Chadley, Good question, and IMHO, not one with a good or simple answer. Red Hat is a major player in the supported Linux world, and is almost the de facto standard. Though with the Novell acquisition of Suse and Ximain, there's a major new player in the supported Linux world. I'm talking big companies that provide traditional support. Now, is traditional-style support really so important in Linux? For the comfort of our bosses, maybe yes. For those that do the work, maybe not so much. While it's convenient to get fixes and support from Red Hat, I can easily do the research to solve my own problems independent of Red Hat if need be. My RHCE certification taught me what I needed to know to manage Red Hat systems, but it all translates pretty well. I can manage Suse systems too, after putting a little effort into YAST. I would strongly suggest that you to learn how to manage Linux systems independent of the major distro tools. Time spent learning how to edit .conf files manually is time very well spent. So, in my humble opinion, I don't think you'll go wrong with either course. I think both solutions are fine. And it may be time for some boss training to the differences between the traditional model of support (big vendor) and the Linux model. Though, any boss that chooses a Linux solution over the alternatives is pretty cool in my opinion. ;-)
