNU General Public License The GNU General Public License (GNU GPL or simply GPL) is a series of widely used free software licenses that guarantee end users the Four Freedoms (Free software), four freedoms to run, study, share, and modify the software. The license was th ...

upon which Red Hat's distributions are based. However, to avoid misrepresentation of Red Hat's trademark, material in the original distribution covered by the trademark must be stripped off or removed from the redistribution. Where distributions (e.g.,

CentOS CentOS (, from Community Enterprise Operating System; also known as CentOS Linux) is a Linux distribution that provides a free and open-source community-supported computing platform, functionally compatible with its upstream source, Red Hat En ...

) have not been deemed sufficiently thorough in removing references to Red Hat, they have received warnings from

's legal counsel. CentOS received such a notice seeking to have it remove all mention of Red Hat's asserted trademarks from their website and their distribution. CentOS previously referred to Red Hat as the "Upstream Vendor", or more formally as a "Prominent North American Enterprise Linux vendor".

Notable Red Hat Enterprise Linux derivatives

AlmaLinux AlmaLinux is a free and open source Linux distribution, created originally by CloudLinux to provide a community-supported, Deployment environment, production-grade enterprise operating system that is Binary-code compatibility, binary-compatible w ...

– A 100% Community-owned and governed replacement for

developed under the 501(c)(6) non-profit, AlmaLinux OS Foundation. *

Bull A bull is an intact (i.e., not castrated) adult male of the species ''Bos taurus'' (cattle). More muscular and aggressive than the females of the same species (i.e., cows), bulls have long been an important symbol in many religions, includin ...

's XBAS or bullx – (for high-performance computing) *

– (version 7 gets maintenance updates until 2024-06-30) *

ClearOS ClearOS (also known as the ClearOS System, formerly ClarkConnect) is a Linux distribution by ClearFoundation, with network gateway, file, print, mail, and messaging services. History ClearOS is based on CentOS and Red Hat Enterprise Linux, ...

* ClefOS – a port of CentOS for

IBM Z IBM Z is a family name used by IBM for all of its z/Architecture mainframe computers. In July 2017, with another generation of products, the official family was changed to IBM Z from IBM z Systems; the IBM Z family now includes the newest mo ...

by Sine Nomine Associates. *

EulerOS EulerOS is a commercial Linux distribution developed by Huawei for enterprise applications. It was first released on September 24, 2021. Huawei has released a community edition of EulerOS, OpenEuler, along with the source code on Gitee. KunLun M ...

– certified to The Open Group's UNIX 03 standard. * EuroLinux - created by EuroLinux company freely distributed in the open core model. Besides standard paid support company offers forking and rebuilding from sources for special purposes. Previous versions were built on top of Scientific Linux. *

Inspur K-UX Inspur K-UX is a Linux distribution based on Red Hat Enterprise Linux produced by Inspur, a China, Chinese multinational company specializing in information technology. Inspur K-UX 2.0 and 3.0 for x86-64 were officially certified as UNIX systems by ...

– certified to

The Open Group The Open Group is a global consortium that seeks to "enable the achievement of business objectives" by developing "open, vendor-neutral technology standards and certifications." It has over 840 member organizations and provides a number of servi ...

's UNIX 03 standard. *

MIRACLE LINUX MIRACLE LINUX is a Red Hat Enterprise Linux-based commercial Linux distribution in Japan, developed and supported by Cybertrust Japan Co., Ltd. MIRACLE LINUX 8.4 is a CentOS 8 compatible distribution. Overview MIRACLE LINUX Corporation, later ...

– an enterprise Linux distribution developed by

Cybertrust Japan CyberTrust was a security services company formed in Virginia in November 2004 from the merger of TruSecure and Betrusted. Betrusted previously acquired GTE Cybertrust. Cybertrust acquired a large stake in Ubizen, a European security services firm ...

. *

Oracle Linux Oracle Linux (abbreviated OL, formerly known as Oracle Enterprise Linux or OEL) is a Linux distribution packaged and freely distributed by Oracle, available partially under the GNU General Public License since late 2006. It is compiled from Red ...

