Linux OS for a server

h3llkill3r · 11-18-2009, 10:47 AM

So basicly i need you help to choose 1 Linux OS to be my main OS on my server. I'm going to have game servers as the main objective but going to host websites,ftp and mail server too. The Server is going to have and Intel Quad Xeon with 8GB of ram for sure and about 2TB HDD for now.

What OS and version(of the OS) do you suggest?(eg.Ubuntu 9.10 Server)

Ubuntu
Debian
openSUSE
Fedora
CentOS

(these were the only once i know you can suggest any other)

Thanks for all you help before hand.

amani · 11-18-2009, 10:50 AM

CentOS or Debian or Ubuntu server

EricTRA · 11-18-2009, 10:54 AM

Hello and welcome to LinuxQuestions,

If you have some time you can have a look at Distrowatch. They list all available distros, with descriptions, links and so on. Very informative for someone on the search for a server OS.

I personally have pretty good experiences with Debian and RedHat/CentOS for dedicated servers. Needless to say all only using console, no GUI

Kind regards

Eric

h3llkill3r · 11-18-2009, 11:07 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by EricTRA

I personally have pretty good experiences with Debian and RedHat/CentOS for dedicated servers. Needless to say all only using console, no GUI

Well yeah for my server i prefer if it's a command line os instead of GUI. I have some experience with ubuntu and little bit with centos.
Thanks for that link

EricTRA · 11-18-2009, 11:11 AM

Looking at what you want to do with your server, hosting game servers, websites, ftp, and so on, I'd personally prefer Debian over CentOS for one reason only: the security patches of CentOS are rather on the late side, sometimes a difference of a week between release of them.

You'll find these sites very interesting ones, I believe: Debian administration.
Debian security.

Kind regards,

Eric

salasi · 11-18-2009, 02:35 PM

The biggest thing that you want from a server, that is not such a big issue on a desktop, is continuity of patch availability.

Doing re-installs and major upgrades on a server is a pain; you've got to do it, but you don't want to do it often, certainly not every six months. Once you can no longer get security updates for the installed version, you have to transition to a version for which you can get security updates.

So, if you were to choose an Ubuntu, you'd want an LTS version. I wouldn't object to SLES (paid for) in any way, but not OpenSUSE. And not fedora but possibly RedHat (paid for) or Centos.