You can also check the manuals etc from hear (no need to login)
https://www.redhat.com/doc
https://www.redhat.com/doc
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Question
How to determine version of RedHat Linux?
I have two servers running two different versions of RedHat Linux. Here is the output from the "cat /etc/redhat-release" and "uname -r" commands for the two servers:
1. a) Red Hat Linux Advanced Server release 2.1AS (Pensacola)
b) 2.4.9-e.38smp
2. a) Red Hat Enterprise Linux ES release 3 (Taroon update 1)
b) 2.4.21-9.ELsmp
When I go to the Red Hat website at redhat.com and look for documentation and manuals, in many places I see the different versions of Red Hat listed as version 7.1, 7.2, 7.3, 8.0, 9.0, etc. I am a bit confused. How does the release and kernel version information from /etc/redhat-release and uname correspond to these versions of 7.1 thru 9.0? How can I determine what manuals and documentation I are appropriate to the versions I am currently running?
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Answers
Redhat 8 and 9 used to be the free downloadable versions of redhat but are obsolete now. The current free versions of redhat are called fedora-core, and the current versin is fedora-core 4. Check the following site for more info on the fedora-core project:
http://fedora.redhat.com/
The 2.1 and 3.0 versions are the enterprise and commercial versions of redhat. 2.1 is just older than 3.0. You'll also notice that the kernel version of 2.1 is older than that of 3.0.
The current version of redhat enterprise version is 4.0
With the commercial version you get yourself support from redhat, so that is mainly what you pay for. Another difference to the free redhat is that all software has long been tested and stable, that on the free version isn't as tested, but may get used in the next version of RH. There is also a clone of the commercial versions of redhat, you can download that from:
http://centos.org
Related information:
Red Hat Enterprise Linux v2.1 and 3.0 were based on pre-Fedora versions of Red Hat.
RHEL 2.1 was based on Red Hat 7.2. 7.2 was considered by many to be one of the most stable releases of Red Hat Linux, with 7.3 showing similar stability, but with many updates.
RHEL 3.0 was based on Red Hat 9. Red Hat 9 was the first version to do away with the dot-release versioning (9.0); version 8.0 was a notoriously bad release, with many things broken.. there was no 8.1, they skipped straight to "9".
Red Hat 9 was the last Red Hat issued "community release", and instead they forked the codebase as the Fedora Project, which is truly community developed and supported, and based RHEL 4.0 on Fedora Core 1.
From RHEL 4 and on, the idea is that the community develops the code-base within the Fedora project, and Red Hat takes a snapshot of that version, trims the package list, tweaks things to be more suitable to an enterprise environment, and ensures that they only package components that they're willing to provide commercial support for.
For the remainder of the life-cycle of that product version, the updates are minor, and they change as little as possible, only fixing critical bugs and security issues. This tends to be a complaint from users, i.e. that it doesn't have the latest version of PHP, MySQL, etc... this is a misunderstanding of the model. The goal, to be suitable for enterprise, is to change as little as possible; you can install all the latest updates, be secure, and not have to worry (as much) about breaking existing applications. To move top the "next generation" of versions, you go to the next major release, e.g. from RHEL 2 to 3, 3 to 4, and 4 to 5.
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by: jleviePosted on 2005-07-10 at 12:26:41ID: 14407883
/etc/redhat-release tells you what release version you have (e.g., Redhat 9.0, RHEL 2.1AS, RHEL 3ES). In this case you have:
RedHat Enterprise Linux 2.1 Advanced Server (Red Hat Linux Advanced Server release 2.1AS (Pensacola))
RedfHat Enterprise Linux 3.0 Enterprise Server (Red Hat Enterprise Linux ES release 3 (Taroon update 1))
The complete documentation set for those is on CD/DVD that you can download from your RHN login at https://rhn.redhat.com.