Crunch time: Debian, Libranet or FC1?

[Net Llama!]

On Fri, 30 Apr 2004, Michael Hipp wrote:
> I need to build a new server for a client. Primary app for now will just
> be Samba but later PostgreSQL. Hardware will be a P4 with dual SCSI
> mirrored. This client is smallish, but they would be out of business in
> no time if this system doesn't "just run".
>
> Until now, I always just used the latest version of RHL for a server
> distro, but that is all changed. Please offer me your opinions and any
> pros/cons you can think of...
>
> - I'm by far more familiar with Red Hat than anything else.
>
> - The stability of Debian is legendary. But some of the software is
> ancient and I don't know how stable the unstable repository is. And
> security updates are generally unavailable for unstable.

I don't know that Debian's stability is legendary.  Their package
management system does receive a lot of praise, but whether debian is any
more stable than any other Linux distro is really a matter of debate.

Security updates for Debian's three brances (stable, unstable & testing)
are fairly reliable from what i've heard.

> - Libranet is a jewel, but it is not intended as a server distro.

I suppose, but linux is a modular OS.  You can always install Apache,
postgresql and whatever else you want and call it a server.

> - FC1 is easy, familiar and up to date; but would I be crazy to use it
> for a production server (even a small one)?

I dunno.  Redhat is as stable as you make it.  If you want to install
everything and the kitchen sink, sure it will be a bit unstable.  If you
pare it down to just console apps, with apache it should be fine.
Granted, I'm still using RH-7.3 & RH9 on the majority of my production
boxes, so my advice should be taken with a grain of salt  :)

> - Do I just need to bite the bullet and learn Debian?

If it were me, i wouldn't.  I just don't care much for 'the Debian way'
and i don't find their package management system to match up well with how
i admin a box.  If it weren't for all the bleeding edge crazy untested
patches, I'd prolly be a die-hard Gentoo user.  So i'm still using Redhat
and/or Fedora on all of my boxes.  I can't say that i'm too happy with the
approach that Redhat has taken, making a quasi-unstable branch (fedbora)
which is free (as in beer and speach) and a stable branch (Enterprise)
which is free (as in speach, but not in beer), but redhat seems to think
its the way to go for them.  Thankfully there are freely available clones
of [A|E]S-3.0 (like whiteboxlinux) so you can technically run that anyway.

> - Is there any good reason to continue to think of Debian as an
> intimidating/difficult distro?

Not really, but if this is going to be a production server, it prolly
shouldn't be your first experience with debian.

> {Here's some unscientific data ... Went down to Books-A-Million in
> Little Rock. The book rack for "Operating Systems" had (16) items that
> mention Red Hat right in the title and several others that are based on
> Red Hat but don't say so in the title, (2) items that have SUSE in the
> title and (1) about Debian. Is staying with the "leader" still the best
> choice?}

I can't answer that.  What i can say is that the book industry, especially
for tech books, can't keep up with reality.  A book that is released today
on linux was prolly sent to the publisher a month or more earlier, and
prolly was with the editor for 2-3 months before that, and was started by
the author months if not a year before that.  So the books you see on the
shelves today may not accurately reflect the current technology, or the
current trends of that technoology.  Hell, there are still book stores in
the US that are selling Caldera OpenLinux.

-- 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Lonni J Friedman				netllama at linux-sxs.org
Linux Step-by-step & TyGeMo		     http://netllama.ipfox.com