LinuxQuestions.org
Welcome to the most active Linux Forum on the web.
Go Back   LinuxQuestions.org > Forums > Enterprise Linux Forums > Linux - Enterprise
User Name
Password
Linux - Enterprise This forum is for all items relating to using Linux in the Enterprise.

Notices


Reply
  Search this Thread
Old 06-04-2004, 03:19 AM   #1
SilverXXX
LQ Newbie
 
Registered: Mar 2004
Location: Italy
Posts: 8

Rep: Reputation: 0
best web server distro


i must build up a web server and use it with vnc; what is the best freeware distro for this?
 
Old 06-04-2004, 03:24 AM   #2
postmaik
Member
 
Registered: May 2004
Location: @ Lake Constance, Germany
Distribution: FC3, Kernel 2.6.10
Posts: 46

Rep: Reputation: 15
every distro is the best: it's linux! :-)
i would take fedora cause it's easy to install and use. the rest of configuration effort is distro independent and just apache, php, mysql (or whatever) stuff.
 
Old 06-04-2004, 06:12 AM   #3
mrcheeks
Senior Member
 
Registered: Mar 2004
Location: far enough
Distribution: OS X 10.6.7
Posts: 1,690

Rep: Reputation: 52
there is no best distro because if there was one everybody would be using it :-) of course. any of them and maybe the easiest if you are a newbie the rest is about installing apache, vnc,etc... and configure it. (most of the time servers don't run X, you could use ssh to connect and execute commands,etc... on the server)
 
Old 06-07-2004, 01:25 AM   #4
chort
Senior Member
 
Registered: Jul 2003
Location: Silicon Valley, USA
Distribution: OpenBSD 4.6, OS X 10.6.2, CentOS 4 & 5
Posts: 3,660

Rep: Reputation: 76
Ugh, I would never use Fedora in a production environment: Use bleeding edge and you're bound to cut yourself...

Mandrake claims that their version of Apache is much faster because of some special optimizations (seems like every distro claims to be "optimized"), and of course Red Hat is a favorite of many corporations.
 
Old 06-07-2004, 07:13 AM   #5
mrcheeks
Senior Member
 
Registered: Mar 2004
Location: far enough
Distribution: OS X 10.6.7
Posts: 1,690

Rep: Reputation: 52
Quote:
Originally posted by chort
Ugh, I would never use Fedora in a production environment: Use bleeding edge and you're bound to cut yourself...

Mandrake claims that their version of Apache is much faster because of some special optimizations (seems like every distro claims to be "optimized"), and of course Red Hat is a favorite of many corporations.
Like you i would not use fedora, even not mandrake, gentoo, suse or redhat for a server but a bsd or debian or slackware.
 
Old 06-07-2004, 11:46 PM   #6
chort
Senior Member
 
Registered: Jul 2003
Location: Silicon Valley, USA
Distribution: OpenBSD 4.6, OS X 10.6.2, CentOS 4 & 5
Posts: 3,660

Rep: Reputation: 76
Ooops, I just noticed that said "freeware", of which Red Hat is not (you'll definitely want the ability to get security updates).

Like mrcheeks, I would personally not use a full-blown distro like Mandrake for a webserver (although they claim some pretty nice performance numbers for their Apache--you would have to install a very stripped down config of the box since Mandrake is fairly bloated). If it were me, and I had to use Linux, I would probably go with Debian or SuSE (although I haven't looked at SuSE lately). Debian because there's a lot of developer attention, but very stable code base or SuSE because it's being developed by a large and more or less stable company with more resources than most distros.

Of course, I personally would use FreeBSD, but this is Enterprise Linux, so I'll keep those thoughts to myself

Oh by the way, why on earth do you want to allow VNC to a webserver??? SSH seems much safer to me...
 
Old 06-09-2004, 12:12 AM   #7
MS3FGX
LQ Guru
 
Registered: Jan 2004
Location: NJ, USA
Distribution: Slackware, Debian
Posts: 5,852

Rep: Reputation: 361Reputation: 361Reputation: 361Reputation: 361
I would suggest against a bloated distro too. You are just wasting your hardware resources.

Debian and Slackware are server favorites, and for good reason. Look into them.

Last edited by MS3FGX; 06-09-2004 at 01:43 AM.
 
Old 06-10-2004, 11:08 AM   #8
JJX
Member
 
Registered: Mar 2004
Location: Greece
Distribution: Debian
Posts: 351

Rep: Reputation: 31
For servers you need something just for your needs - nothing more eating resources
debian or slackware
 
Old 06-24-2004, 11:53 AM   #9
doublejoon
Member
 
Registered: Oct 2003
Location: King George, VA
Distribution: RHEL/CentOS/Scientific/Fedora, LinuxMint
Posts: 370

Rep: Reputation: 44
Whats wrong with using Fedora?...I thought Linux was Linux. I think It works fine for those who are familiar and comfortable with RedHat and cannot afford the the RH enterprise support.
 
Old 06-24-2004, 02:47 PM   #10
chort
Senior Member
 
Registered: Jul 2003
Location: Silicon Valley, USA
Distribution: OpenBSD 4.6, OS X 10.6.2, CentOS 4 & 5
Posts: 3,660

Rep: Reputation: 76
Quote:
Originally posted by DOUBLEJOON
Whats wrong with using Fedora?...
This was mentioned already. Fedora is "bleeding edge" technology review releases, it's not stable for production environments where you need 99.999% uptime.

