Re: [Hampshire] CentOS 5 vs RHEL 5 vs WBEL

On Wed, Jul 11, 2007 at 08:49:19AM +0100, John Cooper wrote:
> Steve Kirk wrote:
> >
> > The problem is that I don't have access to RHEL 5 currently. I've had a
> > look into purchasing a licence, but the 'Server' distro is very
> > expensive (for a private individual anyway) and the 'Desktop' distro
> > doesn't appear to include quite a lot of the server software. So I'm
> > wondering if I can get away with using CentOS or WBEL (along with
> > suitable texts) to help me brush up on the skills required for the
> > RHCT/RHCE certifications? My biggest problem is probably the RedHat
> > specific locations, followed closely by sed and awk usage!
> >
> > Anyone have any ideas on how close these distro are to Red Hat, or
> > alternative ideas regarding getting the skills for the exam?
> >
> >
> Hi Steve, Centos5 is RHEL5 source recompiled (except for a tiny few
> packages which you don't need). It would give you everything you need to
> practice for the exam. As the exam is ~?500 and the whole course with
> the exam ~?1800, I decided to pay for the course rather than failing the
> exam due to unfamiliar hardware/environment. It is an excellent course
> and does help with the exam (assuming you are already have strong Linux
> skills).

Thanks for the info guys. I strongly suspect the combined knowledge of the
LUG would give Google a good run for its money these days ;-)

I am aware that CentOS and WBEL are both compiled from the RH SRPMs. And
that they *should* be pretty much identical. But you never know until you
start hacking, and without an actual copy of RHEL to compare to...but
thanks for letting me know Jon that an Eval version is available. Are the
SRPMs freely available too?

And I'd also just like to say that I don't doubt the quailty of the courses,
but at about 1950GBP inc. VAT, I simply don't have the money. I could
possibly get work to pay for a couple of books, as there are plans afoot
to rebuild the SAN servers on RHEL5. But this course is for me, not for
work, and I'd rather keep it seperate.

Cheers,
Steve