How to choose a linux flavour ?

michaelsanford

michaelsanford

Translator, Web Developer
I'm (finally) going to be setting up a full-time web server to manage web, MySQL and maybe in time some mail and DNS.

I'm having a heck of a time choosing a linux flavour !

Can someone list, or link, the main differences, pro/con, and whatever other useful (but succinct) information I might want.

As for a GUI, as long as I can put X11 on it (even better, comes with XFree86) I'm happy. A graphical installer isn't a must, but let's jsut say I may never install successfully without one :p

Any and all help is appreciated, thanks !
 
Those two first questions - apt ! I'm actually downloading FreeBSD 5.2.1 as we speak, I thought it would be a good choice based strictly on my experience with Darwin (which is based on BSD of course).

As for X11...GUI configurators is the only real reason. Also, this server is a testing server (I wouldn't migrate my mission-critical sites until I had a good enough understanding of BSD/Linux to run everything blindfolded).

PS This also goes to the root of my question. Why not BSD over Linux. Well, aside from the fact that BSD was written by UCal@Berkley, I can't give any other differentiating characteristics from Linux...so fill me in ? ;)
 
What architecture are you going to run? With PPC hardware, your options of distros are cut down drastically. In this case, I would recommend Debian. Simple to update and maintain, so-so install routine.
 
If you are going Linux, I would recommend Debian, Slackware (with slackpkg, slaptget, or swaret for updates). You could also go with the commercial distros.

Or any of the BSDs would be more than capable. :D
 
I switched from Linux to FreeBSD 2 years ago, much less hassle i must say, stable as a rock and more hack proof.
 
gumse said:
I switched from Linux to FreeBSD 2 years ago, much less hassle i must say, stable as a rock and more hack proof.
Click to expand...

Dude, that's just flamebait :eek: .

FreeBSD ain't more stable, or hack proof than Linux. If you're going to make such a claim, at least provide some examples.
 
I have read a few articles that say bsd is more secure but linux is only less secure for the same reason windows is and thats a much higher user base. there are probably 25-30 linux users for every bsd user so there are less people to figure out exploits. no computer with any os is 100% secure unless its off and unplugged.
 
Update : I've taken all these posts into consideration, as well as some further reading. I'm installing Slackware 10 right now, so we'll see how that goes. I've also downloaded FreeBSD and might install that in a few days and play around with it.

These are test installs on my Dell 200MHz...until I find myself a faster machine to do something useful with.

Thanks for all the info !
 
Slackware's future is in jeopardy since Patrick V. the guy who maintains it is ill with a life threatening disease. You might want to look at other distros instead.
 
I am currently handing roughly 50 servers (all Dell hardware) which all are running Debian GNU/Linux (stable). We used to run the shop on a bunch Xserv's and before that we used NetBSD but none of them can compete with Debian in my humble opinion.

apt is the package manager. It allows you to install software for your platform easily without messing things up (things you don't even want to know about like dependencies etc), which rpm* et al tend to do quite often judging from my experience with RH and Mandrake. apt-get Simply Works© and makes your life much easier whenever Apache, MySQL or whatever needs to updated due to a new security advisory.

Sure, the installation process isn't all that but the Debian mailinglists are extremely friendly and the documentation is excellent - and you can always give the new installer a shot (but remember to tell it you want to install stable not testing), http://www.debian.org/devel/debian-installer/.

apt rocks as you rarely have to compile something by hand, unless you have some weird needs :)D), just find the piece of software you need, e.g...

Code: 
apt-cache search "apache"

...then install whatever you find and need...

Code: 
apt-get install apache php4 mysql-server

... et voila, you'd have Apache with PHP4 and MySQL server available and decently configured on your system - no dependencies or nothing to worry about.

Good luck, and remeber that any OS / flavor has its perks but the most important factor is the person controlling the OS. Even if *BSD claims to be the most secure OS ever, it doesn't mean anything if the sysadmin can't set it up correctly.

And no, I'm not trying to flame anything / anyone, I'm simply sharing my thoughts and experiences on the subject. Sorry if I offended someone :D
 
For a production server, I'd definitely go with a conservative distro like debian - anything that makes it into stable, you know has been thoroughly tested.

I really wouldn't recommend installing an X11 server on it. That's way more code than a server ought to have on it. This doesn't stop you from installing X apps, just don't put the server on it. If you want to run an X app, just start up X11.app on your Mac, open an xterm, and "ssh -f -X michael@his.linux.box xterm" and you've got a nice xterm, running on the Linux box, but displayed on your Mac, from which you can run xwhateveryouwant.

While it's true that an incompetent admin is going to break any OS he gets his hands on, it is less work to get OpenBSD hardened (i.e. a default install is hardened) than to get many flavours of Linux hardened to any degree.

Of course, to get OpenBSD doing anything useful is a bit more work than with the Linux distro, as part of hardening is to have only the minimum services available, and no software installed that isn't needed for the services you run... The question is, which would you rather put the work into, the hardening, or the 'softening' part?

Slackware is a bit of an exception to that, but then Slackware seems to me rather like a Linux that was orphaned and raised by BSDs
 
scruffy said:
Slackware is a bit of an exception to that, but then Slackware seems to me rather like a Linux that was orphaned and raised by BSDs
Click to expand...

Well, you are right there. :) It's very BSD-ish, especially in it's init-scripts. Slackware was meant to be more UNIX-like than any other Linux distro. Personally, I love it because of that. I have played with Debian's SysV init scripts and I must say that Slackware's way is much easier.

As for the fear of future development (or lack thereof) for Slackware due to Pat Volkerding's health, I doubt that there is any threat. If you check out sites like Linuxpackages.org, I'm sure there are many other developers and package maintainers that would take up the Slack (pun VERY intended :p) if Pat couldn't do it anymore.

With that said, here's hoping that Pat does make a speedy recovery. My prayers are with him.
 
After working with Slackware for a few days I've really taken a shine to it.

The one problem I have is updating packages. Is there any way (shell script or otherwise) to issue something like # slackpkg upgrade ALL ? Wildcards don't seem to work, and I'm not do hot on the idea of using pattern matching with every letter of the alphabet...
 
I dont use slackware, but if you can get a listing of existing packages, then run that through your script:

for x in `get_package_list`
do
slackpkg upgrade $x
done

Just make sure that you are not upgrading redundantly. FWIW, on FreeBSD, to upgrade everything:

portupgrade -ary

That updates everything, recursivley, and answers yes to the questions.
 
Actually, slackpkg will update different sections if you give the command "slackpkg upgrade <package directory name>". By package directory name, I mean directories you find for different things, like "x" and "xap" and the like. Adding the name of those directories will upgrade whatever needs upgrading that was installed from that specific directory. It's not the greatest solution, but a solution it is...at least for slackpkg.

Have you tried the other package updaters like swaret or slapt-get?
 
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