Anyone try Gentoo 2005.0 on their AlphaServer yet? If so, what are the pro's and con's over say, Red Hat 7.2 or Debian 3.0r2?

umm.. I don't have an AlphaServer.. but I would say for one.. Even Debian stable is more current than Red Hat 7.2...

Red Hat 7.2 would be a huge security risk unless you keep track of all bugs for all software on the system and update everything manually... Gentoo would offer better performance.. and much more current software...

Debian is rock solid and still maintained with security updates and stuff.. Gentoo is built for performance.. and can be very stable as well, but you need to know all of your CFLAGS and USE flags very well.. or else it can result in system instability and even speed issues..

If this is actually a server used for production services.. I would recommend FreeBSD honestly.. but I'm a little biased..

Debian Sarge would be more recommended.. as it's still very stable.. and used more current softwares... If you know what you're doing.. Gentoo is cool.. if not.. don't do it..

Hope I helped..

The AlphaServer's are test boxes that aren't on the internet. In fact none of the systems in my "lab" are exposed to the internet. The reason it was 7.2 was because some tests required that it be rh72. I put FreeBSD 5.3 on one of them a few days ago. Debian 3.0r2 is still on the other one. I have a bunch of prosignia's, presario's, prolinea's, contura's, proliant's, athlon rack servers and a poweredge 4300 running some tests with the freebsd alphaserver today.


FreeBSD is sweet but it too can have security issues because of openssl which i've been hearing about lately. I too am biased because I've been using FreeBSD since 3.3, which I still have. Thanks for the info though as many other people that don't know things about this and that can always get some insight from someone elses post.

i never have security issues with FreeBSD.,... I get the security advisory mailing list and i script a portaudit daily.. That's why I love FreeBSD is because it has such fantastic system tools...