Greetings all,

I am a newbie to the forum with only, I would say, casual experience with Linux. I don't suppose I have a specific question, except for the last paragraph, though I'd like some experienced feedback on the following plan that I have....

I have an Ubuntu 13.04 Server built from old parts... an old AMD K6-2 with 750MB of RAM and a 200MB hard drive or so. I've had fun with it, running my own cloud storage with OwnCloud, but I feel like it's Linux with training wheels and I'm ready to take those off and try something new. To that end, I have two more newly built systems, each with multiple core processors and 8GB of RAM. I have an interest in PHP/MySQL as well as Java, so I plan to make one into a web server running PHP and the other into a MySQL server with the additional duty of network storage and backups. Neither will see any real action as they will be for personal use on the web. This isn't about need, it's about fun!

I'm thinking I'll use a GUI on both this time, unlike my Ubuntu Server, just because I can... also because it's far easier to configure and manage CrashPlan online backups with a GUI than without it. I'm thinking Oracle Linux for the MySQL Server and CentOS for the web server. I like the idea of a stable system based on Red Hat Enterprise Linux, but I want two different distros to play with for comparison.

Now to partitioning.... If I set up /var in a separate partition, which is where (I think) the MySQL data resides, does that mean that I could theoretically "transplant" that partition and its data into a different Linux distro in the future, install MySQL, and then read the databases again? I'm thinking "yes," but would love some experienced feedback. I'm having this thought as I am backing up my old Ubuntu system, which holds my current website and database with a lot of PHP/MySQL work, and hoping to restore it to my two new systems (Oracle and CentOS) with the database in one and the web server in the other. Naturally, I'll have to reconfigure the database connection in my PHP code, but that's no big deal. I guess I'll find out, I just want to configure my new systems in such a way that my application data is easy to backup and restore into another if necessary or in case of failure. Thoughts?

Chris

Welcome to LQ, hope you like it here.


Just a single multi core system with plenty of RAM could also be turned into a virtualization platform on which you can set up one or more network and populate them with guests. Nice way to practice without having to commit multiple physical machines...


Since this is about fun and learning: consider ditching the GUI on servers (multiple reasons). Use a workstation (laptop?) or a virtual workstation with a GUI to manage things. BTW, what is the difference between RHEL and "Oracle Unbreakable Linux". Is the latter really that different?.. Also consider what you need depending on server role. For example a DNS server, load balancer, cache machine or application server each have has different requirements, software needs and maintenance. So depending on role, disk / memory footprint, software needed you could also choose different OSes: FreeBSD for a DNS server or load balancer, CentOS for the database server and Ubuntu LTS for a web server...


Start with 'man mysqldump' and practice exporting / importing. Also see PHPMyAdmin.

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