Now i am not a total newbie in linux. I have been using it for quite some time now.presently i work in fedora10. But the thing is that i want to change the choice and move on to some stable versions.

The problem is i don't have free broadband connection. So i ought to have my limits.

One of my friend suggested me debian while some of my proffessors suggested the slackware.

My area of specialization would be database management.
so which one will be a better choice-Debian or slackware(Ihope you understand my problem.)

I would choose Slackware. Its stable and has good reputation.

Hi,

You could do a search here on LQ as this query has been presented before many times.

As a Slackware user I suggest it's use. Slackware 13 RC2 is now available with stable not too far behind. I suggest that you start with Slackware 12.2 which is the stable release for now.

Slackware® 12.2 ISO which has either cdroms/dvd iso, don't forget the md5 & asc files.

The above link and others available from 'Slackware-Links'. More than just Slackware® links!

Slackware is a very quality and very stable distribution.
Also, when choosing between what a friend suggests and what your professors suggest, I would go with your professors.

If you are looking for stable and database management (for a job in the future), I would look at Centos. Centos is RHEL(Red Hat Enterprise Linux) with the logos removed. It is free to download/update(unlike RHEL) and has a five year(plus) support life. Since Fedora is effectively the development version of RHEL you will be familiar with how things are done. Centos/RHEL5.3 is current and was originally based on FC6.

I thought about adding the following, but didn't add it:

1. I thought to myself, like lazlow, that if you're sort of looking for something specialized, that I guess Slackware might not be the best option. If true, you might want to get something else (and this query hasn't really been presented many times). Slackware, being very stable, also stays a little behind on things.

2. I made the assumption that your professors whom you asked about this are also aware that you might want something specific.

Fedora is pretty stable. I switched to Fedora after getting naffed off with Suse and it's still my favourite distro. Just upgrade to version 11

Problem with FC is that it has (relative) short life cycles. Something that not everybody likes.

without broadband, slackware, don't have "dependency hell" as some put it, like you do with debian

fedora 11 is more unstable than fc10, especially when you are working in kde.

i don't know whether it's a problem of kde 4.x or fedora, i never had a fortune to taste other distro supporting kde 4.x

thanks lazlow,

but just for my knowledge, would centos be the best option for a server maintaining the database of over thousands of records.

also that i would be building application relating to database management.
so do you prefer centos

Does that mean that you don't have a broadband connection at all, or that the price that you pay for data over your bradband connection is on the high side?

If you don't have a broadband connection, I would try to get the full debian DVD set, which is faintly ridiculous at about 6 or 7 DVDs, but should ensure that you don't have to download extra bits to get what you want.

Any distro (almost) could be useful for database work; the unique item about this query is the lack of 'net access and the implications of that for getting all the software that you need and for getting security updates.

CentOS is the most popular server distribution for companies that operate many servers - you will see it listed on virtually every dedicated or virtual private server web hosting plan out there that is Linux. The operating system itself matters little when it comes to the database - you should be most concerned about the speed of your hard drives, the database software present, the efficiency of the filesystem, and the security and efficiency of the operating system. Thousands of records or thousands of tables - either way mysql will just handle it - modern kernels support so much more hardware (CPUs, RAM, filesystems, large files) than anyone has seen physically installed in a single box that it really does not matter.

Again, as long as your code can be built for and run on that server, or interface with it over a network, it matters little what distro you use.

The bottom line is that CentOS offers server admins (in the spirit of Red Hat Enterprise Linux) an easy way to configure services including a database server. This will probably make it a more convenient choice than the Slackware I have running on "the server under my bed."

Centos/RHEL is arguably what the majority of businesses use to run their databases. While you can run them on virtually any distro you gain a competitive advantage(job wise) by learning and gaining experience on the OS businesses actually use. Companies like to higher people that can hit the ground running from day one, rather than having to wait for a new employee to adjust to a new OS.

I used to choose KDE over Gnome, but found that both the KDE Sabayon and Kubuntu were not as stable as the Gnome versions. Tbh though I found the new way that KDE is laid out was not to my taste anyway.