Hi All

Right. The situation is that I am 15 years old. I have several boxes, one of which I want to be a server. Keeping in mind that one day, I would like to enter a career using Linux/Unix, I need to choose a distribution for my box.

I think that some sort of Red Hat is the best because most enterprises use Red Hat and any skills I learn now will come in use later on. However, I don't know whether to choose between CentOS and Fedora Core. Fedora Core has the plus that it is cutting edge (and resonably stable?) but CentOS-3 is quite outdated and CentOS-4 isn't going to be about for another a few weeks (or even months). RHEL is off the list as I don't have £299 hanging around.

Some come, on! Opinions and Suggestions for a Server Distro. Tasks for the server:

1. Web Server with LAMP (I would like to try a CMS)
2. Email Server (Probally qmailrocks.org)
3. Groupware for Friends (Probally OPEN-XCHANGE)
4. Samba File Servering

Thanks

Seb

To be honest I'm holding of for Centos 4 for a few upgrades. I don't think it will be too long:
From: http://www.centos.org/modules/news/a...php?storyid=68
On: 2005/2/17 18:27:16
"RC1 - Expected life span is 14 days from Release. Within this time period we expect to move to a Final Release. Unless there are any urgent security issues, there will be no package update provided for RC1."

I am also waiting for CentOS 4.0. I was gonna try Lineox coz they have released version 4.0 but I can't find the torrent on their site.

I have tried CentOS4 Rc1 (and am waiting for the final release).

I find it to be very close to Fedora FC3. I had expected it to lag more behind in the interest of stability over leading edge technology.

Immediately noticable is the 2.6 kernel and the use of lvm as the default partitioning method. All the toys were there like firefox, thunderbird and the gimp.

There were no installation problems and during the moderate test time I had available for testing, there were no crashes or stability problems.

I would still pitch FC3 for desktops, but CentOS would be an excellent choice for a server.

Or maybe just days. ;-)
http://distrowatch.com/?newsid=02412#0

Hrm.. I don't know that I would go so far as to say that 'most' enterprises use Red Hat... Of course red hat is popular... but also expensive.. I might suggest you use something like Slackware or Gentoo.. that way.. you learn the inner-workings of Linux by editing the text files.. not some GUI tool used by only one distribution...

It will take some work to get used to and comfortable with.. but Slackware and Gentoo offer great performance, and are generally more stable than those of redhat disendance.

However, if you are looking for a red hat enterprise linux clone..then go with CentOS, not Fedora..CentOS is a rebuild of RHEL and Fedora Core is a seperate distribution.. and quite unstable..

Well, CentOS 4.0 has been released today, so the wait is over.

CentOS 4 is great. I have it runningn on my server at www.sebpayne.com with OPEN-XCHANGE and Qmailrocks. It is very update and I really like it!

Just a shame that Netcraft won't produce any graphs as it is a 2.6 kernel :-( but I have all the new features :-)

Seb