Oracle Linux Reviews

We were using Oracle Linux for moving the SAP on Oracle workloads to the cloud.

Overall Oracle Linux is very good.

The price of Oracle Linux should improve, it is expensive compared to other solutions.

I have been using Oracle Linux for approximately three years.

We have ad a very good experience with Oracle Linux, and we have been happy.

Oracle Linux is in the cloud making it very scalable.

The scalability of Oracle Linux can depend on many factors. We are currently working on a UK project, it changes completely. For those systems, approximately 600 to 800 users work on those SAP systems which are hosted on Oracle Linux.

We are using close to 55 VMs now in our current project.

My colleagues who are junior architects have contacted the support and the feedback has been great.

We switched from Red Hat to Oracle Linux. 

Oracle Linux was not our first choice but it was our company requirement.

Oracle Linux's setup is straightforward. The process was no different for us as compared to Red Hat or SUSE.

The implementation of Oracle Linux was done in-house.

The number of people needed to implement and support Oracle Linux depends on the duration of the project and the number of VMs. In the current project that we're working on, we have close to 60 Oracle VMs and, over a period of four to six months, we did the implementation with one engineer, it is fairly simple.

Oracle Linux license and support are far more expensive than Red Hat or SUSE.

I rate Oracle Linux an eight out of ten.

I like that it's very stable and lightweight and that it requires very little resources.

Performance can always be improved.

We have been using this solution for about ten years.

It's highly stable.

The technical support is good, and I would rate it at eight on a scale from one to ten.

Positive

We were using HP-UX previously, but HP-UX had problems with Oracle. The licensing costs skyrocketed. Also, Oracle stopped supporting databases on Unix. Unix as an operating system seems to have died out; nobody uses it now.

Implementation takes time, but once you have done it, you can forget about it. It's highly stable.

We implemented it ourselves.

We have a yearly license, and I think Oracle charges too much.

I would recommend any Linux product. However, I would prefer Ubuntu Linux because Oracle costs too much.

I would rate Oracle Linux at eight on a scale from one to ten.

We use it for billing and for Oracle applications.

There are several valuable features in Oracle Linux. For example, it's very secure and stable. You don't have to reboot it frequently. You also don't have memory issues, especially when it is engineered with platforms like Exadata and Oracle Cluster. These give you the most throughput and performance.

Oracle Linux performs best on Linux or Unix. However, you cannot get the same performance or stability in Windows.

I've been using Oracle for, maybe, 20 years.

It's very stable and gives you the best performance when it is on Linux and Unix.

It is very scalable, especially on platforms like Oracle Cluster and Exadata.

Technical support has been good.

We switched to Oracle Linux because of its security and stability.

Installation requires a lot of skills and is not easy. An expert is required to handle it.

Depending on the size of the company and the size of the business, no less than two or three people are required for deployment and maintenance. If it's a huge implementation, it would require more staff.

I think that we have a yearly license.

You need skilled people to handle Oracle Linux. It's not easy to find those who are skilled in Linux.

I definitely recommend this solution and would rate it at eight on a scale from one to ten.

We are using Oracle Linux for server systems.

I have been using Oracle Linux for approximately one year.

The stability of Oracle Linux is good.

Oracle Linux is scalable, We have thousands of systems running on it.

We have no plans to increase usage but we are only maintaining what we have.

I would rate the support from Oracle a four out of five.

We have previously used CentOS, which is quite different from Oracle Linux. and Red Hat because we are running Oracle databases.

The initial setup is reasonably straightforward.

We did the implementation of Oracle Linux in-house. We have two people who are supporting this solution.

The price of Oracle Linux is similar to Red Hat. That's the reason why we went, with a combination of CentOS and Red Hat, and then later to all Oracle Linux. We not do not have to maintain two different solutions.

If you choose the support there are additional costs but there are not any other costs.

The price of Oracle Linux overall could be less expensive.

Oracle Linux is very good. Oracle has put a good amount of effort into enhancing it from generic, plain Red Hat Enterprise Linux for Oracle's purposes. The support is good, it is all we asked for.

I rate Oracle Linux a nine out of ten.

We're using Oracle Linux to run virtual machines for their database solutions in the cloud. We're also using Oracle Linux to run an SFTP server.

