[CentOS] Is Oracle a real alternative to Centos?

Wed Dec 9 10:18:25 UTC 2020
Rainer Traut <tr.ml at gmx.de>


Am 08.12.20 um 18:54 schrieb Frank Cox:
> Is Oracle a real alternative to Centos?  I'm asking because genuinely don't know; I've never paid any attention to Oracle's Linux offering before now.
>
> But today I've seen a couple of the folks here mention Oracle Linux and I see that Oracle even offers a script to convert Centos 7 to Oracle.  Nothing about Centos 8 in that script, though.
>
> https://linux.oracle.com/switch/centos/
>
> That page seems to say that Oracle Linux is everything that Centos was prior to today's announcement.
>
> But someone else here just said that the first thing Oracle Linux does is to sign you up for an Oracle account.
>
> So, for people who know a lot more about these things than I do, what's the downside of using Oracle Linux versus Centos?  I assume that things like epel/rpmfusion/etc will work just as they do under Centos since it's supposed to be bit-for-bit compatible like Centos was.  What does the "sign up with Oracle" stuff actually do, and can you cancel, avoid, or strip it out if you don't want it?
>
> Based on my extremely limited knowledge around Oracle Linux, it sounds like that might be a go-to solution for Centos refugees.
>
> But is it, really?
>

Yes, it is better than Centos and in some aspects better than RHEL:

- faster security updates than Centos, directly behind RHEl
- better kernels than RHEL and CentOS (UEKs) wih more features
- free to download (no subscription needed):
https://yum.oracle.com/oracle-linux-isos.html
- free to use:
https://yum.oracle.com/oracle-linux-8.html
- massive amount of extra packes and full rebuild of EPEL (same link):
https://yum.oracle.com/oracle-linux-8.html