saqman2060 wrote:

CentOS is supported by RedHat and is basically a clone.

CentOS is *NOT* supported by RedHat

In regards to RedHat, use centOS.

They are 100% binary compatible, it doesn't matter which one you use.

Well, it does if you want support: Red Hat!!!

If you are trying for a future job as a Linux engineer or support person, then CentOS or Scientific Linux are very good choices. They are clones of Red Hat Enterprise Linux, the most widely used Linux OS for enterprise Linux systems. As clones, they are basically the same as RHEL, except that the logos and some graphics have been changed, and they use different repositories for package management, although they all use Yum as the package manager. I used CentOS 5 for 3 years, and moved to Scientific Linux 6 at the beginning of this year. FWIW, CentOS is widely used in the financial industry. I spent a couple of years developing risk analysis software for the options industry in Chicago at the CBOE, and most of the back-end server systems for financial trading (stock, derivatives, quantitative/algorithmic) were either CentOS or Fedora (most were CentOS).

P.S. I use Ubuntu on my laptop (both 9.04 and 10.10), but I am moving my laptop to Scientific Linux.