Then I realize that neither ssh nor sshd is installed, so I decide to download them from redhat.com. Oh, but noooo, my system is too old!
In general RedHat is pain in the ass to upgrade. Basically you'll end up reinstalling the whole OS with newer RedHat version.
On the other hand debian (and debian based) distros provide damn robust and logical packaging system and apt-get to download/install/remove packages. To keep my x86-laptop (P120, 48MB ram, 10gig HD) upto date I do 'apt-get update && apt-get upgrade' weekly. No further maintaining is required.
00:16:04 up 232 days, 6:05, 16 users, load average: 0.02, 0.14, 0.16
