Difference Between Fedora and RedHat

Fedora vs RedHat

RedHat Linux was one of the most popular Linux-based operating systems until 2004 when it was discontinued. However, Red Hat still develops a commercial version of Red Hat called Red Hat Enterprise Linux. Fedora is a free Linux operating system developed by Fedora project community. Fedora is actually sponsored by Red Hat. It is the third most popular Linux-based operating system today.

RedHat

Red Hat Linux was one of the most popular operating systems based on Linux, developed by Red Hat. It was discontinued in year 2004. Its initial version (Red Hat Linux 1.0) was released in 1994. At that time it was known as “Red Hat Commercial Linux”. The popular packing format called RPM Package Manager was used for the first time by Red Hat Linux. The graphical installer called Anaconda (for novice users) introduced by Red Hat Linux has been adapted by some other Linux systems as well. Firewall configuration tool called Lokkit and an automatic tool for hardware discovery and configuration called Kuduz were also introduced by Red Hat. Default encoding for characters was UTF-8 (after Version 8). Native Posix Library was supported starting Version 9. Red Hat has paved the way for other similar Linux distributions such as Mandriva and Yellow Dog. Red Hat Linux 9 was the final release of the series, but Red Hat started developing a Linux version for enterprises called Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), after 2004. However, Red Hat support the Fedora (developed by Fedora project), which is the free version appropriate for the home use. Updates for Red Hat 9 were available through Fedora Legacy project until 2007.

Fedora

As mentioned above, Fedora is a Linux based operating systems developed by Fedora Project community. It is sponsored by Red Hat as well. Behind Ubuntu and Mint, Fedora is the 3rd most popular Linux operating system. Fedora uses RPM package manager (just like Red Hat). It is the most popular among the Linux distributions that uses RPM. It is a free and open source operating system bundled with software, which is ideal for home and personal use. Changes made to Fedora are usually upstream, meaning that they are also applied to all Linux distributions. Fedora’s life cycle is relatively shorter. A new version is released every six months and a version is only supported for 13 months. This can be troublesome for product developers who seek long term support than newest version of software. A very good reason to use Fedora is its support for the PowerPC architecture.

What is the difference between Fedora and Red Hat?

Red Hat is a discontinued Linux distribution by Red Hat, while Fedora is a free Linux based operating system sponsored by Red Hat. Fedora was created when Red Hat Linux was discontinued. Now, Red Hat develops Red Hat Enterprise Linux, which is a commercial version and it is good for large enterprises. However, Fedora is a community based free product, which is suitable for personal desktop use.