[ale] Linux Server distros

[James P. Kinney III]

On Sat, 2006-07-22 at 18:47 -0400, Jim Popovitch wrote:
> So, I've been planning for some new server setups, and thus have been 
> looking at CentOS 4 and Debian Sarge.  I'm pretty familiar with both.  I 
> must say that in general both suck as a _server_ OS.  Particularly 
> because they either don't easily support advanced end hardware (GB 
> interfaces, RAID, etc) as is the case with Debian Sarge.  CentOS 4 
> supports the higher end hardware (x86_64, etc), but it installs a ton of 
> extra crap even on it's "minimal firewall install".  Why would someone 
> want cups, some font/xlibs, nfs, etc. on a firewall?

Centos, as it is based on RedHat, is designed for X based server admin.
The server model thy are after is the same class that the group in
Redmond is after. To get a slim setup with Centos, use the minimal and
post install set iniittab to runlevel 3 and then remove the X packages
with yum group-remove. It is quite possible to get a RedHat derived
system down to a very small footprint on a hard drive.

The other view of this is just turn off the parts you don't want to run.
chkconfig xfs off is a good one to start with.
> 
> Is there a better x86_64 server distro that doesn't require a 1000 post 
> install tricks to make secure, slim, and usable?

yum group-remove will fix most of this. 
> 
> TIA,
> 
> -Jim P.
> _______________________________________________
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> Ale at ale.org
> http://www.ale.org/mailman/listinfo/ale
-- 
James P. Kinney III          \Changing the mobile computing world/
CEO & Director of Engineering \          one Linux user         /
Local Net Solutions,LLC        \           at a time.          /
770-493-8244                    \.___________________________./
http://www.localnetsolutions.com

GPG ID: 829C6CA7 James P. Kinney III (M.S. Physics)
<jkinney at localnetsolutions.com>
Fingerprint = 3C9E 6366 54FC A3FE BA4D 0659 6190 ADC3 829C 6CA7
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