Greetings.
EDIT after giving this some thought.
For a beginner, would it be advised for a new user to purchase RHEL and learn linux from that OS? I currently have Fedora 17 and am studying to specialize in Unix/Linux administration. I'm trying to justify the cost of RHEL since all other flavors are practically free.
You would also use CentOS which is essentially RHEL without the branding. CentOS is free.
Didn't know that. Thanks. I'll research this, but are they any other differences minus the branding? Especially things like tools available?
CentOS is the closest thing to RHEL without using RHEL. Their forum is also very good. They will help you if you need help and are friendly. A lot of there documentation is Red Hat documentation. Many places use CentOS in there test lab or as a secondary server. For example the one of 2 LDAP servers might be a RHEL box and the other is a CentOS server.
And Yes you should learn RHEL.
I hope this helps.