I have used various distros over the years for development in Linux.
Currently I work for the USAF and they insist on using RHEL (Red Hat Enterprise Linux). It has some nice support features. If you don't want to purchase RHEL you can use the free clone called CentOS. I use JDK 1.5 and 1.6 with Netbeans. All three were easy to setup.
...
Believe me I hate the thought of paying for Linux but in some cases it makes sense. If you are in a large enterprise environment and need/require the support and certification RedHat is the way to go. Out of all the distros it has the least hassle factor in terms of patching "yum update" is all you need to do. The RedHat network sends you email reminders when your system(s) need patching plus it shows all your systems and when they were last patched. We have 90+ servers and without RedHat management we would need a few extra admins to keep the machines in good shape.
Currently I work for the USAF and they insist on using RHEL (Red Hat Enterprise Linux). It has some nice support features. If you don't want to purchase RHEL you can use the free clone called CentOS. I use JDK 1.5 and 1.6 with Netbeans. All three were easy to setup.
...
Believe me I hate the thought of paying for Linux but in some cases it makes sense. If you are in a large enterprise environment and need/require the support and certification RedHat is the way to go. Out of all the distros it has the least hassle factor in terms of patching "yum update" is all you need to do. The RedHat network sends you email reminders when your system(s) need patching plus it shows all your systems and when they were last patched. We have 90+ servers and without RedHat management we would need a few extra admins to keep the machines in good shape.
Agreed. Also I would like to point out that no OS is free as in beer, as there is always some cost associated with administering it. Paying for linux support is sometimes a wise decision cause it saves you solving a problem that Redhat has already solved for one of it's customers, especially when its some rare problem.




