I’ve been using Linux for a while now, and one thing I’ve noticed is how different the experience can be depending on whether you’re using it for personal projects, development, or managing servers in a business environment. I started with Ubuntu and Arch for my personal setup, but once I got into Enterprise Linux distributions like Rocky, I realized just how much these systems are built for stability and long-term support rather than cutting-edge features.
One of the biggest things that stood out to me is package management and how updates work. While rolling-release distros are fun, I’ve really come to appreciate how predictable and structured package updates are in Rocky Linux. The idea of security patches and software remaining stable over years instead of constantly shifting is something I didn’t really think about when I first started using Linux.
Another thing that caught me off guard was SELinux. I won’t lie—I used to disable it right away because it kept breaking things. But after actually learning how it works, I’ve realized how powerful it is for security. It’s not as scary as I originally thought, and tools like semanage
and audit2allow
have made troubleshooting a lot easier.
Also, if you’re getting into enterprise environments, you’ll probably run into [automation tools like Ansible] at some point. Being able to manage multiple Rocky Linux systems with playbooks has been a game-changer for me. It’s one of those things that makes you wonder why you ever did things manually in the first place.
Anyway, just wanted to share some thoughts on why learning Enterprise Linux is totally worth it. If anyone else made the jump from desktop Linux to working with Rocky, what was the biggest shift for you? Would love to hear your experiences!