Hello to all, im here seeking advice about what current distribution is best for an isp serving dns, web, email etc customers. This is not the good old "what is the best distribution" that newbies ask everytime, i am a seasoned linux administrator that for several reasons i switched to windows servers, now im back as linux admin, my old servers are still running centos 5, ubuntu 12, and i will migrate the services to new hardware.
I'm not up to date about current distributions, what are the good ones?. Googling around i read bad thing about ubuntu, that is going too comercial and phone/tablet oriented, centos 7 and debian jessi run old versions of popular packages, i run powerdns, apache, etc and in their optimizations docs they recommend running recent kernel like 3.7, etc.
What should i use? I like centos better, what about opensuse?
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Hi.My guess, it will get mostly the same answers as opinions tho... free to try.

Ubuntu is based on Debian (my use-to and favorite.) Lot of people are going to Slackware to avoid big changes to (perhaps) the philosophy? (I don't follow it much and have Systemd, works grate.)

Just my , have fun!

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So, ubuntu is not doing crazy things like broke compatibility between versions like centos did with 7 (there is no way to upgrade from 6, you have to reinstall from scratch). Debian is really slow to update their packages, fedora is too cutting edge, any other opinion? i guess i will go ubuntu server 14.04 tls hoping is not too older as debian and not too new as fedora.
ubuntu tls vs centos 7? they both come with systemd by default

Most off the top have different versions e.g: LTS, testing or experimental where you get more packages but at some "risk..." and then the branches ê: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...n_Timeline.svg
or ( -systemd:) https://devuan.org/
or http://distrowatch.com/search.php

when I'm facing what you are, I like downloading as many .iso's as I can, try them live or VM keeping RAM in mind...

so basically you are looking for a server distro?
isn't stability the ultimate requirement?
my recommend is debian stable & centos.
with centos, look for the right version with a very looooong support period. i guess it's centos 7.
it is a redhat clone.

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yes, a server distro, i will give debian stable a try, in this very forums a read horrible things about centos 7, and everybody seems to love debian.
thanks

i find this hard to believe. some examples?

centos is a very good & stable distro, and 100% (i think) redhat compatible.
but without modifications it is not suitable as a desktop multimedia system, and most complaints probably stem from people that do not or refuse to understand that.

Read this thread: http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...ng-4175515002/

I look for a server system, not desktop,
regards

i see.
well, this post here says it is what it is: redhat for free.

but many posters on that thread agree that centos 6.x is extremely good (and still good for 5 more years afaics).

i gathered that, that's why i pointed it out:
redhat or centos, being the distro for enterprise and server stuff, has notoriously poor support for things like multimedia codecs or gaming.
some people just don't get it and bang their head against a wall, trying to install VLC.

the centos 7 issues are the same Gnome3 ISSUES

and the ever present "systemV VS. SystemD "
"multiuser.target" is the new "init 3 "


CentOS or Debian
the "rpm" or "deb" debate

or

install Slackware

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Every year some-one sends out a spider to ask website servers what they're running. Every year, the vast majority that reply say Debian Stable or CentOS, and a few say Ubuntu Server. Go with the majority! As John says, the CentOS problems are with the Gnome desktop, and so not relevant with a server. Actually, with no GUI and a limited amount of software, there can't be a vast difference between those three in daily use. The 10 years' security fixes for CentOS rather than 5 for Ubuntu and 3 for Debian might be the decider for some.