Linux Servers

Which distro do you think would be the best for a web server?

I only have experience with Ubuntu so far (not for a server) but am willing to try something new for better performance.

Thanks!

 

Probably Debian. It's strong, reliable, and well known.

 

Cool, I heard some say Slackware, RH and Suse are also good but I'll take your word for it. And would taking Ubuntu (since I have a little knowledge of it) over another distro give a much lower level of performance?

 

A lot of distros are fit for it,
Slackware, arch, gentoo, ubuntu server, debian, etc.

 

Slackware, Arch and especially Gentoo, take a lot more expertise to work with though, Thomas. I, for one, would probably never be able to make the jump from casual Ubuntu user, to installing Gentoo or Slackware for use as as server of any sort. LOL

 

What's your Linux experience? If you're comfy working in the terminal and stuff then you can use something like Gentoo or Ubuntu Server.

 

Any distribution can run Apache, what you really want to look for is a low-overhead distro; something that leaves more resources to being a server and less for the OS.

Check out Slackware, Ubuntu Server, and Debian.

 

That's exactly what I did last weekend. I found Gentoo far too difficult when I tried it on a laptop, but on the server it was very easy to get set up. It took about 4 hours total to install. I've been using it since I set it up with absolutely no problems.

Yes, it's very well known for tampering with packages, which can cause major security holes.

 

^^^ May I remind you that security holes like that are extremely rare in a distribution like Debian. I doubt whether we'll see another like that again... Windows or Mac OS, on the other hand...

 

You do realize that this security hole was also in [K]ubuntu, right? I have to ask because I see in your sig that you run Kubuntu.

At any rate, that hole is not representative of how Debian usually is.

 

I just single-booted Ubuntu for about two years to test it out. I am pretty familiar with all the installing applications and all the basics. When it got to the advanced stuff, I just Googled it and found solutions to the problems.

That's about all the experience I have. I have never tried servers though.

 

Yeah, I know that. But Kubuntu is on my laptop, which doesn't run OpenSSHD. Anywho, I don't plan to stick with Kubuntu on there either, since (starting with Intrepid Ibex) the Kubuntu developers have decided to force KDE 4 on all users, even though it still lacks many features from KDE 3.5. I'll probably try Gentoo once again, after I've used it on the server for a while.

Well, I just don't like how they tamper with packages, and how it often causes packages to have delayed releases (and occasional security holes). This is also an issue with (K)Ubuntu, and I find it pretty annoying.

On the other hand, creating an ebuild in Gentoo is fairly simple, and allows for the newest versions (even the source control repository) to be available for install through the package manager by adding a Portage overlay. This came in very handy for installing Screen, since only the version in the Git repository has support for vertical splitting. I was able to install this version through Portage, rather than having to manually download and compile the source code. And whenever an update is committed to the Git repository, an

Code:

emerge -uavDN world

will install the new version (along with new versions of any other packages).

 

CentOS is free makeover of Red Hat Enterprise LInux....I probably would check that out....pretty good support forums for it. Extremely stable.

 

Debian or CentOS, if you're worried about the security hole then go with CentOS. The other distros like Slackware, Gentoo, and Arch take some configuring know-how to get running, Debian and CentOS are pretty easy to get up and running.

The reason Ubuntu machines aren't used as servers is because there's a concern about sudo and security. When you use sudo to run root level commands, there's a gap that you're still root when you don't need to input you're password. It's a matter of opinion how serious it is for servers but that's reason

Debian is also on a stable kernel build compared to Ubuntu's experimental build or unstable build.

 

Try FreeBSD

Really nice and stable.

I like it.

 

We use Fedora that waits in a warm state incase something major happens to the main servers. (mainly to run dhcp etc)

 

regardless of the distro, install lamp, test it out, and report back to us with a full review.

 

http://www.howtoforge.com/ubuntu_lamp_for_newbies

 

I've had great success with Red Hat Enterprise Linux and Debian. I prefer Debian now because I like aptitude. Ubuntu Server 8.04.1 would be another good choice, I am running one of them at the moment. My RHEL server was a workhorse, it had like a 16 month uptime for the project on which I was using it.