Streamline Your Home Lab with RHEL Virtualization

[@ewenchan1239]

I would NOT trust RHEL with my homelab virtualisation given that they pulled the plug on CentOS, they can pull the plug or put a feature or a function behind some kind of paywall. Absolutely NO to RHEL.

[@scottmcbrien6535]

I'm sorry you feel that way. Even if you're not a RHEL user or don't intend to ever be one, I hope you find the content we make for Into the Terminal informative and practical for whatever distribution you end up choosing. Though I must disagree with the notion of a 'pay wall' as Red Hat has a free Developer for Individuals subscription (developers.redhat.com/articles/faqs-no-cost-red-hat-enterprise-linux) which gives you a subscription for 16 RHEL systems. I routinely talk with the management team for RHEL and they consistently want to increase access to RHEL, not decrease it. Additionally, I would point out that a "bug for bug compatible" rebuild of RHEL is silly. What you're really saying is: "I want RHEL, but won't support the people that actually do all the work to make it happen." Red Hat does TONS AND TONS of work across the open source ecosystem, if you're using any Linux distro for virtualization in your home lab, that KVM you're using is being mainly engineered and maintained by developers at Red Hat. Systemd? Red Hat. Wayland? Red Hat. Pacemaker? Red Hat. Podman? Red Hat. Ansible? Red Hat. There's tons of other examples of this as well. Red Hat freely contributes this work to the community at large where it's used by all sorts of other distros. But a rebuild distribution that in their core tenants state that they will refuse to improve, in any way, the thing on which they are rebuilding sounds very opposite of the community values we espouse in Open Source.

[@ewenchan1239]

@@scottmcbrien6535 "Even if you're not a RHEL user or don't intend to ever be one, I hope you find the content we make for Into the Terminal informative and practical for whatever distribution you end up choosing. " I actually looked into trying to use RHEL for personal/homelab systems. I am not a developer, and therefore; signing up for the "free Developer for individuals" subscription would be, admittedly, a gross misrepresentation (as I am not a developer), and therefore; per the legal terms of the service, I will not qualify. (But I am certain that you can check with your in-house Office of General Counsel for advice about the applicability and enforceability of the terms of service for this subscription as to whether non-developers will be eligible for the "developers for individuals" subscription as you mentioned.) Again, suffice it to say that I did look into trying to get RHEL for personal use, but as of this writing, outside of the "developer for individual" subscription that you mentioned, if you're NOT a developer, then there isn't an option. This is where CentOS filled in that void, which IBM and RedHat, pulled the plug on, by shifting the focus away from CentOS and instead, focus on CentOS Stream in the annoucement that was published on December 8th, 2020. (Source: www.redhat.com/en/blog/centos-stream-building-innovative-future-enterprise-linux?extIdCarryOver=true&sc_cid=701f2000001OH7JAAW) "I routinely talk with the management team for RHEL and they consistently want to increase access to RHEL, not decrease it." If you go to the RHEL website (cf. www.redhat.com/en/technologies/linux-platforms/enterprise-linux), there is LITERALLY not an immediately visible option for personal uses of RHEL. Therefore; given your statement above, the evidence found on the RHEL website LITERALLY does not support your statement above. In fact, the second last question in the FAQ section under "trial" (cf. www.redhat.com/en/technologies/linux-platforms/enterprise-linux/server/trial), literally states: "Can I renew the product trial after it has expired? There are limits to how many product trials are allowed for each product over a given time period. If you need to extend your product trial or request more trials, please contact Red Hat Sales." Again, does not support your statement. For personal/homelab use, pursuant to this response in the FAQ section, this would mean that I would have to contact Red Hat Sales to extend the trial, which doesn't really help quote "increase access to RHEL" and rather, "decrease access to RHEL". (Contacting Red Hat Sales is at least an extra step that I would have to take to extend the trial, vs. CentOS or other distros where I don't have to do anything extra, to keep the system running.) "Additionally, I would point out that a "bug for bug compatible" rebuild of RHEL is silly." CentOS used to have a relatively short lag behind commerical RHEL. And it worked. "What you're really saying is: "I want RHEL, but won't support the people that actually do all the work to make it happen...But a rebuild distribution that in their core tenants state that they will refuse to improve, in any way, the thing on which they are rebuilding sounds very opposite of the community values we espouse in Open Source." LOL...LMAO.... Sorry -- but I have to laugh out loud in regards to this statement. The title of this video is LITERALLY geared towards Home Labbers. Your second sentence in that paragraph, when juxtaposed against the very last sentence in your paragraph, is a little bit paradoxical, at minimum. The nature of open source is that you can download said (open) source code, often times, for free. To your point those, I am aware of and recognise the contributions that Red Hat contributes to the Linux and the open source community as-a-whole. I've seen the reports in terms of the number of commits that are being made, and I recognise that there is a SIGNIFICANT work that Red Hat does, in the open source space. (Last time I looked, it was almost like 40% of the commits comes from Red Hat.) Conversely though, again -- note the target audience that comes directly from the title of this video: Home Lab. Therefore; typically, there is, at least in my view, at least some kind of an implied meaning that Home Labbers typically are of limited financial means. (My current "do-it-all" Proxmox server was purchased for $1100 USD. My mini PC that also runs Proxmox, but also is responsible for running Windows AD DC, DNS, and AdGuard Home -- I bought that system for ~$150.) Thus, to the second sentence in your last paragraph, when you're working with a TOTAL budget of $150 for the mini PC, that doesn't leave a lot of room for financial and/or monetary contributions to support the work that Red Hat does (pursuant to your specific sentence). From the way that you wrote that, I can only surmise that if you aren't comfortable with the reality in terms of what and how Home Labbers use FOSS, then it sounds like that staying out of the Home Lab space may be the better course of action, if that's one of your gripes. I agree that people SHOULD be compensated for their work. There is no disagreement with that. But again, there is always this tension that exists with the open source community, where a LARGE portion are available for free, which results in the developers NOT being compensated for the work that they've put in vs. the principle that people SHOULD be compensated for their work. Again -- the evidence that have before us, shows that Red Hat ended CentOS because they wanted to push people to CentOS Stream, and then ultimately to RHEL, which, again, as I have shown above, have very limited free option (which WASN'T the case with CentOS). In other words, Red Hat wanted money. That's what that move was about. Red Hat took away the free, CentOS option, and wanted people to move into (and pay for) RHEL. Thus, Red Hat "paywalled" the free CentOS option behind the paid RHEL option (again, especially if you're NOT a developer). Thanks for your comment.

[@RedHatEnterpriseLinux]

Thank you for your insights, Scott and Ewan.