Which Linux is faster, more efficient, more secure?

[Guest_imported]

Hello, which Redhat Linux is faster, more efficient in terms of hardware usage (no bloatware), and more secure? Redhat Linux 6.2 or Redhat Linux 7.1? I want this to be a webserver platform. Thanks a lot in advance! Regards, Rick.

 

[marsd]

Pleaaaase...

 

[bgarlock]

Well, that question is subject to debate. At work, I only use RH 6.2, with all the patches. I think the latest 2.4.x kernel still needs some work, before I would use it in a production environment. I use RH 7.2 at home, and the 2.4.17 kernel.

As far as speed goes, that is also subject to debate. What kind of speed are you looking for?

Before speed, I choose stability, since you cannot go too fast if the server is down..

 

[rycamor]

If you want Linux with no bloatware, why are you using RedHat? Try Slackware, or Debian. I would say they are arguably more secure (in default settings), also. -------------------

Current reading --

http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=25456

 

[RhythmAce]

Can't we all just get along?

 

[ifincham]

Hi,





At the most basic level, all linuxes are essentially the same - i.e. built from the same core kernel source code tree at

http://www.kernel.org

. Some distros write their own add-on patches to the kernel but other than that its identical.





I would suggest getting a redhat 7.1 / 7.2 or Suse 7.2 / 7.3 and, post-install, compile your own optimised kernel from the kernel.org source tarballs (or install the srpms in which case you'll get the patches too which you may want to apply). It isn't that difficult to compile a custom kernel and you can set optimisation for your class of processor (vs i386) plus omit all the bits that you don't have the hardware for. Also, if you prefer, you can compile into the kernel itself stuff that you'll find provided by redhat et al as modules.





Once you have an optimised kernel its really up to you what services are running - use '/sbin/chkconfig' to turn off everything you don't need.





Most of the distro versions shown above come with both 2.2 series kernels and 2.4 series. If you want to be conservative you can use an older 2.2 series kernel but personally I haven't touched those for a long time now and, at version 2.4.17, its a long way past the problems you get in a point zero release.



For security, its most based on PAM (

http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/libs/pam/)

which again is the same across all linuxes. Then theres the firewalling code, i.e. iptables/ipchains . Apart from that you're down to the security features of the stuff you use, like Apache and, like the kernel, all distros build their apache packages from the same basic source code.



Hope this helps