Hah, yes, however, if a server needs to go up in a rush, I know I can get one up in a relatively short amount of time (at most, an hour) without having to weed out extra packages from the installer (Slackware) or wait for what I need installed to compile or spend forever-and-a-day configuring the system after it boots (Gentoo, FreeBSD, OpenBSD).

It also all depends on what best interfaces with the rest of the infrastructure at work; in which case, many of our servers are running Ubuntu, a few are Windows Server 2008 installs (Exchange - for Blackberry Enterprise Server). I would rather have 20 Ubuntu servers to manage than a plethora of Ubuntu/*BSD/Slackware/Debian/CentOS servers, as our previous infrastructure was.

Furthermore, Linux infrastructure is much easier to sell to a skeptical management when you can use phrases like "long-term support from the vendor" and "automatic security updates without reboots" (thanks to KSplice!). What I had to contend with was a butchered attempt at a Linux infrastructure, from the previous team, who made a lot of weird, illogical and insecure - yet, strangely fanatical - decisions about how they implemented their Linux ecosystem.

I feel your pain on the compile time for FreeBSD. Binary ready to go is indeed nice. Yet other times, however, I've wasted time tracking down strange issues because of some strange tweaks made by package maintainers and found myself wishing for a nice FBSD port like system wherein I could easily pass a flag or two to make and have things seasoned to taste. Ha! Yes, I do want my cake and to eat it too!

Yep. The support and indemnity considerations are a big deal in the enterprise. Those I'm familiar with, however, may have flirted with Ubuntu a bit because it was all the rage but ultimately became fed up with it's inherent bugginess and stuck with RHEL. And there's definitely a lot to be said for minimizing the number of system flavors you need to support.

Sounds like you at least got some good war stories out of the debacle....

Do I ever, and there's still more to come; the decommissioning of their infrastructure still hasn't finished - it's a project my team and I are working on in parallel with our other projects.

Nothing match for RHEL . RHEL the Enterprise King

Minimal Debian or Gentoo would be perfect for a server, as a server doesn't require a GUI. Red Hat also would be nice, if you could afford the price tag (and even if you can't there's always CentOS). However, don't get me started with Oracle. That's the one distro that *never* deserves to go on *any* Linux-based computer, because of Oracle's business tactics (like suing over copyright/patent infringement of something that's GPL to begin with, a clear and present GPL violation).

All these slackware fanboys up in here - of all the choices given the correct answer is either RHEL or CentOS - but I would say another good answer is Solaris or at least it used to be... who knows what oracle will do to it - but currently a minimal Solaris 10 install using ZFS is really nice and in my experience the best reliability out of any OS I have worked with

Yep. But you need to be ready to sell a kidney to afford the support. And you can no longer use it for free without said paid support. I think it's already been made abundantly clear what Oracle intends for Solaris: 1) top 5% of large enterprises are the target market, 2) the rest of us are not worth the time of day to Oracle.

Well when I said Oracle in that post, I meant Oracle EL Anything created by a business that's opposed to FOSS (or for the purpose of exploiting it), even if it is Linux at the core, is just *disgusting*.

yeah, how 'bout that? We're everywhere - there is no escaping - we will not be assimilated

um... Okay I think you're getting a little off-track here. These polls are for open source software (for the most part, with rare exceptions for items like Skype, for example), and primarily, you'll note that most choices are FOSS.

While open source, RH IMNSHO, is most certainly not FOSS - as pointed out below, it isn't even free to use unless you pay and subscribe.

We already know what's going on with Solaris 11. As soon as the usurpation of Sun was in full swing, and not even complete, EllisonCo reverted the "Free" license for Solaris 10 back to non-free.

OpenSolaris (Now, arguably IllumOS), was Open Source, and Free - meaning FOSS.

Because it is GNU/Linux, and perhaps that being the only reason (I don't make these polls, just offer my input), RHEL is listed here - but it ain't FOSS.

Now, CentOS, that's FOSS

And, regarding RHEL, as @gotfw pointed out to you:

So... (heh.) if it's GPL'd, then... I can't distribute it to others and run it for free if I get a copy?

heh. Yeah, buddy!

@ADxD_7, I think we've covered those bases now, although perhaps IllumOS 'should' have been in this poll.

I don't have any argument whatsoever with you on how biotchin' Solaris is - I agree. And aside from not being a subscriber to the rpm camp since Redhat 5.2, I believe either SuSE or CentOS would be the distros I would prefer if the criteria for selection were that of an rpm based distro, but come on man, RHEL is Redmond in the making all over again.

One minor correction here, the heir apparent FOSS successor to OpenSolaris is now arguably OpenIndiana. IllumOS is ON integration, and more akin to the Linux kernel than "distro".

OpenIndiana aims to be an IllumOS based open Solaris distribution. There are others, e.g. Schillix, Belenix, etc., but OI intends to take up the mantle as FOSS continuation of OpenSolaris (the Sun binary distribution - note the absence of a space between Open and Solaris - formerly code named Indiana) and utilizes the IPS packaging system (Schillix, by contrast opts for SRV4).

Despite it's promises, Sun never did reach the holy grail of a true FOSS offering and OpenSolaris contained much closed, proprietary binaries. IllumOS and OI have been working on remedying this and OI has reportedly pretty stable dev release 148 being used in production, with talk of a minimal stable release targeting server use (fewer packages to worry about) being released in very near future. This is not yet IllumOS based, however, and there is also discussion of postponing until after full IllumOS integration, but this would necessitate delaying release some number of months.

Yeah, I know it's not Linux, but hopefully still of use/interest.

Slackware, no doubts!

FOSS doesn't mean free of charge. Even Stallman has said that he wouldn't mind making money with open source software. FOSS means open code that anyone can modify and redistribute.

Look at RHEL for example. Does it have a hefty pricetag? Yes. But, it's also open source, which is why "clones" such as CentOS and Scientific Linux are available free of charge.

When a piece of open-source software requires a fee to use, a free clone will invariably arise.

Rhel

Ya I know.... The company I work for is a Solaris shop and has to pay Oracle per machine since we cannot totally switch to Linux because of SPARC architecture(endianness issues). We are slowly moving to Linux but the distribution has not been decided upon yet, I will be the one to make the decision so it will be CentOS...... or I guess I need to give Slackware a go eh?

I feel your pain! I'm a Solaris lover myself, and we're all left out there twirling in the wind, being treated like rusty windchimes.

If an rpm based distro is required, CentOS would certainly have my vote, but...

When I think in terms of stability, the distros that come to mind are (w/o deference to the BSDs):

• Slackware (official releases)
• Debian (stable)
• CentOS (if it must be an rpm based distro)

When I think in terms of stability while staying in the bleeding edge of technology (In case you believe you can actually have your cake and eat it too):

• Slackware (-current)
• Arch Linux
• Debian (squeeze)