You are right, next post could be about Fedora & Ubuntu rather than Red hat.

:Vishal

Thanks for your comments.

This entry is meant towards beginners who don’t know what’s the difference between both Ubuntu & Red hat. We haven’t really covered much, after all, it’s a blog & not a book

And yes, DEB is far more superior than RPM for sure. The sheer flexibility & ease which DEB packages allow, is not there in RPM. I have myself been through the experience of RPMs first & then DEB.

:Vishal

Just a couple of FYIs:

It’s “Red Hat” (two words) not “Redhat.”

Red Hat Enterprise Linux is Free as in Free Software - 100% of the software in Red Hat Enterprise Linux is Open Source. Red Hat does charge for support, updates and the like, but please don’t confuse cost with freedom. There are restrictions on some of the copyrighted materials in the distro, but this is because under US law if you don’t protect your copyright you can lose it.

Red Hat has not included lokkit since about 2001. Modern versions of Red Hat Enterprise Linux use system-config-securitylevel and future versions will likely use system-config-firewall.

Comparing Red Hat Enterprise Linux to Ubuntu is really an apples and oranges comparison. Red Hat Enterprise Linux is designed for large enterprise customers who want a very stable distribution with a low rate of change. It is not realistic for enterprise customers to upgrade systems every 6 months. For a more accurate comparison, you might include information about Red Hat’s cutting-edge community distribution, Fedora. It’s a very cool distro, very rapid rate of innovation, tons of very cool features, etc. http://fedoraproject.org

Thanks!
Thomas

You see RPM is lacking a lot of the advanced features that the DEB format requires. For starters, there are no specific repositories that are all inclusive in the RPM world as their is in Ubuntu. MOST of the packages that are in use are packaged in one of the 3 primary repositories, Main, Universe, and Multiverse.

RH users do not enjoy this capability. In order to satisfy dependencies you have to add 3rd party repositories.

Also the DEB packaging has a much better dependency satisfaction layout compared with RPM. I have yet to come across a package that required a dependency that could not be satisfied using Ubuntu.

IMHO, the DEB packaging format is far superior and far easier to manage than that of RPM, but this is only ONE of MANY differences that set Ubuntu well ahead of RH in a number of areas. That is why Ubuntu enjoys being the top-rated distribution and has enjoyed that distinction for well over four years now.