Quote:
I thought Linux was Linux.
You're mistaken. "Linux" is only an OS kernel, not a full OS. To make a complete OS you need to have userland utilities and service daemons to actually do the "stuff" that you do with a server. The kernel only handles things like processing packets and sending them to the right place, handling I/O activities, etc...

What is more, most Linux Distributions (distribution is the Linux term for an OS that incorporates the Linux kernel) have actually tweaked their kernel in different ways, so a 2.4.20 Linux kernel on Red Hat will be much different than a 2.4.20 kernel from Slackware. Other than the kernel, the userland utilities and daemons, how software and configurations are managed, etc all differ greatly from one distribution to the next. Some distributions (especially Red Hat) will make very proprietary versions of their tools that either use the same commands as normal, but have much different options, switches, and output, or they will use a different command all together to do the exact same thing.

So the short answer is no: All distributions are not equally interchangable at will.
 
Old 08-26-2004, 05:38 PM   #11
wood_morris
LQ Newbie
 
Registered: Aug 2004
Posts: 8

Rep: Reputation: 0
I just had a salesman from a company that builds servers tell me that I needed RedHat Enterprise, because we are going to be using the server as a web server for about 20 web sites.

This doesn't sound right to me. We are currently running 4 year old Linux distro (Caldera 2.4) and are replacing this server with a new one (going from 5U to 1U) and thought about using a newer version of Linux.

Back then there wasn't the selection of Linux commercial OS that there is now. The posts seem to mention Debian as the favored OS for a web server.

Would it be better to use a commercial Linux distro for a webserver with multiple web sites???
 
Old 08-29-2004, 09:18 AM   #12
saber41
Member
 
Registered: Jun 2003
Posts: 90

Rep: Reputation: 15
If you do not require a GUI, check out Trustix.
http://www.trustix.org/
 
Old 08-30-2004, 09:43 AM   #13
hutuworm
Member
 
Registered: Aug 2004
Posts: 130

Rep: Reputation: 15
I would suggest FreeBSD for both performance and security.
 
Old 08-30-2004, 11:38 AM   #14
chort
Senior Member
 
Registered: Jul 2003
Location: Silicon Valley, USA
Distribution: OpenBSD 4.6, OS X 10.6.2, CentOS 4 & 5
Posts: 3,660

Rep: Reputation: 76
Quote:
Originally posted by wood_morris
I just had a salesman from a company that builds servers tell me that I needed RedHat Enterprise, because we are going to be using the server as a web server for about 20 web sites.

This doesn't sound right to me.
Well, it depends on what you need to do. If you need to install commercial software on it, than you're pretty much stuck with either Red Hat ES/AS or SuSE Enterprise. The reason is that most ISVs (Independent Software Vendors) only build their software for Red Hat and often SuSE (check with the ISV prior to picking a distro). There is virually zero commercial software support for Debian, Gentoo, etc...

If you don't plan on running any commercial software and you're going to do everything with Open Source tools and software, then you really don't need to worry about that.

Quote:
We are currently running 4 year old Linux distro (Caldera 2.4) and are replacing this server with a new one (going from 5U to 1U) and thought about using a newer version of Linux.

Back then there wasn't the selection of Linux commercial OS that there is now. The posts seem to mention Debian as the favored OS for a web server.

Would it be better to use a commercial Linux distro for a webserver with multiple web sites???
Again, this totally depends on what you're doing with it. Most expert sysadmins prefer distros that do not install a lot of bloat and are very "lean and mean" by default. This is because they're a lot easier to secure and tune for performance--by removing pieces, or not having them installed in the first place. For site operators that won't have expert staff and may need to install third-party software, commercial distros are more preferred because they often have easy GUI tools for performing administration tasks and they have much better software support for commercial applications.
 
Old 08-30-2004, 05:39 PM   #15
wood_morris
LQ Newbie
 
Registered: Aug 2004
Posts: 8

Rep: Reputation: 0
Thank you for your input!
We are going to use an Open Source distro. I'll check out trustix.org but I think we "may" go with Debian. FreeBSD is also being considered - but RedHat is out.
Thanks again.
 
  


Reply


Thread Tools Search this Thread
Search this Thread:

Advanced Search

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is Off
HTML code is Off



Similar Threads
Thread Thread Starter Forum Replies Last Post
Best distro for a web server? darkflounder Linux - Newbie 8 06-26-2005 03:07 PM
the best web server distro? speel Linux - Newbie 18 01-30-2005 01:35 AM
Best distro for web server? Add1Sun Linux - General 6 10-26-2004 02:51 AM
choosing a web server distro TravisB Linux - General 4 05-19-2004 11:18 AM
Which distro for web server? athon_solo Linux - Distributions 4 07-13-2001 02:01 PM

LinuxQuestions.org > Forums > Enterprise Linux Forums > Linux - Enterprise

All times are GMT -5. The time now is 12:27 AM.

Main Menu
Advertisement
My LQ
Write for LQ
LinuxQuestions.org is looking for people interested in writing Editorials, Articles, Reviews, and more. If you'd like to contribute content, let us know.
Main Menu
Syndicate
RSS1  Latest Threads
RSS1  LQ News
Twitter: @linuxquestions
Open Source Consulting | Domain Registration