Hello,
I am currently running a Red Hat 9 server. I am using Apache, SSHD, vsftp, and that's about it for the most part. I was just wondering about changing RH9 to slack...

Can I use slack as a server? Does it matter if I use any distro as a server? This is a vague question and I don't mind a wide range of inputs of what other users have liked/experienced.

Thanks in advance for any pointers or opinions.

tobz

I don't see why not. Slackware is fast and stable. It just the programs you run on the distro.

Basically you can use ANY distro as
a server, it just depends on your priorities
what you choose. Slack, by default, is
VERY lean, hardly starts any services
by default and thus is very friendly in
terms of both CPU load and memory
foot-print. It's your choice whether you
want to strip RH down by 50% or add 10%
to a Slack-install ;) to have the setup you
really want.

However, if familiarity with the box is
higher on your list than a lot of graphical
tools then slack is your choice :}

Cheers,
Tink

P.S.: I'm not getting any money from Pat,
I just really love Slackware ;)

Thanks, I think I'd prefer to add 10% to a lean slack install I'm downloading slack 9 now, and I can't wait to install it. I just need the remote access, ftp, webserver and my hlds as well. After I download and install, I will try my luck with my first ever kernel compile. I'm very excited, and I anticipate a long night tonight.

Thanks again.

tobz

Theres been a few security updates since 9.0 came out. Since your running a server, be sure to grab them.

Its up to YOU to make your sever secure. Just remember that.

Slackware isn't very designed as a server, st my opinion. Because of his poor package management, it's hard to upgrade. you can drive 1 servers runing slackware, but it's not very possible to run ten of them. I like compiling from source but it need more time and effort than only typing "apt-get upgrade" on Debian or "emerge -u world" on Gentoo.

Heard of checkinstall and package-tools
yet? Work quite well...

Cheers,
Tink

Yeah of course, slackware is my first OS right now. However these progs need an human intervention, I mean you need to download the tgz by hand and to run pkg-tool. To make sure your debian is up-to-date, you just have to add "apt-get upgrade && apt-get install" to cron to run every night. The same is possible (but not really ready yet I believe) under Gentoo. It is quite easy to manage a server using these tools, pkg-tools is good but take more time and an human in front of the keyboard.

Ever heard of Swaret?

It works great. It'll automatically download/install any official updates to slackware.(that includes security updates). It just doesnt do non official packages.