I'm getting ready to update my server (uses: vbulletin, mysql, php, perl). I have Redhat on it now but since they got into Fedora, I don't think I want to use that in my server.... any suggestions? I'm looking for something easy to maintain but strong in security. Thanks.

I'm no Linux guru but Mandrake and Suse have always been great to me. They've got nice administration tools built in and they run rock solid.

That's just me though. I use them as a compliment to many networks. I like Mandrake for schools because it looks nice and friendly for others to use. I use Squid Proxy most times on Mandrake. Nice app!

I still want to try out Gentoo but haven't had time yet.

For a server? I'd go with debian or slackware, or even ditch linux and go with FreeBSD. I've said it before and I'll say it again, BSD servers are totally rock solid.

FreeBSD is damn safe and secure!

I agree, go with FreeBSD, otherwise both a debian based distro or gentoo would work nicely due to the ease of updating software.

Either of the following would be good to use imo.
1) FreeBSD
2) Debian
3) SuSE

I never really messed around with BSD but from user-feedback and articles that I've been reading, it's obvious that BSD is the most secure thing to run on a server.

Debian is great cause of Apt. It has packages in the stable and testing mirrors that are 99.9% sure to work and you'll have strictly what you need. You install the base system and install anything afterwards with apt-get.

SuSE, well, it has a pretty installation that people enjoy looking at and it works. It's easy to setup and YaST isn't bad at all. Just make sure that the rpm's that you will be using will install on SuSE (sometimes they can be distro-specific if not mistaken).

But as far as linux distributions go, you could pretty much use almost anything as long as the package managment tool that it provides is reliable (don't need one but it sure makes life easy for admins). Apt and Portage are the two systems that I'd say are reliable as far as linux goes.

Well I used to be a UNIX guy, then a couple of years ago I was a BSD guy and now I'm a Linux guy. I've ran all kinds of servers. FreeBSD is a really fine OS for a server. There are things that are different in BSD than Linux, but its easy to distinguish. Oh yeah and I used to pretty much have to compile everything on my BSD server, but that was a couple of years ago.

Thanks all for the advise. I'm not really not a fan of compiling my own packages but I may be willing to do that if there is no other choice. It would really be nice for some of these packages to make it easier to install and upgrade. I think it would really bring Linux more into the mainstream (desktop). It would also be nice to get a distro that would keep up to date with tech instead of having to upgrade all the time to the newest version of things (or at least semi new).

I agree

Odd, but I think Linux does an excellent job of what you describe. Especially when you compare it to the 'other' significant OS that is in the market.

Most distros come with package managers that already make it easier to install. One of the most popular is APT-get for Debian.

You type apt-get install <program> and it searches the APT repositories online, finds it, downloads and then installs it for you. That's it. Type apt-get upgrade and it will search through your apps and update them (I believe it uses the RPM database on all distros that use apt-get/apt-get port. Type apt-get dist-upgrade and it will upgrade everything else including your distribution's core files.
Some other distros have Apt-get as well with their own APT repositories for that distribution, such as Fedora Core 2 and 3.

Windows isn't even that easy.

You have YUM as well, or even just normal RPM installation and a bunch of other package managers.

Any linux distro will most likely fit your needs for a server. It doesn't make much difference. Its all about freedom and choice.

I'm surprised nobody mentioned: White Box. Its just RedHat Enterprise Linux recompiled without RedHat's trademarks.

But, doesn't that make it not Open Source?
(sorry, inside joke...)

Back on-topic: That is probably the best solution for handling enterprise types of apps. I think almost any flavor of Linux will work well, or the BSD option may be a worthy platform to build from, too!

hahahaha. Yeah it doesn't matter that the source is open, because it isn't open source!

-

BSD is always a good option, especially being arguably the most secure OS on the planet.

Thanks.. I have never been able to install any BSD or Debian on my test server both had hardware incompatibilities, I believe. Although, I'm sure they would have no issues on the server but I'm not installing any server solution that I can't have on my test server. I never had any issues installing any RedHat product. I'll have to check out Whitebox, Thanks.

Obviously I'm gonna say FBSD, then Arch Linux, then, ofcourse, Slack.

