[ale] Linux Server distros

[Jim Popovitch]

Jim Popovitch wrote:
> Richard Kolkovich wrote:
>> If you do not care about "official" support, I would recommend Gentoo.
>> I run it on my servers with no problems as long as you read before
>> updating packages (but that is the case with most anything...updates can
>> break things ;)).
> 
> ;-) I've seen those sort of issues even with "professional" distros.
> 
> 
> Here's what I doing:
> 
> I am setting up a few vmware server servers.  On the base install I 
> don't need anything that vmware server doesn't need.  I don't 
> particularly need LVM, but when using a RedHat distro (or derivative) 
> LVM (and several other totally unnecessary things) must exist for the 
> base install to exist. <- F**KING CRAZY!  I don't need nfs, or nfs libs, 
> hotplug (it's freaking server!), USB (who uses USB mice/drives/etc on a 
> server?), DHCP (argh!).  It just amazes me that in this day and age of 
> using Linux on so many _servers_, it requires that the operator have a 
> team of engineers to re-engineer a "professional" distribution in order 
> to use it in their environment.  Part of the problem is that every 
> distro tries to be everything to everybody.  Redhat Enterprise Linux, 
> IMHO, is not a server distro, it's a workstation distro (but alas not a 
> modern-day laptop distro).  Debian (and it's derivatives) comes closest 
> to being a secure and small install... BUT vmware doesn't provide out of 
> the box modules for Debian, therefore I have to install _development_ 
> tools on a server just to get it to do what I need it to do.
> 
> I hate Windows, BUT none of the above applies to using Windows... except 
> that if I use Windows as a VMWare host I won't be able to sleep at 
> night. ;-)
> 
> I think there is a serious market for a Linux Server distro that is 
> secure, stable, small, and doesn't have any dependencies on unnecessary 
> crap.

One other thing, since this has turned into my rant... ;-)

On a box without a floppy drive (this *is* 2006) is it truly necessary 
for Debian to try load a floppy driver a half-dozen times during the 
install.

-Jim P.