We have several Oracle Linux 7s that support the databases. We have about ten of those. We have one SFTP server as well. That is the extent of it.

We do a lot of mounts so we can use shared storage. It has a good amount of mount points. I'm just getting very comfortable with it as far as the ACLs and the users go.

I cannot recall any areas that require improvement, or any missing features I have come across. 

Occasionally, we might get an alert to restart our database, and if we don't do it on our own, the system will do it automatically. That can cause downtime issues if your clients aren't expecting it.

I've used the solution for about a year and a half at this point. It hasn't been too long. 

The stability is very good. The databases are all VMs. Sometimes the database might have an underlying condition, hardware condition, and Oracle will send us an alert to tell us to please restart our databases so that they can be moved to another piece of hardware by a certain date. If we don't do it on our own, they will do it. That, however, leaves room for corruption. Also, you run the risk of not telling our customers ahead of time that there might be a little bit of downtime.

The solution can scale up or down easily. You can always scale up, scale down, add more storage, add more memory, that kind of stuff.

Since we have an Oracle cloud subscription and a tenancy, our service requests are answered by tech support from OCI tech support. It's pretty much whatever we need. However, I must say, their tech support usually addresses OCI problems, such as infrastructure problems. When it comes to the Oracle support, you really have to dig and you really have to get on them to actually get it down to the Oracle support. That said, I want to say, so far, so good. I'm happy with the support so far.

Before I worked on Oracle Linux 7, we were on-prem with Red Hat 6 or 7. It might have been Red Hat 6. Everything really just transfers very well as far as the commands and all of that. Oracle Linux 7 is basically Red Hat 7.

When it is in the could, the initial setup is very easy. When it's in the cloud, you just pick a shape and say, "Make me a machine."

What makes each shape different is the number of CPUs. The amount of storage comes with it. 

I'm just an Oracle customer and an end-user.

For those considering the solution, I would say, if you're familiar with Red Hat, there's very little change and the users should just go for it.

As far as dependability and ease of use go, I would rate the solution at an eight out of ten. 

I primarily use the solution for running personal and business applications. 

The performance is good and the solution has been stable. 

The interface is user-friendly.

The initial setup is pretty straightforward. 

The solution could be less costly.

I've been using the solution for quite some time. It's been a few years at this point. 

The solution has been stable. There are no bugs or glitches. It doesn't crash or freeze. The performance is good and it's a reliable product.

We have roughly less than 50 people using the solution in our organization.

I've used technical support in the past. There's not much to say. The support has been fine. 

We did not use a different solution. We've been using the product for many years at this point. 

The initial setup is pretty straightforward. It's not overly complex or difficult. 

I was able to handle the implementation process on my own. I did not need outside assistance. 

We would prefer it if the licensing costs were lowered. 

We pay a yearly licensing fee.

I'd rate the solution at a nine out of ten. The product has been very reliable for me over the years. It has good capabilities. 

Would recommend the solution to other users and organizations.

Oracle Linux is basically Red Hat. It's the same. Oracle took the CentOS project, which is Red Hat, and made its own enhancements. They added something they call 3DBear, which is their proprietary technology. They call it the Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel (UEK).

Oracle took Red Hat, stripped a lot of the software that was not needed for Oracle, which made Red Hat much smaller. They optimized the UEK for their Oracle database applications.

A customer who is planning to have an Oracle database and is looking to see whether to choose to go with Oracle Linux or SUSE Linux or Red Hat, the best option for them would be to go with Oracle Linux because it's the same vendor.

Oracle Linux for Oracle databases is the top. There's no doubt whatsoever. However, if you are going to use it for anything else it's going to be a mess, because many packages will not be supported by Oracle.

For example, I was helping an organization back up various Oracle Linux servers using various kernel versions and various distribution versions. The software that I used for backup requires some packages to be pre-installed into the Oracle Linux machine from the distribution itself, but one of the packages was not available from the Oracle repositories. Because it's a Linux machine, I can manually download this package and install it myself. But the problem with that is that Oracle will void the whole warranty if I install a package from a third-party repository.

If you are going to use Oracle Linux for anything other than running Oracle databases, you will most definitely run into a bottleneck situation in which some packages that are needed, you will not be able to download. And, if you download and install them, you will void your contract, which nullifies the point of you getting Oracle Linux in the first place.

