rename (1) is different on Debian vs RH
Crazy! The Debian one is better, of course 
debian-box# rename --help
Unknown option: help
Usage: rename [-v] [-n] [-f] perlexpr [filenames]
vs
rh-box# rename --help
call: rename from to files...
The Debian one is the one that takes standard Perl regexes (and is in fact a simple Perl script).