posted 14 years ago
Fedora, RHEL, CentOS, WhiteBox (if it's still around) and various other distros are all members of what you might term the "Red Hat family". At least if you keep out of earshot of Red Hat's legal department.
My definition of the "Red Hat family" has 2 major markers:
1 - package management via RPM; the Debian/Ubuntu/Knoppix family, for example uses ".deb" packaging instead.
2 - use of /etc/sysconfig to keep variable data that's used by the initscripts, so that the initscripts themselves don't have to be customized.
Network configuration in particular is very distinct in Red Hat as compared to Debian.
"The same" is a definition that needs context. If you know one member of the Red Hat family, you'll be comfortable with any of the others. On the other hand, that doesn't mean they're identical. Fedora is designed as more or less of a sandbox. It's where the leading-edge stuff gets tried out. RHEL is less volatile, but it has enterprise-level additions suitable for use by medium-to-large business environments.
The secret of how to be miserable is to constantly expect things are going to happen the way that they are "supposed" to happen.
You can have faith, which carries the understanding that you may be disappointed. Then there's being a willfully-blind idiot, which virtually guarantees it.