Oracle Linux has a particular use case, not like SUSE, or like Red Hat. 

With SUSE, and Red Hat, you can use them for almost any use case, and you can even install Oracle inside both of them, but you can't do the same with Oracle Linux. 

Oracle Linux is built for Oracle databases. It doesn't make sense for me to get Oracle Linux and install the MySQL database. Even though MySQL is an Oracle product, it doesn't make sense. If I am not going to using Oracle databases then I shouldn't go with Oracle Linux.

Oracle Linux needs to support more packages. I understand that they stripped down CentOS and Red Hat, but Oracle is an organization that will be paying the price of Red Hat making CentOS, CentOS-3 as well.

I understand the idea of making the Linux distribution just optimized for their Oracle database, but I'm not going to get Oracle Linux because it works well only with Oracle products. 

I will most likely have a diverse infrastructure. So instead of going with Oracle Linux, I will go with SUSE Linux or Red Hat. Why? Because Red Hat, for example, has support for many, many packages. Instead of me going to get Oracle Linux for the Oracle database and Red Hat for the remaining workloads, why not get Red Hat from the beginning.

I have been using Oracle Linux for two years. It is still pretty new to me.

I have used Oracle Linux versions 6, 7, and 8.

Oracle Linux is a stable solution. 

When you take Red Hat and strip several applications off of it and optimize it to work with Oracle databases, Oracle Linux is the most stable Linux.

Technical support was great. I didn't deal with them directly. When I had an issue, I was interacting with a team who was administering the Oracle Linux environment, and when we ran into hiccups and we needed support from Oracle, they would initiate a ticket, and Oracle would respond and would provide support.

The installation is comparable to Red Hat, and CentOS. It's not difficult.

In terms of the configuration, it won't take more than 30 minutes to install. 

However, because it's an Oracle Linux, there are Oracle databases involved, which means there are steering committees. There will be complications in the implementation that are not related to the actual installation of the product itself. This will delay it by several days.

In general, I would not recommend this solution, but if you are going to be running Oracle databases, then yes, I would recommend Oracle Linux.

If you are going to be running Oracle-based solutions, or if your data center mainly is controlled by the Oracle Corporation then yes Oracle Linux would be the best choice.

You shouldn't go with Oracle Linux if you're not going to be using Oracle products.

As I am not particularly interested in Oracle, I would rate Oracle Linux a seven out of ten. If however, I was, then I would rate it a ten out of ten.

We use this solution internally to develop our systems.

Our developers work in another section to develop the data center. We provide services to the developers and other business units.

It's a good product, and the areas to improve are quite limited.

The good thing about Oracle Linux is that it's free, as long as you don't want support. If you want the support you have to pay for it.

They don't provide updates.

It could be more secure. They should increase security.

Also, the scalability should be improved.

In the next release, I would like to see it more secure and more usable to adapt to the new technologies that are coming up.

I have been using this solution for two years.

We are using the latest version. We are always updating.

It's a very stable product.

It's a scalable solution. It's basic Linux clustering and high availability. We have approximately 20 users in our organization.

Their support is quite good.

We are satisfied with technical support. There is no need to be improved. There is no need to be faster, more knowledgeable, or customer friendly.

We also use SUSE Linux, Ubuntu Linux, CentOS, and Red Hat Linux.

The installation is quite straightforward.

It takes about an hour to install.

We need a team of two people who concentrate on Oracle Linux.

I am able to complete the installation myself.

Oracle Linux is free, you only pay for support.

If you don't want support you can fully pay for the enterprise solution.

It's cheaper than RedHat. Oracle support is a bit cheaper than Red Hat's support.

Oracle Linux is very cheap at this time. 

I would recommend this solution to others.

I would rate Oracle Linux and eight out of ten.

I am using the solution for a project that I am trying to migrate it to the cloud. My experience with the cloud is at the beginners level. I haven't tested the solution very much yet but according to the published documentation, opinions etc., I see that Oracle Linux is the closest to my needs for future migration to the cloud.

Once installed, the product is good, I like it. The core of the software is really good.

