RedHat

From Linux 101

[Redhat], probably the most sucessful commercial distribution.

Unfortunatly due to commercial concerns it has shipped in the past with exploitable software, unfortunatly due to the fact there is no automated updates al-a Windows or apt and that many new and inexperianced system administrators choose RedHat as their first Linux/Unix distribution it has been saddled with the unfortunate nickname RootHat. However it is a good place to start if you want to learn Linux, Mandrake is another newbie friendly distribution - but the owner of this wikki (oPless) prefers Debian

Redhat does have a neat package management system that is used with other distributions called RPM. You can find out how to get more RPMs by clicking HowToFindRpms

//In the interests of being fair this is what the [Redhat] people think about their favorite distribution being called RootHat ...// Taken from [Frequently Asked Questions in #redhat]

First off, its "Red Hat" not "roothat". Calling it anything else will just create unecessary noise. To understand why so much FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt) is spread about Red Hat Linux, one must take into account a few things. Red Hat Linux receives the larger percentage of new system administrators to Linux. Naturally a significantly increased number of server misconfigurations and plain old user-error result in systems being vulnerable to an attack. When a system becomes compromised, the immediate question becomes "What distribution were you running?" and this is where the FUD starts.

To paraphrase an old saw about horses and water: The Red Hat people can lead a person to documentation. But they cannot force the person to read it. ALL of their documentation is well worth reading at least once. Linux is not DOS. Linux is not Windows. Linux is not MacOS of any flavor. (And some argue Linux is not UNIX, with some good justification.) Linux is very powerful, much the same way a .44 magnum is very powerful. Used the wrong way both can hurt your foot, one literally and the other metaphorically.

Whether you like it or not, the moment you place your new system on an open network (and whats more open than the internet?) you are a system administrator. This carries a big set of responsibilities. Expecting that a system will be safe out-of-the-box is naive and more importantly; dangerous. Anyone who claims their distribution is, should be looked at with contempt.