Distro choice for the server

mbostwick · 01-13-2010, 10:29 PM

hello, im trying to pick a distro to go with for my home server, I am not sure what I want to do with it yet, I mean I want rolling relase packages, but not a lot of config, im coming from gentoo and my netbook runs arch, but im not sure what I want to move my server to as I will be forwarding the display to my netbook and don't want A LOT of intial setup...im thinking etheir arch or open suse, but I hate fighting with stuff running in the background when I want to change something, any recommendations ?

deximat · 01-14-2010, 12:42 AM

I think that CentOS would be nice choice, because as well as I know it is dedicated to be some kind of solid server, so it must have many tools that would help you in server administration. Here in my town there are some internet provider companies that use CentOS, and they are very grateful for its futures.
For me gentoo, arch, slackware and similar are great to learn the core of the linux, but sometimes I think it is good to use some tools that do the job well, I personally like to do everything from its core rater then using tools, but tools can save you a lot of time

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scheidel21 · 01-14-2010, 07:36 AM

Try a non-gui interface for administration with maybe something like Webmin and SSH access only. Save resources on the GUI. CentOS is known to be solid it is more or less RedHat Enterprise. I myself prefer Debian I find it Rock Solid stable. If you are looking for easier use and installation you might try Ubuntu Server it is Debian based, boot off the CD run the install, set up networking and then run the server headless.

archangel_617b · 01-14-2010, 09:27 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by scheidel21

Try a non-gui interface for administration with maybe something like Webmin and SSH access only.

On a home server, assuming the hardware is relatively modern, don't worry about the GUI sucking up resources.

Your choice of distro depends more on what you want to do. You can pick something you're familiar with (Arch or anything else you feel comfortable). For a server, generally stay away from anything that's building packages from source (Gentoo, LFS, etc will all take way more compute resources than any GUI). So the other general item is broad community support in which case you're looking at RedHat (CentOS, Fedora, etc), Debian (Ubuntu and friends), or SuSe (I've never used so can't speak on that)...

But if you have certain applications you want to run on your server, there may also be a choice based on that.

- Arch

scheidel21 · 01-14-2010, 10:27 AM

I was speaking to him referring to things happening in the background. A great fewer things go on in the background on a system running a GUI than on a CLI. Even MS got the hint and Server 2008 offer Server 2008 core which is a CLI only interface.

frenchn00b · 01-14-2010, 11:49 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by scheidel21

Try a non-gui interface for administration with maybe something like Webmin and SSH access only. Save resources on the GUI. CentOS is known to be solid it is more or less RedHat Enterprise. I myself prefer Debian I find it Rock Solid stable. If you are looking for easier use and installation you might try Ubuntu Server it is Debian based, boot off the CD run the install, set up networking and then run the server headless.

Why would you use Ubuntu instead of Debian? Debian would be better, no, more stable?

"old 486DX or Pentium machine no longer just door " which kernel, which distro would you recommend. I have found that the only way is : Etch 2.6.18 for old machines with good old support, wiht 32MB ram.

scheidel21 · 01-15-2010, 08:08 AM

Ubuntu is likely to have newer software, i.e. potentially unstable, but it is an out of the box experience that you don't quite get with Debian. I prefer Debian myself, but also have an Ubuntu Server that acts as an FTP server and proxy and it runs just fine no issues whatsoever.

chrism01 · 01-17-2010, 10:14 PM

This from the RHEL site

Quote:

The Life Cycle identifies the various levels of maintenance for each major release of Red Hat Enterprise Linux over a total period of seven years from the initial release date, which is often referred to as the general availability date.

http://www.redhat.com/security/updates/errata/ so should also apply to Centos.

mbostwick · 01-18-2010, 01:13 AM

:/ I found that when I initially set up my system(which was like a year and a half ago) that I made room to allow duel booting of 2 operating system. I am thinking of just leaving my gentoo system and installing arch. I failed to mention that i forward the x server from my server to my net book so i use the server like a desktop and also place the system in a dmz, so i get both server and desktop, based on my location. I am considering moving from gentoo because i really dont utilize the use flags, i have a tendencie to just add all fuctionality which defeats the purpose to building from source in the first place, and I think my system has gotten a little messy because of it. Not to mention the fact that i run ati catalyst drivers and unstable builds(which on after thought was unwise), but since I am considering removing the lcd display that may not be worth dealing with. Overall my problem is I am lacking in time, to take the time need on the system, all though i do truly love learning the ins and outs of the systems.