[ale] Server distro help

[Wolf Halton]

I am running production Ubuntu LTS servers, and considering debian for its
long lifespan.
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.
Get a stable virtual environment running and try a bunch of different
distros.

On Mon, Nov 28, 2011 at 7:31 PM, Bob Toxen <transam at verysecurelinux.com>wrote:

> I'll second CentOS.  For simple servers, such as Firewalls or static web
> servers or email, I still prefer Slackware.  It is less buggy, same
> interface in each release, and they supply security patches as fast as
> anyone else and for LONGER per release than anyone else without RH's
> obscene license fees.
>
> RHEL license fees are obscene.  They get you only some support and
> pretty hat logos (big deal on the hats).
>
> SuSE's support person was the SOB's SOB and managed to blame SuSE's
> failure to honor their support commitments on me to my client.  Ptuey!
> SuSE won't get any more of my business.
>
> Bob Toxen
> bob at verysecurelinux.com               [Please use for email to me]
> http://www.verysecurelinux.com        [Network&Linux security consulting]
> http://www.realworldlinuxsecurity.com [My book:"Real World Linux Security
> 2/e"]
> Quality Linux & UNIX security and SysAdmin & software consulting since
> 1990.
> Quality spam and virus filters.
>
> "One disk to rule them all, One disk to find them. One disk to bring
> them all and in the darkness grind them. In the Land of Redmond where
> the shadows lie...and the Eye is everwatching"
> -- The Silicon Valley Tarot Henrique Holschuh with ... Bob
>
> On Sun, Nov 27, 2011 at 08:46:11PM -0500, Leam Hall wrote:
> > Not sure about the MPD stuff but you might look at CentOS. I'm RH
> > centric so that would be my call. It also preps you for job experience
> > if you want to work in the big business world which is mostly RH.
> >
> > Though I've not used Ubuntu LTS that would normally be my other
> > recommendation. I've heard people whose opinions I trust say good things
> > about it.
> >
> > Leam
> >
> >
> > On 11/27/2011 06:15 PM, Joshua Kite wrote:
> > > Hi all - it's time I asked for some help.  I'm ready for a new server
> > > distro.
> > >
> > > As background, my introduction to Linux was Mandrake.  I used to joke
> with
> > > my friends that we needed to start a usergroup for those who refused to
> > > compile anything, and Mandrake mostly avoided that.  After playing with
> > > Knoppix as a desktop for a while I was introduced to Ubuntu and stuck
> with
> > > it until around the time Unity was introduced and performance on my
> > > particular configuration became unacceptable.  I now use Mint for my
> > > desktop and love it.
> > >
> > > I have continued to use Ubuntu server with good results until today
> when I
> > > upgraded to 11.10 and had yet another upgrade-introduced issue.
> > >
> > > My needs are relatively simple.  I run the following:
> > > -SAMBA and NFS
> > > -MPD (Music Player Daemon)
> > > -Linux Virtualization (virsh)
> > > -Completely headless - no X installed or required at any point
> > >
> > > All of my remaining functionality is running on virtual machines, and
> I'd
> > > like to leave those as-is for now, although I might move them in the
> > > future.  These include relatively simple tools like Apache and
> Dansguardian.
> > >
> > > One of the things I like about about a distribution like Ubuntu is
> that, in
> > > theory, I can run apt-get upgrade and update all of the packages on the
> > > system.  And, in theory, these have been tested to work together.  I
> always
> > > expect a minor issue with an upgrade but not something that prevents
> the
> > > system from successfully booting.  What I did not like about Mandrake
> years
> > > ago was the challenge of dependency hell that seemed to come with
> RPM-based
> > > systems of the day.  However, at this point I'm open to about anything.
> > >
> > > My knowledge there are probably four basic choices:
> > > -Gentoo (fun, resolves the upgrade issue, but probably overkill)
> > > -Fedora/Red Hat based
> > > -SuSe based
> > > -Debian based
> > >
> > > I've never worked with any of the "upstream" solutions.  Is it time for
> > > this technically middle-of-the-road geek to take one of them on?  If
> so,
> > > what is the overwhelming recommendation?
> > >
> > > Thanks,
> > >
> > > Josh Kite
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
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