My original plan was to get the hardware with no OS and install CentOS
on it.  When IT got the request they figured it was better to get
something pre-installed.  Thankfully it was Red Hat instead of SUSE
(software patents bad!).

An interesting thought:  Since CentOS is a 99.99% clone of RHEL would
CentOS repositories be a good install source for RHEL?  Don't know but I
may try it.

It has a one year update subscription to the Red Hat Networks.  I have
not found confirmation yet but it appears the RHN "channels" have much
software available in them.  I guess I will see what we can get via that
route before I spend more time hunting when I may not need to do so.

I haven't powered the thing up yet since it arrived sooner than expected
and time is not allocated until next week.

Thanks for all the pointers and comments.

Alan

Gilbert T. Gutierrez, Jr. wrote:
> CentOS 5 is the same as RHEL5 with the proprietary stuff stripped out.
> Their repositories are kept very current with RHELs.  Great free product
> that I have had no problem with when running applications designed and or
> compiled for RHEL.
> 
> Gilbert