– free to download, distribute and use with public access to the latest errata and patches from the Oracle Linux yum server. Optional paid support subscriptions are available from Oracle. *

Rocky Linux Rocky Linux is a Linux distribution developed by Rocky Enterprise Software Foundation, which is a privately owned benefit corporation that describes itself as a "self imposed not-for-profit". It is intended to be a Downstream (software development ...

– a community-supported replacement for

initiated by CentOS founder Gregory Kurtzer. * Redpesk - a secure embedded Linux targeting industrial connected devices with very long term support make by IoT.bzh *

Scientific Linux Scientific Linux (SL) was a Linux distribution produced by Fermilab, CERN, DESY and by ETH Zurich. It is a free and open-source operating system based on Red Hat Enterprise Linux. This product is derived from the free and open-source software m ...

– (version 7 gets maintenance updates until 2024-06-30) *

SME Server Koozali SME server (also known as the SME Server, formerly e-smith server and gateway) is a Linux distribution based on Red Hat Enterprise Linux and can act a server-only or server and Gateway. Core features include internet services such as HTTP, ...

– made by the Koozali Foundation (version 10 based on CentOS 7 gets maintenance updates until 2024-06-30) * Springdale Linux – formerly PUIAS Linux is a complete operating system for desktops and servers, built by compiling the source packages for Red Hat Enterprise Linux. * VzLinux – made by

Virtuozzo Virtuozzo is a software company that develops virtualization and cloud management software for cloud computing providers, managed services providers and internet hosting service providers. The company’s software enables service providers to offe ...

and optimized to run in containers, virtual machines or on bare-metal servers. * Circle Linux – CircleLinux
/ref> an open source and community-driven distribution aiming for full compatibility. Appliance-oriented derivatives based on RHEL: *

Amazon.com Amazon.com, Inc. ( ) is an American multinational technology company focusing on e-commerce, cloud computing, online advertising, digital streaming, and artificial intelligence. It has been referred to as "one of the most influential economi ...

Amazon Linux AMI – RHEL7 userland with a linux-xen-kernel *

Google Search Appliance The Google Search Appliance (GSA) was a rack-mounted computer device that provided document indexing functionality. The GSA operating system was based on CentOS. The software was produced by Google and the hardware was manufactured by Dell. ...

– derived from CentOS *

VMware VMware, Inc. is an American cloud computing and virtualization technology company with headquarters in Palo Alto, California. VMware was the first commercially successful company to virtualize the x86 architecture. VMware's desktop software ru ...

ESX's Service Console software Distributions which have ceased production or outdated: * CAOS Linux – (multiple lineage) *

Fermi Linux Fermi Linux is the generic name for Linux distributions that are created and used at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab). These releases have gone through different names: ''Fermi Linux'', ''Fermi Linux LTS'', ''LTS'', ''Fermi Linux ...

– a.k.a. Fermi Scientific Linux, derived from Scientific Linux with additional software specific for the

Fermilab Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab), located just outside Batavia, Illinois, near Chicago, is a United States Department of Energy national laboratory specializing in high-energy particle physics. Since 2007, Fermilab has been operat ...

research facilities *

Rocks Cluster Distribution Rocks Cluster Distribution (originally NPACI Rocks) is a Linux distribution intended for high-performance computing (HPC) clusters. It was started by National Partnership for Advanced Computational Infrastructure and the San Diego Supercompute ...

– derived from RHEL (earlier versions) and CentOS (recent releases) * ROSA Enterprise Linux Server * StartCom Enterprise Linux * White Box Enterprise Linux – No formal announcement but no longer actively developed *

Yellow Dog Linux Yellow Dog Linux (YDL) is a discontinued free and open-source operating system for high-performance computing on multi-core processor computer architectures, focusing on GPU systems and computers using the POWER7 processor. The original develope ...

References

External links

Revisiting RHEL Clones

{{DEFAULTSORT:Red Hat Enterprise Linux Derivatives Lists of operating systems Red Hat software ru:Категория:Дистрибутивы семейства RedHat