"Best" linux server OS

[PSWired]

I'm sure you guys hear this type of question all of the time, but please bear with me. I'm about to set up two new linux servers for a small/medium business to run Bynari Insight Server and Apache for email/web hosting. Right now both of these services are provided by a Poweredge server running Mandrake 10.

I'm trying to search for a distribution to use here. Most of my Linux experience was acquired in the days of RedHat 7-9 and now that these distros are no longer available I'm looking for a suitable replacement. I recently set up a RHEL advanced server OS and was very pleased with its features, however these two servers have no budget for OS purchase so I must go with something free. I'm currently looking at Fedora. The distro will be used in a production environment and should require a minimum of administration (there is no full-time onsite administrator for this company). Any suggestions for what to go with here? In addition to Insight Server on one box, the other server will run Apache, an NTP server, FTP server, SSH, Webmin, and will provide logging facilities. Hardware is rather old, an HP Netserver LH4 with 2 PIII Xeons and a boatload of storage, and a Poweredge 4300 with two PIIIs and 2GB of memory. Thanks!

 

[Chacalinc]

rpleacement for redhat 7-9? Fedore Core 3

you can try Debian anyway (or Ubuntu).

Cheers.

 

[lgarner]

If you like RHEL, then

http://www.centos.org

is a good site to visit.

Otherwise, I think that any Linux distribution would meed your needs handily.

 

[ericbrunson]

Did you try reading *any* of the other postins on this forum? We are having this exact discussion on another thread right now.

Look for the thread titled: "Would love suggestions on what flavor to go with here..."

This was my take on it the topic:

Please remember when reading all the distro fan-boy FUD that linux is linux. It's capabilities come from the kernel, it's modules and the packages you install. Notice that whatever distro anyone promotes, they all say you need Samba. The ability to mount a USB drive is in the kernel modules, along with filesystem support. Automounting done by a daemon that can be installed on any distro.

The basic differences between distros are: installer, package management and system administration tools, though more and more the package management "meta-tools" are becoming more and more alike.

Once the box is installed and updated and you've familiarized yourself with YAST, Synaptic, apt, yum or whatever package meta-tool they've provided, you're pretty much in equivalent environments.

I'm using Fedora Core 2 on about 34 web servers and Core 3 on a half dozen more. I find them both to be stable, secure and comfortable. If you're used to RPM and RedHat, you probably will, too.

 

[Chacalinc]

if you liked RHEL the install Whitebox linux... it's a clone of RHEL. He picked up the source code and recompile averything, the only change is the name.

 

[PSWired]

Yes, I read that other thread and searched the archives here. The other thread is a much simpler setup for a different application entirely. I was looking for suggestions regarding a free enterprise class operating system, and the responses I got are exactly what I was looking for. It looks like CentOS is what I will go with. Thanks for the replies.

 

[linuxpyro]

You should check things out for yourself, but I personally use Gentoo as both a workstation and server, and I like it. It lets you have a lot of control over how you want to customize your install, and lets you tweak packages for your particular hardware (of course, you don't have to do that if you don't want to). Updating is also a snap, thanks to emerge. If you feel adventerous, I'd advise installing it on a non-critical machine first to get the hang of it. It's not really a great newbie distro, but if you want to learn about how Linux works, and want a lot of flexibility, you should check it out.

 

[Trevoke]

If you're _really_ into control,

http://www.linuxfromscratch.org

Otherwise, Gentoo's package manager (portage) is absolutely FANTASTIC.

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