> one of the nice things about RHEL is you hardly ever have to upgrade major version
This is a huge downside for me. I worked for a remove server management company, and every time I had to work on a new (to us) RHEL4 or RHEL5 server (or CentOS equivalent), it was like pulling teeth. In order to run half the software our clients needed, I had to compile newer versions of daemons, create our own RPM packages, patch and recompile code. RHEL5 didn't even include memcached for crying out loud!
For 'enterprise deployments' I can understand wanting to go with RHEL if you don't know much about server administration and want to make it 'easier' on yourself, but even for basic web apps, most of the software you'll want to use is absent, out-of-date, or incompatible. I can't imagine anyone working for a startup wanting to use it.
This is a huge downside for me. I worked for a remove server management company, and every time I had to work on a new (to us) RHEL4 or RHEL5 server (or CentOS equivalent), it was like pulling teeth. In order to run half the software our clients needed, I had to compile newer versions of daemons, create our own RPM packages, patch and recompile code. RHEL5 didn't even include memcached for crying out loud!
For 'enterprise deployments' I can understand wanting to go with RHEL if you don't know much about server administration and want to make it 'easier' on yourself, but even for basic web apps, most of the software you'll want to use is absent, out-of-date, or incompatible. I can't imagine anyone working for a startup wanting to use it.