13 replies to this topic

[alxtsg]

Hi,

I have been using Debian for months on my home server for hosting some web applications. Recently I am interested in Arch Linux because it provides up-to-date packages than Debian does. I played with Arch Linux for a while on virtual machine. I found that there were some changes happened in recent system updates, like this one and this one.

While official work arounds were provided with those changes, may I know if those changes would mean Arch Linux is less stable than Debian (I mean the OS itself)? Or I shouldn't compare Arch Linux and Debian in this way because they have different "release system"?

[Kami-]

Arch is bleeding edge; for enthusiasts. Debian is generally a more stable system for servers.

[pers3us]

Hi,

I have been using Debian for months on my home server for hosting some web applications. Recently I am interested in Arch Linux because it provides up-to-date packages than Debian does. I played with Arch Linux for a while on virtual machine. I found that there were some changes happened in recent system updates, like this one and this one.

While official work arounds were provided with those changes, may I know if those changes would mean Arch Linux is less stable than Debian (I mean the OS itself)? Or I shouldn't compare Arch Linux and Debian in this way because they have different "release system"?

Exactly! Arch often breaks when you do an upgrade. As the packages are very recent, they might work well independently but as a system they might or might not crash.
For servers i would suggest you keep Debian. Its highly effective and very stable.

[cybertimber2008]

I'm not sure if Arch is bleeding edge (I thought Fedora held that title?) but I do know that Arch uses a rolling release, so there is no yearly/bi-yearly release. It's continiously updated. So in that sense I guess it is bleeding edge, but pers3us is right - I have a pogoplug that runs Arch and sometimes when I update and reboot it breaks and then I get the fun of fixing whatever package broke it.

[Max Norris]

Agreed; Arch is nice for desktop use, but for a production server you want stability and durability, not something that's associated with bleeding edge. Stick with a distro that's more suited for that, Debian, an LTS flavor of Ubuntu, RHEL etc. Bleeding edge tends to bring in breakage, bugs, and even potential security flaws that can compromise your server.

[z0phi3l]

The Arch site and repos are all run off Arch servers, if it's good enough for a high traffic site and high capacity repos, I think it can be fine for any server use, as with anything else you don't update a server all willy nilly, you only update after thorough testing or if you absolutely NEED that update

[alxtsg]

Thanks everyone. I will keep my server running Debian. :-)

[08993]

Exactly! Arch often breaks when you do an upgrade. As the packages are very recent, they might work well independently but as a system they might or might not crash.
For servers i would suggest you keep Debian. Its highly effective and very stable.

http://jasonwryan.co...07/19/breakage/

Successfully running a rolling release like Arch, irrespective of your level of competence, means staying in touch with what is happening—in some form or other. Subscribing to the arch-general ML, visiting the forums, idling in IRC; somehow remaining connected to what is going on in the community so that you don’t blindly update one day and wonder why your system is broken.

This strikes me as a real strength; by design Arch encourages its users to participate in the community. Even if you are only lurking, over time you will inevitably find yourself posting in a thread, responding to an email, editing the wiki, adopting an orphaned package—increasingly getting involved and contributing.

I think It's unfair to say that Arch often breaks, you get forewarned months in advance if you take the time to read one of the many resources available to you.

[Farstrider]

Exactly! Arch often breaks when you do an upgrade. As the packages are very recent, they might work well independently but as a system they might or might not crash.
For servers i would suggest you keep Debian. Its highly effective and very stable.

Sorry but ARCH does not break regularly when doing "upgrades", in fact it's so rare, that since I've moved over to it I can quite categorically state that because of the initial premise, it is by far the best distro out there! I check for updates just about every day and just do not have problems that are of any significance at all.

I would recommend that Ubuntu 12.04 LTS 64 Bit Server will be perfect for the job!

[deanrock]

It might not break often, but it's still somewhat bleeding edge. On the other hand, Debian only has stable packages that were thoroughly tested. This might mean that you need a workaround to use latest LAMP, RoR, etc. stack, but it's far more reliable and a better choice for server.

[tiagosilva29]

I'm not sure if Arch is bleeding edge (I thought Fedora held that title?)

Fedora is bleeding edge when compared to its mature brother Red Hat Enterprise Linux, and it's a test-bed for loads of new Red Hat/GNOME dark spells.

ArchLinux is as bleeding edge as a depressed emo kid with a razor going "down the road" while listening to Dashboard Confessional. It's certainly an amusing spectacle to watch, but blood stains are difficult to clean (you need to be well protected/documented) and that watch it from a safe distance as that kid could go nuts and jump on you.

On the other hand, Debian only has assumed stable packages that were assumed to be thoroughly tested.

Fixed that for the truth.

[n_K]

Fedora isn't bleeding edge at all.
Arch is brilliant! I use arch with many custom packages, atm the only problem I've got is with shutting it down it freezes for 5 minutes on unmounting an NFS share (there are none mounted, apparently a kernel bug) but other than that it's been fine.
It's been a BIT of a complete pain in the arse to get updates working, like when /lib was moved to /usr/lib, I had to get PKGBUILDs for many packages, change them and recompile them, plus build a new kernel again that I'd only just built, and the only non-booting problem I've had with it was when I built a kernel and forgot to include BTRFS so my firewall didn't boot anymore! XD - was an easy fix, recompile kernel with BTRFS support, load the firewall up using the arch linux ISO, chroot into the install and do a 'pacman -U linux-x.tar.gz linux-headers-x.tar.gz' and it booted fine.

It's a bit of a tradeoff really, debian uses old stable packages so there's the potential for security flaws to be found and exploited and you won't get any new features until they've been out for quite some time, arch is literally up-to-date with packages as they're released and gives you new features, sometimes removes features (think PHP 5.3 -> PHP 5.4) and might have unknown security holes that aren't known about.

Try them both out with your server setup and see which you prefer, I used to love gentoo but since going to arch, I've found it more up-to-date and easier to use.

[simplezz]

If you've ever tried to a full system upgrade on a non-rolling release distro, then Arch's occasional (they really are quite rare) minor update glitches seem trivial by comparison to that hassle.

[Growled]

Thanks everyone. I will keep my server running Debian. :-)

Good choice. You can't go wrong with a Debian server.