I am seeking information on what the best distro to use for purpose of having a Linux box.

Some Background:
I work for a telecommunications company, and about a year ago I moved into the business support group. I just got promoted to Tier 2, and as a result, I have been given a free a 50x5 internet connection with up to 14 static ip addresses (using a CIDR block) at my home for on call purposes. Now that I have a free internet connection with static IP's I want to (for the sake of learning) host a simple 1-2 page website, a ventrilo server, ftp server, and a mail server.
I want to mount a network directory from a Windows machine onto said Linux box to be shared via ftp.
I want to do this all on Linux, as it is free.
I do not plan on using this box as my daily use machine. I plan to configure it and leave it running.

I am looking to use this as a learning opportunity, as I have heard I have quite a learning experience ahead of me. As someone who has NO WORKING KNOWLEDGE of Linux or any distros, I have purchased a "Linux for Dummies" book that was released in 2010.

What distro would the community recommend for what I plan to use the computer for? I just got my hard drive today, and plan to get started with an OS install tonight.

Thanks!

Hi wulfsburg,

Welcome to LQ!!!

As you will use the machine as a server I would suggest you to go with CentOS. CentOS is an open source distribution which has got a good community support plus it will prepare you for RHEL (Redhat Enterprise Linux). Basically CentOS is rebuild of RHEL.

I would agree with CentOS defiantly one of the best free solution for going down the RPM route. And there is logical ugrade path to RHEL if you ever need serious support.

You did say stability was key. Debian has a hard earned reputation for being solid and stable (many (most) desktop users use the unstable build, as it has more modern packages and is still as stable as most desktop OSs). Debian is APT based, so works slightly differently to CentOS, but both give you smiler functionality.

APT and RPM are package management systems, they are used to install/uninstall/upgrade programs on your system. For a server your package manager is one of the biggest influences when picking a distribution along with the the repositories (which define what software is easily installable). Other considerations when picking a distro are the default GUI(more for desktops) and hardware compatibility(laptops).

If you want to learn it may be worth trying out a few diffrent distros here is a short (certainly not exhaustive list)

->CentOS (as previously recommended)
->Debian (my choice)

->Open SUSE
->Ubuntu (there is a server version, still the most popular with a large albeit mainly desktop user base)
->Gentoo (You like compiling stuff from source right )
->Slackware (Hardcore linux that will teach you more than anything else).

Really any distro will do what you want, just some will have a different way of doing it.

Finally welcome to the Linux world we have lots of choice for your love and enjoyment.

I might suggest opensuse but that is me only. If you want to get wild, I'd suggest Gentoo. Gentoo means you will have to learn a lot.

All of the top 30 or more at www.distrowatch.com may suit your needs.

Some of the turnkey linux systems may suit your needs.

A whole host of pre-made virtual machines exist all over the place. VMware hosts a few hundred or more.

VM's are just download and run type deal. You don't have to learn how to install stuff


For the most part, try a few live cd's and see how you like them. See if they work easily with your systems. Then stick with a few. Don't keep switching. Each distro has quirks that are hard to forget and remember on the next distro.

You can learn with any distro, even the much maligned Ubuntu. But since you are only going to use this as a server, get something that was intended for that. If you get the CentOS DVDs, the installer will give lots of options including "Web server". What more can you want? Other than the knowledge that you'll be using the most popular web-server distro, that is.

NB you do need both the DVDs, as Apache &c are on the second.

Thank you all for the advice. I got my hard drive yesterday, and went with Ubuntu, just to see how easy it can be. I am not going to lie, Ubuntu is really streamlined, and completely automated. I was blown away how hands off it was to get installed. That is great for the level I am at currently. However, I do not have a working knowledge of how to operate the CLI other than moving around directories.

Somehow, I managed to setup a SSH client, so I can access my CLI from work via an SSH session. I have been reading material that covers the very very basics (cd, rmdir , etc), and since this is my very first experience with a Linux CLI, I am lost. I can navigate the GUI with no issues, but I do not plan to really use that at all. Once I familiarize myself with how to install patches, applications, and such, I will probably move to something that is a little more challenging.

I am waiting for a book in the mail that covers how the OS actually works. Growing up I had a pretty good working knowledge of DOS, and its various utilities. I may be waaay off base here, but DOS seems nothing like Linux .

For example, I have downloaded a ventrilo server application, and can modify the ini and log files, but I cannot figure out how to actually launch/use it. :-(

It will all come in time I am sure.