What is the Difference Between Oracle Linux and Red Hat Enterprise Linux

The main difference between Oracle Linux and Red Hat Enterprise Linux is that the Oracle Cooperation designed the Oracle Linux mainly for Enterprise and Cloud computing while the Red Hat Inc. designed the Red Hat Enterprise Linux primarily for the commercial market.

Linux is a popular operating system, and the Linux architecture consists of components such as kernel, system libraries, system tools, development tools, and end-user tools. The kernel, which is the heart of the Linux operating system, manages devices, files, memory, and processes. The system libraries help to access kernel features. The user can use the GUI or the command line interface to perform tasks using Linux. There are various Linux distributions, and Oracle Linux and Red Hat Enterprise Level Linux are two of them.  

Key Areas Covered

1. What is Oracle Linux
     – Definition, Functionality
2. What is Red Hat Enterprise Linux
     – Definition, Functionality
3. What is the Difference Between Oracle Linux and Red Hat Enterprise Linux
     – Comparison of Key Differences

Key Terms

Oracle Linux, Red Hat Enterprise Linux

What is Oracle Linux

Oracle Linux is also called Oracle Enterprise Linux. It is a free distribution by Oracle that is available under the GNU General Public License, and it has large community support. Oracle Cloud and Oracle Engineering Systems such as Oracle Exadata uses this Linux version.

Users can download Oracle Linux via Oracle Software Delivery Cloud or from a mirror site. They can build applications, deploy and distribute them without cost. The Oracle Linux Support program provides commercial, technical support covering Oracle Linux, Red Hat Enterprise Linux or CentOS installation.

What is Red Hat Enterprise Linux

Red Hat Enterprise Linux is Red Hat’s Linux distribution. All Red Hat’s official support and training focus on this Linux Platform. The original version of Red Hat Enterprise Linux was Red Hat Linux Advanced Server. The Red Hat rebranded it in 2003 to Red Hat Enterprise Linux AS and added two variants called Red Hat Enterprise Linux ES and Red Hat Enterprise Linux WS.

Even though Red Hat freely provides the source code, it restricts free re-distribution of their officially supported versions of Red Hat Enterprise Linux.  Overall, Red Hat Enterprise Linux is a stable Linux distribution. Furthermore, it provides long-term support.

Difference Between Oracle Linux and Red Hat Enterprise Linux

Definition

Oracle Linux is a Linux distribution packaged and freely distributed by Oracle, available partially under the GNU General Public License since late 2006. Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), in contrast, is a Linux distribution developed by Red Hat and targeted toward the commercial market. Thus, this is the fundamental difference between Oracle Linux and Red Hat Enterprise Linux.

Developer

The developer of Oracle Linux is Oracle cooperation while the developer of Red Hat Enterprise Linux is Red Hat Inc.

Default User Interface

Default user interface is a major difference between Oracle Linux and Red Hat Enterprise Linux. GNOME and KDE are default user interfaces of Oracle Linux while GNOME is the default user interface of Red Hat Enterprise Linux.

License

Also, while Oracle Linux has GNU GPL and various other Licenses, Red Hat Enterprise Linux provides several free software license plus propriety binary blobs.

Package Manager

The package manager is another difference between Oracle Linux and Red Hat Enterprise Linux. Oracle Linux uses RPM Package Manager whereas Redhat uses Yum, PackageKit and RPM package managers.

Main Usage

Another difference between Oracle Linux and Red Hat Enterprise Linux is that the Oracle Linux is mainly used for Enterprise and Cloud computing while the Red Hard Enterprise Linux is mainly used for workstations, mainframes, servers, and supercomputers.

Conclusion

Oracle Linux and Red Hat Enterprise Linux are two Linux distributions. Both are open source and have a monolithic kernel. The main difference between Oracle Linux and Red Hat Enterprise Linux is that the Oracle Cooperation designed the Oracle Linux mainly for Enterprise and Cloud computing while the Red Hat Inc. designed the Red Hat Enterprise Linux primarily for the commercial market.

Reference:

1. Oracle Linux.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 20 Nov. 2018, Available here.
2. “Red Hat Linux.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 18 Nov. 2018, Available here.

Image Courtesy:

1. “OracleLinux” By Strikerttd – Own work (CC BY-SA 3.0) via Commons Wikimedia
2. “RHEL-7-gnome 2014-06-11 17 06 46” By Oracle Linux – Oracle Linux (CC BY 3.0) via Commons Wikimedia