Centos – What are the “actual” differences between CentOS, RHEL, and OEL

centosredhat

Several applications require a specific release of Linux on which to run, such as RHEL 5 x64, Update 4.

Theoretically, CentOS 5.4 x64 should be exactly the same as the RHEL variant – since the CentOS project endeavours to be 100% binary compatible with RHEL.

Likewise, Oracle Enterprise Linux should be identical – but many applications will fail to work properly when not running on the "proper" distribution.

The cheap fix of just installing the appropriate redhat-release rpm is not always effective either.

Under the hood, what are the real differences between RHEL and the repackaged editions?

Best Answer

Outside of the philosophy between RHEL vs. CentOS it can be many reasons, but I feel the largest components are:

  • Lack of desire to package for another OS (This is a biggie for the likes of Debian)
  • Divergence of available packages results in different versions of key dependencies
  • Divergence of the OS's themselves creates different requirements for ABI (application binary interface) which may be difficult to sidestep
  • Lazy programming
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