I'm partial to FreeBSD :-)

The main reason I like it is because it's easy to administer, and it's stable. Ports allows you to compile from source (more versatile than using binaries) while still making updating your software an easy process. The stability means that I rarely have to do anything at all once the server is up and running. Just a few updates here and there and watch the uptime. I guess I'm lazy

Arch linux, I'm not convinced. I use it on my desktop and it's not as stable as FreeBSD. Things tend to break too often when updating the OS. It's nice to have a workstation with the latest and greatest, but one wouldn't do the same for a server. And arch tends to be a distro that lives on the bleeding edge. Using arch is kind of like using FreeBSD-CURRENT (you'd want to use FreeBSD-STABLE for your server). I'm not saying that you can't make an arch box stable. It's just that it seems to take more work to achieve that.

Debian "stable" tends to use two year old kernels for those that want something that has been tested under every possible condition. It is very conservative. A bit too conservative for my tastes.

Debian "testing" (i.e. Sarge) uses still a somewhat older kernel but it has far better hardware support than "stable". Personally, I'd consider Debian "testing" to use as a server for most operations.

Debian also has an "unstable" branch that is good for desktop use. I even find that to be rather stable but it's probably too cutting edge for something important.

If you use a debian based distro, I would go with Ubuntu. My company currently uses Ubuntu on most of our servers. The packages in the Ubuntu repository seem better and it is a little bit easier I think. The plus side of Ubuntu is that it has great auto detection of hardware and best of all, it's debian based.

It's also from the unstable branch. Much like Knoppix, Mepis and the other Debian children.

Ubuntu is Debian. You can use whatever repositories you want. They are usually just mirrors of one another anyway. You can configure Debian to look like Ubuntu and you can configure Ubuntu to look like Debian. It's just a matter of apt-get installing a few packages or apt-get removing a few packages.

Edit:
I know this is an old post (it came up on a Google search) but now that Ubuntu uses Hoary you can't necessarily use non-Ubuntu repositories. Earlier versions of Ubuntu (that used xfree86 rather than x.org) weren't as picky.

Thanks all.. I suppose I should have mentioned that it's an SMP (2 processors).

I'll check out Ubuntu, Thanks.

SMP is fine. You'll just have to recompile a kernel with SMP support, at least I had to with debian sarge.

Mandrake is one of the worst OS's for Server use. Its insecure and horrible.

Just my opinion.

However i have to say Redhat enterprise is good for production use, as it has a large support medium.

However, there are other distros such as freebsd and debian which are great for production use.

Good choices. I'm using Slackware at the moment. I started not to long ago using the distro, and its pretty easy to configure and to use.

Mandrake is geared towards the desktop user and its not really insecure, no more than most distros. I wouldn't personally use Mandrake for a server. Many people use Fedora as a server distro all though its geared towards the desktop just like Mandrake.
Which sense this is a sticky I'll mention Fedora is a more bleeding edge distro than most. And it tries to be. That's good for the desktop market, not for the server market, because the apps aren't as thoroughly tested. I haven't ran into many instability issues though, but I've seen people who have from FC1 - 3.

A downside to FreeBSD is that its a pain to install tomcat on

I'd go with FreeBSD as the best server option. It's well documented, stable, secure and ports is easy to use for package managment. FreeBSD also has jails. For those that don't know about jails, they are secure sandbox areas for some/all of your daemons/services to run without allowing a hacker to gain root access to the box. The hacker could get root to the jail by compromisng a process with an exploit but they can not cause harm to base install once they have gained access to the jail because you can not get access outside of the jail. Only problem with jails is the time it takes to set each one up as its like a new machine.

For linux, i dont know. Package management has always been a bit "rough". Apt-get can you get into some dependency troubles and rpm files are just yucky for dependency based hell as well. I guess i'd have to go with either Gentoo or Slackware for a server install based on linux..

thats my 2 cents anyways..

--pete.

For Linux, Debian or Slackware are probably your best choices for all around features and stablilty.

For UNIX/BSD I have to say OpenDarwin. It has FreeBSD 4.4 and Mach 3.0 blended together using the advanced achitectural design of the Mach kernel with FreeBSD to fill in all the empty space that Mach never acomplished. Fastest OS I have ever used.

Linux is perfect for a webserver with Apache/PHP/MySQL, BSD would be put to better use if your gonna be using all of your server resources on a single task like a really big MySQL server.

