[ale] Server distro help

[Bob Toxen]

I'll second CentOS.  For simple servers, such as Firewalls or static web
servers or email, I still prefer Slackware.  It is less buggy, same
interface in each release, and they supply security patches as fast as
anyone else and for LONGER per release than anyone else without RH's
obscene license fees.

RHEL license fees are obscene.  They get you only some support and
pretty hat logos (big deal on the hats).

SuSE's support person was the SOB's SOB and managed to blame SuSE's
failure to honor their support commitments on me to my client.  Ptuey!
SuSE won't get any more of my business.

Bob Toxen
bob at verysecurelinux.com               [Please use for email to me]
http://www.verysecurelinux.com        [Network&Linux security consulting]
http://www.realworldlinuxsecurity.com [My book:"Real World Linux Security 2/e"]
Quality Linux & UNIX security and SysAdmin & software consulting since 1990.
Quality spam and virus filters.

"One disk to rule them all, One disk to find them. One disk to bring
them all and in the darkness grind them. In the Land of Redmond where
the shadows lie...and the Eye is everwatching"
-- The Silicon Valley Tarot Henrique Holschuh with ... Bob

On Sun, Nov 27, 2011 at 08:46:11PM -0500, Leam Hall wrote:
> Not sure about the MPD stuff but you might look at CentOS. I'm RH 
> centric so that would be my call. It also preps you for job experience 
> if you want to work in the big business world which is mostly RH.
> 
> Though I've not used Ubuntu LTS that would normally be my other 
> recommendation. I've heard people whose opinions I trust say good things 
> about it.
> 
> Leam
> 
> 
> On 11/27/2011 06:15 PM, Joshua Kite wrote:
> > Hi all - it's time I asked for some help.  I'm ready for a new server
> > distro.
> >
> > As background, my introduction to Linux was Mandrake.  I used to joke with
> > my friends that we needed to start a usergroup for those who refused to
> > compile anything, and Mandrake mostly avoided that.  After playing with
> > Knoppix as a desktop for a while I was introduced to Ubuntu and stuck with
> > it until around the time Unity was introduced and performance on my
> > particular configuration became unacceptable.  I now use Mint for my
> > desktop and love it.
> >
> > I have continued to use Ubuntu server with good results until today when I
> > upgraded to 11.10 and had yet another upgrade-introduced issue.
> >
> > My needs are relatively simple.  I run the following:
> > -SAMBA and NFS
> > -MPD (Music Player Daemon)
> > -Linux Virtualization (virsh)
> > -Completely headless - no X installed or required at any point
> >
> > All of my remaining functionality is running on virtual machines, and I'd
> > like to leave those as-is for now, although I might move them in the
> > future.  These include relatively simple tools like Apache and Dansguardian.
> >
> > One of the things I like about about a distribution like Ubuntu is that, in
> > theory, I can run apt-get upgrade and update all of the packages on the
> > system.  And, in theory, these have been tested to work together.  I always
> > expect a minor issue with an upgrade but not something that prevents the
> > system from successfully booting.  What I did not like about Mandrake years
> > ago was the challenge of dependency hell that seemed to come with RPM-based
> > systems of the day.  However, at this point I'm open to about anything.
> >
> > My knowledge there are probably four basic choices:
> > -Gentoo (fun, resolves the upgrade issue, but probably overkill)
> > -Fedora/Red Hat based
> > -SuSe based
> > -Debian based
> >
> > I've never worked with any of the "upstream" solutions.  Is it time for
> > this technically middle-of-the-road geek to take one of them on?  If so,
> > what is the overwhelming recommendation?
> >
> > Thanks,
> >
> > Josh Kite
> >
> >
> >
> >
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