Hello,

I have a base understanding for operating RH 9 servers at work and have become very interested in setting up my own server at home to play around with. I have read several reviews on Ubuntu and Fedora. One thing that I have read is the ease of install and use for Ubuntu. However, I like the RH / Fedora flavors of Linux. I came across info stating that setting up mail on Fedora using Sendmail can be a bit of a task vs. setting up mail w/ Postfix.

As I am only going to use this server as pure learning and development. Which of these distro's would be suggested for a newbie in setting up a server?

Thank you

Since you say you have some experience with redhat at work, I'd have to recommend you go with Fedora, since they are very similar. Ubuntu is based off of Debian, and is nothing like fedora or redhat.

Since this is for "learning" experience, I'd suggest you invest in a few hard disks, download and try all of the major distributions, to get a good feel of what they all are really like. Or at least download the "live" cd's and check them out. Set your home computer to download a DVD each morning before you leave for work, and by this weekend you should have a good starting collection!

Good Luck

Since Ubuntu was developed for the Desktop user and Fedora/Red Hat was developed for general use (including server), I think that you will want to use fedora/red hat for the server experimentation. I've not known any ubuntu version tailored toward server use

They have a server version. I've not tried it myself because I prefer Redhat/CentOS and FreeBSD for my servers.

I have used both, but I would recommend you use Fedora for this. Ubuntu is too beginner based and slow to run a server in my opinion. You could look into CentOS as well, it is VERY secure.

Alternatively, Debian Stable is great for servers. Not too hard to set up, extremely stable (Fedora is a testing distro, and can tend towards instability so not necessarliy a good idea for a server).

If you want to stick with Redhat flavours, try Centos which is based off Redhat Enterprose Linux and is free but also rock solid stable.

--Ian

For a server I'd definitely go with either CentOS or Debian. If you're just going to be playing around with the server rather than putting it into production use then Fedora is fine. Fedora is a bit more bleeding edge and probably isn't best for a production system vs CentOS, but I'd definitely recommend any of the aforementioned three over Ubuntu for a server.

fedora or ubuntu?? try centos
i ran it for three months as file server and was very satisfied should be ok as a mail server :-P

Whoa, this forum is great. I have to thank everyone that responded to my post. Your comments were extremely helpful. I think I will go ahead and try my luck with Fedora or CentOS this summer and see how that goes. You guys are right though, since I am not going into "production," mode w/ my box, Fedora should be fine. Every so often I would run across "Pro-Ubuntu" articles and was trying to see what the big deal was.

Thanks again everyone!