[Sussex] Activating Red Hat Enterprise Linux

[Stephen Williams]

On Mon, 2007-10-15 at 10:38 +0100, Jon Fautley wrote:
> On Thu, 11 Oct 2007 19:40:26 +0100
> "Nico Kadel-Garcia" <nkadel at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> > On 10/11/07, Jon Fautley <jfautley at redhat.com> wrote:
> > >
> > > On Thu, 11 Oct 2007 13:36:34 +0100
> > > Brendan Whelan <b_whelan at mistral.co.uk> wrote:
> > >
> > > > We ordered a RedHat Enterprise Linux license with an HP server
> > > > but it it taking weeks to get the actual number. I therefore
> > > > installed RHEL 5 on a server without using the installation
> > > > number and have how obtained an evaluation number. Does any one
> > > > know how I enter the number into the system? Thanks, Brendan
> > >
> > > Enter the activation code on the RHN website. Details should have
> > > been provided when you got the eval code. Then use rhn_register to
> > > register the system using your RHN account details.
> > >
> > > You could also raise a support case, and hassle HP to get your
> > > activation code over to you ;)
> > 
> > 
> > Yould also use CentOS in the short term, and switch over when the
> > license is available. I've got tools for exactly that purpose if you
> > want them.
> 
> I'd be interested to see how that works.
> 
> Firstly, a bit of background...
> 
> The "CentOS is RHEL" thing is a little misleading. You need to remember
> that one of the really important parts of how a distribution is built
> is the toolchain and build environment used to physically build the
> packages.
> 
> CentOS have a different build environment to Red Hat (because ours is a
> custom-developed, in house solution). As such, I do not believe that
> CentOS can claim "100% Binary Compatibility" with RHEL. Sure, they use
> the same packages (and make a few tweaks), but in terms of how the
> packages are built, that's a whole different story.
> 
> (if you want to see how much difference a different toolchain can make,
> I'm sure there's plenty of Gentoo ricers^Wusers that will be able to
> explain it to you ;)

Oi, none of that Microsoft^WRed Hat monopolisation nonsense here!


> 
> So...
> 
> This leads onto a bigger question - how do your 'migration tools' work?
> If it's just a case of swapping out redhat-release, and installing
> up2date/yum then this isn't going to wash with our support teams, I'm
> afraid. You would need to reinstall *each and every package* on your
> system to move from CentOS to a supported RHEL configuration. Sure, you
> might have a CentOS 'apache' RPM on your system, that's built from
> exactly the same source RPM as the RHEL version, but this is not going
> to be supported by Red Hat because it's been rebuilt. Sorry :(
> 
> Just to explain my position, and where this email is coming from. This
> is not a dig at anyone that wishes to use CentOS over RHEL, or wants to
> migrate from one to the other (it's a damn sight easier to migrate to
> CentOS from RHEL than the other way around).
> 
> Oh, and for any of the conspiracy theorists kicking around, this isn't
> a dig at CentOS either. We love you guys :)
> 
> Just to prevent myself from being fired - the above is my personal
> perception, and may be completely and utterly wrong. Any resemblence
> to any product or person, living or dead, is purely coincidental. May
> contain nuts. Choking hazard: Keep away from children under 36 months.
> Not suitable for pregnant women or men with hair. No rights reserved.
> 
> Cheers,
> 
> /j
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