Hi,
Redhat 8.0 instead of 9.0, and see what happens. The Debian distros seem to be better, but since you guys might end up using Linux for commercial purposes (as opposed to hobby purposes,) I'd suggest you carry on with
What's wrong with using Debian for 'commerical' purposes?
Does Debian provide paid support? Not to my knowledge- somebody correct me if I am wrong.
1) In a commercial setting, you often need support on an immediate basis. With a non-commercial distro like Debian, this support is often good (have heard of correct replies coming in within 5 minutes), but not guaranteed. Sometimes it may come in minutes, sometimes in weeks. Besides, the replies may not always be given by a guy who knows what he is talking about.
However, Redhat is a large company (by Linux standards) which has established itself quite well. When you pay it for support (which ofcourse would be valid only for their distro), I have heard that you get pretty good support, in a time-bound manner. The replies are given by systematically trained staff. You might point out some exceptions, like instances when an IRC room yielded a correct respo much, much, faster than Redhat, but these are just exceptions- on an average, you have a better, more stable deal with paid support.
2)This one is dirty and political, but its a fact of life: When something goes wrong in a commercial setting, you gotta find out who is at fault. True, with any Linux Distro, when the system bombs and the management catches hold of you as the sys ad, you cant pin the blame on the software. However, if you have paid support with a distro like say Redhat, then you can redirect _some_ of the blame :-)
Remember guys, we are talking about hard commerce, where accountability and responsibility are key words.
I am aware that I may be starting off a major war. But I wanna say that opinions differ, so just use whatever suits your needs AND your circumstances. Period. And no...I ain't in Redhat's pay :-)
Yours, KZ