Package compatibility

Question

I have a home server running Oracle Linux 6, which is very similar to Red Hat and runs a RHEL compatible kernel. My question is, to what extent would packages originally made for other rpm-based distos (eg. Fedora) be compatible with OL6? Also, the repository for OL6 is not large (I'm used to Debian), would it be possible to use a RHEL or Fedora repo as a secondary with OL6?

Answer 1

with RHEL you have to have a paid subscription in order to download packages from their repos. Since you are using OL6, your best bet is to install EPEL, its an extended compatible package addon that works with RHEL,OL,and CentOS. I would avoid adding Fedora built repos as those are not compatible with enterprise OSes.