I am running production Ubuntu LTS servers, and considering debian for its long lifespan.<br>Certain 3rd-party softwares run only on RPM machines, so for those machines - try Fedora or CentOS. I interviewed once where they used arch linux as production servers. My first distro was mandrake - back when it was a burned copy of RH (4 IIRC) with "mandrake" written across the disk with permanent marker. One place I worked I was administering Redhat 7 & 9, AIX and openVMS.<br>
Get a stable virtual environment running and try a bunch of different distros. <br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Mon, Nov 28, 2011 at 7:31 PM, Bob Toxen <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:transam@verysecurelinux.com">transam@verysecurelinux.com</a>></span> wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex;">I'll second CentOS. For simple servers, such as Firewalls or static web<br>
servers or email, I still prefer Slackware. It is less buggy, same<br>
interface in each release, and they supply security patches as fast as<br>
anyone else and for LONGER per release than anyone else without RH's<br>
obscene license fees.<br>
<br>
RHEL license fees are obscene. They get you only some support and<br>
pretty hat logos (big deal on the hats).<br>
<br>
SuSE's support person was the SOB's SOB and managed to blame SuSE's<br>
failure to honor their support commitments on me to my client. Ptuey!<br>
SuSE won't get any more of my business.<br>
<br>
Bob Toxen<br>
<a href="mailto:bob@verysecurelinux.com">bob@verysecurelinux.com</a> [Please use for email to me]<br>
<a href="http://www.verysecurelinux.com" target="_blank">http://www.verysecurelinux.com</a> [Network&Linux security consulting]<br>
<a href="http://www.realworldlinuxsecurity.com" target="_blank">http://www.realworldlinuxsecurity.com</a> [My book:"Real World Linux Security 2/e"]<br>
Quality Linux & UNIX security and SysAdmin & software consulting since 1990.<br>
Quality spam and virus filters.<br>
<br>
"One disk to rule them all, One disk to find them. One disk to bring<br>
them all and in the darkness grind them. In the Land of Redmond where<br>
the shadows lie...and the Eye is everwatching"<br>
-- The Silicon Valley Tarot Henrique Holschuh with ... Bob<br>
<div class="HOEnZb"><div class="h5"><br>
On Sun, Nov 27, 2011 at 08:46:11PM -0500, Leam Hall wrote:<br>
> Not sure about the MPD stuff but you might look at CentOS. I'm RH<br>
> centric so that would be my call. It also preps you for job experience<br>
> if you want to work in the big business world which is mostly RH.<br>
><br>
> Though I've not used Ubuntu LTS that would normally be my other<br>
> recommendation. I've heard people whose opinions I trust say good things<br>
> about it.<br>
><br>
> Leam<br>
><br>
><br>
> On 11/27/2011 06:15 PM, Joshua Kite wrote:<br>
> > Hi all - it's time I asked for some help. I'm ready for a new server<br>
> > distro.<br>
> ><br>
> > As background, my introduction to Linux was Mandrake. I used to joke with<br>
> > my friends that we needed to start a usergroup for those who refused to<br>
> > compile anything, and Mandrake mostly avoided that. After playing with<br>
> > Knoppix as a desktop for a while I was introduced to Ubuntu and stuck with<br>
> > it until around the time Unity was introduced and performance on my<br>
> > particular configuration became unacceptable. I now use Mint for my<br>
> > desktop and love it.<br>
> ><br>
> > I have continued to use Ubuntu server with good results until today when I<br>
> > upgraded to 11.10 and had yet another upgrade-introduced issue.<br>
> ><br>
> > My needs are relatively simple. I run the following:<br>
> > -SAMBA and NFS<br>
> > -MPD (Music Player Daemon)<br>
> > -Linux Virtualization (virsh)<br>
> > -Completely headless - no X installed or required at any point<br>
> ><br>
> > All of my remaining functionality is running on virtual machines, and I'd<br>
> > like to leave those as-is for now, although I might move them in the<br>
> > future. These include relatively simple tools like Apache and Dansguardian.<br>
> ><br>
> > One of the things I like about about a distribution like Ubuntu is that, in<br>
> > theory, I can run apt-get upgrade and update all of the packages on the<br>
> > system. And, in theory, these have been tested to work together. I always<br>
> > expect a minor issue with an upgrade but not something that prevents the<br>
> > system from successfully booting. What I did not like about Mandrake years<br>
> > ago was the challenge of dependency hell that seemed to come with RPM-based<br>
> > systems of the day. However, at this point I'm open to about anything.<br>
> ><br>
> > My knowledge there are probably four basic choices:<br>
> > -Gentoo (fun, resolves the upgrade issue, but probably overkill)<br>
> > -Fedora/Red Hat based<br>
> > -SuSe based<br>
> > -Debian based<br>
> ><br>
> > I've never worked with any of the "upstream" solutions. Is it time for<br>
> > this technically middle-of-the-road geek to take one of them on? If so,<br>
> > what is the overwhelming recommendation?<br>
> ><br>
> > Thanks,<br>
> ><br>
> > Josh Kite<br>
> ><br>
> ><br>
> ><br>
> ><br>
> > _______________________________________________<br>
> > Ale mailing list<br>
> > <a href="mailto:Ale@ale.org">Ale@ale.org</a><br>
> > <a href="http://mail.ale.org/mailman/listinfo/ale" target="_blank">http://mail.ale.org/mailman/listinfo/ale</a><br>
> > See JOBS, ANNOUNCE and SCHOOLS lists at<br>
> > <a href="http://mail.ale.org/mailman/listinfo" target="_blank">http://mail.ale.org/mailman/listinfo</a><br>
> _______________________________________________<br>
> Ale mailing list<br>
> <a href="mailto:Ale@ale.org">Ale@ale.org</a><br>
> <a href="http://mail.ale.org/mailman/listinfo/ale" target="_blank">http://mail.ale.org/mailman/listinfo/ale</a><br>
> See JOBS, ANNOUNCE and SCHOOLS lists at<br>
> <a href="http://mail.ale.org/mailman/listinfo" target="_blank">http://mail.ale.org/mailman/listinfo</a><br>
_______________________________________________<br>
Ale mailing list<br>
<a href="mailto:Ale@ale.org">Ale@ale.org</a><br>
<a href="http://mail.ale.org/mailman/listinfo/ale" target="_blank">http://mail.ale.org/mailman/listinfo/ale</a><br>
See JOBS, ANNOUNCE and SCHOOLS lists at<br>
<a href="http://mail.ale.org/mailman/listinfo" target="_blank">http://mail.ale.org/mailman/listinfo</a><br>
</div></div></blockquote></div><br><br clear="all"><br>-- <br>This Apt Has Super Cow Powers - <a href="http://sourcefreedom.com">http://sourcefreedom.com</a><br>Advancing Libraries Together - <a href="http://LYRASIS.org">http://LYRASIS.org</a><br>
<br>