The installation documentation needs to be improved, especially the current installation guide. For example it states that it is needed to format and to store the installation ISO on a DVD, but this is not possible to do in 8.0+ versions, as the ISO files are 7-9GB - greater than 4GB and the regular DVDs do not support it. The actual 8.3 version ISO cannot be put on USB either, as a file  as the setup requires the 9GB ISO also as a file, but this imposes the use of exFAT instead of FAT32, which is not supported by the system boot. Therefore I installed 8.1 from USB, which went just fine and upgraded to 8.3 afterwards with YUM.

My network card is supported by 5.3 kernel (UEK), but not supported by the 4.x RedHat kernel used too, which I had to realize by chance. My video and network cards are not completely supported in the 8.1-8.3 versions, better compatibility with up-to-date hardware is needed. When looking for compatible drivers, there was no clear statement which drivers are supported. Better directions are needed regarding hardware drivers and how to obtain them.

From my experience with Oracle, I completely rely on its documentation and its presence, completeness and reliability was one of the reasons to choose Oracle Linux. The documentation I see worked for 8.1 or 8.2 setups, but not for 8.3. It needs update - Oracle Linux  8.3 changed the installation procedure and doesn't match the documentation. My experience with Oracle is that what is written in the documentation just works. This time it did not help.

The ability to update the look-and-feel of the Desktop UI would be beneficial - the current one is pale to my taste, it is black, grey and white.

They could provide more repositories of tested software, or at least refer to them and comment on their use.

I have been using the solution for less than two weeks.

The solution is stable.

I used CentOS for an year and a half. Now I had the chance to choose my OS considering my plans for cloud development and also the resent concerns about the future support of CentOS, I chose Oracle Linux 8.3

In the 8.1 version, the setup works fine but it is when trying to install from an USB instead of DVD as it is written in the documentation. There were issues with the 8.3 installation - see above.

The installation of version 8.1, however, was good and worked fine. Some my attempts to install compatible drivers for my hardware failed and I had to reinstall the whole OS. The third time doing the install, it only took me one hour, it was easy. I achieved some compromise between up to date video (nouveau instead of Nvidia) and wifi (iwlwifi of Intel) drives and the system now works really fine.

I decided based on my experience with CentOS, Ubuntu, Kali Linux.

I rate Oracle Linux an eight out of ten.

Our organization uses mostly Oracle engineered systems and appliances such as Oracle Exadata, PCA Private Cloud Appliance, Oracle Database Appliance, etc. Anything that is an engineering solution from Oracle, essentially. We also use Oracle Virtualization, OVM. These are on Linux.

Ksplice is the solution's most valuable aspect. Basically, what that allows us to do, is it allows us to patch and update the Kernel without a reboot. To me, that is the most outstanding feature of Oracle Linux.

The pricing is quite good.

The stability is excellent and the initial setup is easy.

Oracle Linux is downstream from Red Hat Linux. This solution has the same pain points. I would probably mention that fleet deployment and management could be improved. 

It would be ideal if they added a faster implementation of the security fixes, if possible.

I've been using the solution since 2010.

The solution is extremely stable. There aren't issues with bugs or glitches. It doesn't crash or freeze. It's reliable.

In terms of adding on features, it's pretty scalable. It's similar to Red due to the fact that it is pretty much adjusted downstream from RHEL.

We have between 50-100 users on the solution at any given time.

I've used support in the past. I'd say it's pretty typical. It's not extraordinary, It's fine.

We switched from Red Hat Linux. Oftentimes I work with the appliances and Oracle engineering systems on hardware and software, which come from Oracle. 

The deployment was not complex. It was very straightforward. How long deployment takes depends on how many OS instances are being implemented. A single OS instance may take about 30 minutes or less. 

I work at an Oracle partner company and assist clients with their implementation in my role as a consultant.

The licensing cost is fairly small. It's pretty much in line with Red Hat licenses. I cannot recall the actual pricing, however, it's my understanding that it's just a few hundred dollars for a CPU core per year. I would just say it's fairly reasonable and low.

 Oracle Linux subscriptions can actually come free if they're purchased with other products.

We're a partner and reseller of Oracle.

I would recommend the solution, especially for the organizations that could be interested in zero downtime patch-ins. That is what the Oracle Linux case flies provide. I don't think the same feature are available in RHEL.

I'd rate the solution eight out of ten.