[ale] Distro question...

jay jloden at toughguy.net
Thu Nov 11 21:00:50 EST 2004


I highly recommend Mandrake Linux. I run it on several desktops at home, and 
we use it for our own mail servers here at work (postfix). ?Urpmi's package 
management is equal in my experience to Debian's apt-get (I also run debian 
on my laptop), and updates are a snap. ?I even have the official 
documentation I created for work on how to use urpmi under Mandrake. ?

As a bonus, if you're familiar with RedHat, Mandrake will be a fairly easy 
switch. ?The configuration tools on command line and especially the gui tools 
are easy and for the most part intuitive to use. ?Further, Mandrake will 
provide you with BOTH up-to-date software and kernel, AND stability at the 
same time. ?Debian is awesome, however its slow release cycle means you will 
have a choice between stable and older software, or running testing/unstable 
and having the newer (faster, in my experience) kernel and software, but 
risking broken packages or failed updates. 

Mandrake has cutting edge stuff, and it's always been stable, and so far we 
have never once had a broken package due to an update, and urpmi has also 
never failed to correctly handle an update unless the mirror itself was down. ?
Basically, I find it to be stable, comfortable, fast (all binaries are 
prelinked from Mandrake) and up to date, with a great package management 
system. ?

Feel free to post back with questions.

-Jay



On Thursday 11 November 2004 03:42 pm, Jay Finch wrote:
> Hey everyone,
>
> Let me just say up front that I don't want to start a "Distro War" - but I
> would like some feedback before I make a lasting decision.
>
> -------
>
> A little Background:
> I have a server that's hosting about 60-80 domains, and handling all of
> their E-mail, Web and Database access.  About 6 months ago, my machine
> began to exhibit signs of slowness & lag.  Based upon the increasing
> amount of Spam and such, I've finally nailed down the slow reaction times
> to the E-mail pre-processing I'm doing, and have decided to split the
> Mailserver from the main Web/DB server.  (This is to improve the average
> Web Users experience when accessing any of the sites I'm hosting.)
>
> That said, I'm currently running RedHat 9 on the main box (with yum
> getting patches from http://www.fedoralegacy.org), and am wondering:
> Should I stick with Redhat or go with another Distro?  (And if Redhat,
> should I go with FC3, or go with an EL version?)
>
> I'm running Qmail, with Vpopmail & Qmailadmin on the box, and want to keep
> those tools.  I'm also running Qmailscanner & ClamAV installed as per
> http://www.qmailrocks.org
>
> I'm pretty familiar with RPM, but not so much with any of the other
> package managers.  I'd like to keep things installed using Packages as to
> keep my upgrade/update path fairly easy.
>
> This new machine will be exclusively a Mailserver - No web, limited DB (as
> required by Vpopmail), but no other extraneous processes.  I will have
> OpenSSH installed on it so I can remote admin into the box and maintain
> it.  There will be no user accounts on the machine other than the personal
> account I will create for administration using sudo.
>
> -----
>
> Based upon these specifications & needs, is there another distro which
> would work better?  I'd prefer to stick with Linux, as it's the *nix I'm
> most familiar with.  (I'm not adverse to learning a *BSD, but don't want
> to do it as an exercise in configuring & setting up my new Mailserver.)
> The Distro's I'm familiar with are Redhat (pre-Fedora/EL), Slackware &
> SuSE.
>
> Any feedback is appreciated.
>
> Thanks in advance!
> Jay
>
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