I don't see a problem with using fedora on your server, I think its pretty good, but you can always go with gentoo also but you must know how to set it up properly

Go with Debian, FreeBSD or Gentoo ;-)

I think I'm going to use whiteboxlinux (4, when it's released)... as it's RH Enterprise... should be a bit better than a normal linux distro.

I'm using Gentoo on my two servers and it works extremely well! With grsec kernel and several security patches it can be even safer.

Debian

Of course this will steer into commercial satan worshipping and I'll be crucified on a cross but:

SuSE Linux Enterprise Server - if you're a corporate user like me.

Or alternative you can use the normal SuSE boxed product or FTP. With a little customization you can easily roll out servers that are both easy to administer and powerful enough to get the job done.

Pretty much any of the Unix/Linux distros are good - depending on your needs. I think for a straight forward mail/apache with mods server, BSD is the way to go.

Isn't CentOS the same as whitebox?

Yes, as much as they are both Red Hat Linux clones (minus the copyrighted/trademarked logos and wording such as "Red Hat").

I use debian. but slackware is nice

debian with grsecurity and pax.

At my work we use FreeBSD on 90% of our boxes. The other 10% are running old versions of RH (7.0 & 8.0)or Debian 3.1


Thus in my order:
1. Debian
2. Fedora (Server only install, no GUI)
3. Slackware


My biggest pet peeve is that Linux distros need to follow a game plan and not try to be everything (unfortunately my #2 is trying to do that, however the community backing Fedora is huge). Thus trying to have Ubuntu, trying to run Apache, MySQL or PHP is just a joke.

Alright i just got a new laptop and i want to turn my desktop into my networks file server. I want it to be accessed by ftp only, i wanna be able to configure it locally, so i want there to be a GUI. So i was wondering what distro would you suggest? I know a good amount about linux so i'm not a complete linux noob.

Heck, you made it easy on yourself if you already know a good deal about Linux. I've been having all the fun of the learning curve for a few months now. Am really liking this Ubuntu. Click the banner in my sig.

I'm looking for more of a server linux, not like everyday use desktop.

well buddy,

personally, and im admiting it once, and only once. im biased. i only like the best, and in linux, its Gentoo
and that is it.

however, if you're wanting a server distro, that is blazing fast, super secure, and is painless to get going (considering you're an experienced UNIX user, or are a very fast learner).. you want OpenBSD my friend.

OpenBSD, or Gentoo GNU/Linux.
(if you're wanting the speed/functionability of a *BSD, you could easily make the exception of FreeBSD, its great too, espically now that they've ported PF and a few other things over to it from OpenBSD.)

but thats just my two cents. props gee!
-KingPunk

We have a pinned thread, just on this very topic, with people stating what distro they recommend for servers.
http://www.neowin.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=269495

I was thinking FreeBSD, or Debian.

bsd or gentoo

I've heard a lot of good things about gentoo, but i hear it's really hard to install, and for advanced linux users.

In that case, I would recommend Debian. Ubuntu is based on Debian but, as you say, it is more of a desktop implementation.

Debian is a completely volunteer project so there are no worries about ownership. licensing or any associated costs (now or in the future). It is the free-est of the free distros.

It also is very server oriented (so much so that it ticks off a lot of desktop users). Their stable repository is VERY well tested and packages are often a year or so old because they are known to work.

Even their TESTING repository is more tested and stable than most other distros. They also have an UNSTABLE repository for desktop users that are looking for more cutting edge releases.

As always, the real advantage to Debian is the simplicity of apt-get for maintaining the system and the multitude of available packages in the various repositories.

If you don't want Debian then my other choice would be White Hat Linux. It is essentially a pre-compiled rip of RedHat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) with all of RedHat's proprietary tidbits removed. For all intensive purposes, however, it is a free version of RHEL. Due to its simularity to RHEL, it is a good tool to learn to migrate into the corporate world.

For my own business needs, however, I would use Debian. I use TESTING for servers and UNSTABLE for home.

no and no. its for people that can read. im not trying to be rude but the docs and forums are so helpful in the install process the hardest thing about gentoo is not knowing how to read the manual.

Yeah, I'll move it once this thread has had its 15 minutes.


Well, Gentoo is great for people who don't value their own time. Based on the reverse of that premise, however, it isn't very practical for business.