well, redhat 9 is end of life in MArch 2004, which means redhat will no longer supply updates for it.... Supposedly they have made an updated up2date which will download and install other ( .deb and something else) updates for packages, but still, if you are buying something, don't get redhat 9.

Suse seems pretty good so far, it has lots and lots of packages. Yast2 installer/utility seems really good. The only bitch I have so far is that they do not include mod_proxy with apache which means that when I use it, I need to compile apache from source. That is all well and good(some would argue more secure, though, that only applies if you are diligent about downloading and compiling patched versions, which is much easier to do using redhat up2date(discontinued for 9 in march) or yast2 on suse).