What's the best free linux now?
- Thread starter sasquatch
- Start date
why would you use a different platform on your servers than your desktop?
pick one distro, and use the fuck out of it. doesn't really matter which one, you're gonna have to learn some shit specific to that OS, and so you might as well be consistent. though i can't imagine centos making a very good desktop platform...
in my own opinion, apt > yum, scheduled 6 month releases > infrequent/unscheduled releases, LTS branch for servers > single development branch, and thusly, ubuntu > centos
pick one distro, and use the fuck out of it. doesn't really matter which one, you're gonna have to learn some shit specific to that OS, and so you might as well be consistent. though i can't imagine centos making a very good desktop platform...
in my own opinion, apt > yum, scheduled 6 month releases > infrequent/unscheduled releases, LTS branch for servers > single development branch, and thusly, ubuntu > centos
sir, i kindly beg to differ. a distro's purpose is to package together softwares that provide a competitive computing experience. a kernel alone would not make a very good OS, so distributions package the kernel with the bare essentials (udev, bash utils, network drivers, etc) and a package manager for installing the rest, presumably with working/stable packages of a wide variety of software.
most of the development done by canonical, and other distro teams alike, is in the area of stabilization and hardware support. they don't build the server elements (apache, php, mod_ssl, etc) or the desktop (gnome, kde, awesome) or even the tools (vim, rc, gdm, bash) -- their purpose is solely to make a stable platform with a suitable package manager that provides a "blank slate" for installing your own packages and components [and, by extension, to ensure that packages installed work together and do not conflict]. the Desktop, Server and Mobile versions of ubuntu are all the same distribution, and thus they get the same bug fixes, support the same hardware, and can be configured to act the same; they just come with different packages/settings installed by default. you can migrate from Desktop to Server and back again.
i'm not trying to make a case for ubuntu over centos or anything else, but in my opinion, they do not "serve two completely different purposes."
its not just what the teams are working on, its what the majority of the members of its community are using it for and thus where the greatest amount of available online information / resources can be found.
Yes Ubuntu server is great, I just prefer ubuntu for my desktop and centos / fedora for my servers.
I read your first post wrong. My bad. With that said, I use CentOS for my servers and Mint on some desktops. Mainly because I use the OpenVZ kernel and their Red Hat based kernel is updated more frequently than anything.
Ubuntu on servers and on the desktop.
Stability, security and all that shit is pretty much the same with any distro.
Ubuntu has great package management. Debian had the right idea, and Ubuntu took it (combined it with a shitload of its founder's money) and made it all much more user friendly.
If you don't want to spend your time looking of the right version of each rpm on which some piece of software depends, then stick with Ubuntu.
Stability, security and all that shit is pretty much the same with any distro.
Ubuntu has great package management. Debian had the right idea, and Ubuntu took it (combined it with a shitload of its founder's money) and made it all much more user friendly.
If you don't want to spend your time looking of the right version of each rpm on which some piece of software depends, then stick with Ubuntu.
CentOS 5.4 latest kernel package http://mirror.atlanticmetro.net/centos/5.4/updates/x86_64/RPMS/kernel-2.6.18-164.11.1.el5.x86_64.rpm
2.6.18-164.11.1
FC10 latest kernel kernel-2.6.27.35-170.2.94
FC12 latest kernel kernel-2.6.31.12-174.2.3
2.6.18 was released in September 2006
2.6.31 was released in September 2009
Do you have any idea what the difference between three years of kernel updates is?
Not to mention Fedora Core repositories come with packages that are somewhat up-to-date.
FC12:
beanstalkd-1.4.2-1
memcached-1.4.4-1
libevent-1.4.12-1
php-5.3.1-1
mysql-server-5.1.42-2
CentOS 5.4:
No memcached
No beanstalkd
libevent-1.1a-3.2.1
php-5.1.6-32.2
mysql-server-5.0.77-3
Yay for outdated shit!
FYI:: "RHEL 5.4 is based on the slightly outdated kernel version 2.6.18. However, the Red Hat kernel has become quite different from the Linux kernel 2.6.18 available at kernel.org, as the Red Hat developers have incorporated countless improvements from more recent kernel versions into their kernel. Among them are many recent hardware drivers, because the Linux 2.6.18 drivers are unsuitable or insufficient for many modern systems."
Bottom Line:: Older, Proven & Stable Vs. New, Shiny & Buggy. But to each his own. I just listed preference.
Bottom Line:: Older, Proven & Stable Vs. New, Shiny & Buggy. But to each his own. I just listed preference.
I run Fedora on my desktop(s) as they are released and keep them updated. Since my desktops often run stress tests and development I get a very thorough understanding of what a particular release will handle well and if it's suitable for production (hence I don't run FC11 or 12 on production servers.) There is nothing more annoying than chasing after dependencies and drivers and what not because CenOS or RHEL don't support the $100k+ of hardware you just bought. I used to run CentOS primarily, but the headaches simply aren't worth it. Between FC8-10 I've had zero stability issues on servers and I've had it running top 100 alexa sites with no issues at all.
tjewsky said:
did you just repost your already-posted opinion, half-way concede to someone else's suggestions, call everyone who disagrees with you "foolish", and do it all in UNDER 10 VOCABULARY WORDS USED IN THIS WHOLE THREAD?
you win at the internet, man. i quit.
You do realize it's the fact that CentOS is running such a stable kernel that makes it such a good choice for a server.... right? There's a difference between outdated and stable. There's also a reason that 95% of the linux hosts you'll find will be using CentOS.
Fedora is the most updated...but most updated doesn't mean most stable...and most stable is the most important thing for a server i get.
Ubuntu is dope on desktop...Fedora is not too bad either, ubuntu is just easier
Ubuntu is dope on desktop...Fedora is not too bad either, ubuntu is just easier
Come now, Debian doesn't support any of my hardware without an enema of fucking around. At least go for Ubuntu if you like Debian, you might even get some support for you raid card.
You do realize that 95% of the linux hosts run CentOS because it's the default and recommended for cPanel don't you? You do realize that any professional outfit is going to want support contracts and hence run RHEL instead of CentOS don't you? Did you even know that Fedora is owned by Redhat? Tech's who don't know any better run CentOS because they are used to running RHEL in corporate. Heck, I'd give CentOS some slack if it didn't make things such a pain in the ass to install without RPM's. Show me one bit of proof that 2.6.27.41-170.2.117 is any less stable than 2.6.18-164.11.1?
XAMPP is good for doing dev on sites which require a simply lamp stack. When you're working with 50+ HTTP servers, several MySQL servers, a RabbitMQ cluster, and a bank of Memcache servers and several layers of load balancing then silly tools like XAMPP become a real piece of shit.
Fedora Core 12, four virtual monitors broken down into:
DB
Web
Coding
Shell