The IS Enterprise Services Section provide support for Red Hat Linux and its derivatives i.e. Rocky, Oracle Linux, CentOS and Scientific Linux. We are also able to answer general questions about other Linux systems but may not be able to provide the same level of support e.g. Ubuntu.Red Hat LinuxRed Hat Linux is a commercial product and requires licensing. A Red Hat licence provides access to the Red Hat network allowing you to manage your Red Hat services and apply patches. Information Services have dealt with the following company:IT Support Business LtdRocky LinuxAlternatively, if cost is an issue or you need early access to the latest features, there is a community-based supported operating system called Rocky. Information Services would recommend this release for servers and end-user desktop use where critical support cover is not required.Rocky Linux websiteOracle LinuxWe support Oracle Linux for particular database workloads e.g. Oracle or MySQL. Oracle Linux is derivative of Red Hat but it has an alternative kernel that is available as an option that provides for uninterruptible updates to the running kernel. It can currently be run without a commercial support contracts but Oracle will provide support contracts for it if that is required. Oracle Linux websiteUbuntuUbuntu Linux is commonly deployed on desktops and laptops for end-user use. It is now the base distribution used for the LCFG service used in the College of Science and Engineering.Ubuntu Linux websiteCentOSDue to changes in Red Hat, the previous CentOS release will no longer be developed and maintenance of the CentOS 7 releases will end in summer 2024. CentOS Stream, which is based on pre-release Red Hat distributions is available and is now used on the ECDF clusters.Link to the CentOS websiteScientific LinuxScientific Linux was a variant of Red Hat Linux that was been developed and maintained by research institutes and universities predominately working within the high-energy physics community. Due to changes in Red Hat, the Scientific Linux releases are no longer available.It was an almost identical copy of Red Hat, with only some Red Hat tools and images being left out.Scientific Linux was the operating system provided on the ECDF cluster and was used by the College of Science and Engineering as their LCFG distribution. You can find out more about Scientific Linux on the Scientific Linux website.Scientific Linux website This article was published on 2024-10-08