Red Hat Releases
The following list includes full release versions, only. Typically, betas had their own names, different from that of the release that followed.
Red Hat Linux (RHL)
Version Released Name Last Updated "supported" rhl-0.8 summer 94 Preview rhl-0.9 31 Oct 94 Halloween rhl-1.0 13 May 95 Mother's Day rhl-1.1 Sum.95 Mother's Day+1 rhl-2.0 Fall95 (no name) rhl-2.1 ? Oct 95 (no name) >4 Oct 96 12 mo+ rhl-3.0.3 15 Mar 96 Picasso >4 Oct 96 7 mo+ rhl-3.0.4 ? Aug 96 Rembrandt rhl-4.0 3 Oct 96 Colgate 8 Aug 97 10 mo rhl-4.1 3 Feb 97 Vanderbilt 8 Aug 97 6 mo rhl-4.2 19 May 97 Biltmore 12 Apr 00 35 mo rhl-5.0 1 Dec 97 Hurricane 16 Apr 99 16 mo rhl-5.1 27 May 98 Manhattan 16 Apr 99 11 mo rhl-5.2 2 Nov 98 Apollo 23 Oct 01 36 mo rhl-6.0 27 Apr 99 Hedwig 2 Mar 01 22 mo rhl-6.1 4 Oct 99 Cartman 2 Mar 01 18 mo rhl-6.2 27 Mar 00 Zoot 31 Mar 03 36 mo rhl-7.0 25 Sep 00 Guinness 2 Apr 03 30 mo rhl-7.1 16 Apr 01 Seawolf 31 Dec 03 33 mo rhl-7.2 22 Oct 01 Enigma 31 Dec 03 26 mo rhl-7.3 6 May 02 Valhalla 31 Dec 03 20 mo rhl-8 30 Sep 02 Psyche 31 Dec 03 15 mo rhl-9 7 Apr 03 Shrike 30 Apr 04 13 mo
Red Hat Linux 9 was the end of the RHL product line.
The Two Newer Product Lines
RHEL (né RHAS):
RHL 6.2 (code name "Zoot") was available (during 2000-2002) bundled with commercial support as "v. 6.2E", the company's first official enterprise offering.
In March 2002, a special edition of RHL 7.2 with added proprietary (mostly Java) packages and a bundled support/maintenance contract was released branded as "Red Hat Advanced Server 2.1" (code name Pensacola for the "AS" edition, and then Panama for the cheaper "ES" edition). With the end-of-life announcement for the traditional Red Hat Linux distribution, RHAS was rebranded in 2003 as Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), had its proprietary software [1] packages removed after v. 2.1, and was offered at several different grades of support commmitment (not covered here).
Note that there was no RHEL/RHAS v. 1.x or 2.0 — at least not as publicly available software.
Version Released Name Notes "supported" rhel-2.1AS 26 Mar 02 Pensacola Based on RHL 7.2 >= 5 years rhel-2.1ES 26 Mar 02 Panama Based on RHL 7.2 rhel-3 22 Oct 03 Taroon Based on RHL 9 7 years rhel-3-update1 16 Jan 04 rhel-3-update2 12 May 04 rhel-3-update3 3 Sep 04 rhel-3-update4 12 Dec 04 rhel-3 update5 18 May 05 rhel-3-update6 28 Sep 05 rhel-3-update7 17 Mar 06 rhel-3-update8 20 Jul 06 rhel-3-update9 15 Jun 07 rhel-4 15 Feb 05 Nahant Based on Fedora Core 3 7 years rhel-4-update1 8 Jun 05 rhel-4-update2 5 Oct 05 rhel-4-update3 12 Mar 06 rhel-4-update4 10 Aug 06 rhel-4-update5 1 May 07 rhel-4-update6 15 Nov 07 rhel-4-update7 29 Jul 08 rhel-4-update8 19 May 09 rhel-4-update9 16 Feb 11
RHEL5 changed from the prior ES/AS/WS model to just Client and Server Editions: Server Edition is available either in the default Basic configuration (formerly "ES", and at the same price point) or with the Advanced Platform option (formerly "AS", and at the same price point; supplementing "Basic's" feature set with unlimited virtualisation, RH Cluster Suite, and the GFS cluster filesystem). By contrast, RHEL5 Server Edition's Basic configuration supports max. 4 virtualised guests/instances, max. 2 physical CPUs/sockets, and omits Cluster Suite / GFS.
Client Edition is available either in the default Desktop configuration (supports 1 physical CPU and 4 GB RAM) or with the Workstation option (supports 2 physical CPUs and unlimited RAM). Either of those two Client configurations can either have or omit the "Multi-OS option" (supports 4 virtualized guests/instances).
Entering installation keys near the beginning of RHEL5 installation enables any options to which you have subscribed. I.e., there is a single set of media for the base OS, and premium capabilities for RHEL5 Server Edition's Advanced Platform option or RHEL5 Client Edition's Workstation and/or Multi-OS options get unlocked at installation time by supplying the (purchased) installation keys for those options.
Version Released Name Notes "supported" rhel-5 14 Mar 07 Tikanga Based on Fedora Core 6 7 years rhel-5-update1 7 Nov 07 rhel-5-update2 21 May 08 rhel-5-update3 20 Jan 09 rhel-5-update4 2 Sep 09 rhel-5-update5 30 Mar 10 rhel-5-udate6 13 Jan 11
RHEL6 is the long-term enterprise product, replacing RHEL4 and 5.
Version Released Name Notes "supported"
rhel-6-beta1 21 Apr 10 Santiago Based on Fedora 12 & 13
rhel-6-beta2 30 Jun 10
rhel-6-rc 18 Oct 10
rhel-6 09 Nov 10 128 cores, 2TB RAM, KVM 7 years
improvements, default
ext4, power-saving
features, System Security
Services Daemon, centralised
mgmt of identity, policy,
and audit.
rhel-6.1 19 May 11 Red Hat Enterprise Identity
(IPA), improved support for
network storage, failover
using Red Hat High Availability
Add-On, consistent device naming,
USB 3.0, kernel control groups
rhel-6.2 06 Dec 11 Identity Management, virtualisation
improvements, HA for VMware guests,
iSCSI extension for RDMA
rhel-6.3 21 Jun 12 System Security Services Daemon,
pNFS client, Microsoft Hyper-V
support, KVM virtio-scsi support,
swap on NFS, c-groups improvements,
syslog identity mapping, better
MS-Exchange support in Evolution,
support for newer Wacom tablets.
rhel-6.4 21 Feb 13 pNFS scale-out data access,
improvements to identity management,
VMware and Hyper-V support,
cgroups support, better
MS-Exchange support in Evolution,
support for newer Wacom tablets.
Fedora:
Launched in 2003 as a replacement development platform for RHEL (and in that sense as the successor product to RHL 9), Fedora -- which was called Fedora Core through version 6 (when the Fedora Extras repository was merged into the Core package set) is community-supported and undergoes rapid development.
Version Released Name Notes "supported"
fc-1 6 Nov 03 Yarrow Based on RHL 9 n/a
fc-2 14 May 04 Tettnang 2.6 kernel, SELinux n/a
fc-3 8 Nov 04 Heidelberg Firefox, GRUB n/a
fc-4 13 Jun 05 Stentz OO.o 2, Xen. PPC support n/a
fc-5 20 Mar 06 Bordeaux Mono, yum n/a
fc-6 24 Oct 06 Zod Compiz, AIGLX n/a
f-7 31 May 07 Moonshine Merged in Extras repo n/a
f-8 7 Nov 07 Werewolf IcedTea Java n/a
f-9 13 May 08 Sulphur KDE4, OpenJDK, Firefox3 n/a
f-10 25 Nov 09 Cambridge sectool, AMQP, First Aid n/a
f-11 9 Jun 09 Leonidas VM, desktop improvements n/a
f-12 19 Nov 09 Constantine Theora, virt improvements n/a
f-13 25 May 10 Goddard Nvidia 3D, other n/a
f-14 2 Nov 10 Laughlin Updated Eclipse, Erlang n/a
f-15 24 May 11 Lovelock btrfs, systemd, GNOME3,
LibreOffice, Firefox4 n/a
f-16 08 Nov 11 Verne Kernel 3.1.x n/a
f-17 29 May 12 Beefy Miracle Desktop search, gcc 4.7.x n/a
f-18 15 Jan 13 Spherical Cow Cinnamon/MATE, Samba 4 n/a
f-19 ?? May 13 TBA TBA n/a
See also:
http://fedora.redhat.com/about/rhel.htmlhttp://fedora.redhat.com/about/history/
[1] Two proprietary non-software packages remain, anaconda-images and redhat-logos, which are offered by RH, Inc. under liberal proprietary licences permitting most types of non-commercial usage. Those packages and their trademark-encumbered image-file contents get replaced by open-source equivalents, during the production of 100% open source RHEL rebuilds such as CentOS and Scientific Linux.