server distros

[D. Hugh Redelmeier]

| From: William Park <opengeometry-FFYn/CNdgSA at public.gmane.org>

| On Tue, Mar 06, 2012 at 06:36:18AM -0500, Dave Cramer wrote:
| > Looking currently at centos, or ubuntu.
| > 
| > Comments ?
| > 
| > My goal is ease of upgrading.
| 
| Answer:
|     Any distro that you're already familiar with.

This is a very useful answer.

All distros have strengths and weaknesses.  You are often best off not
being surprised.

I don't do anything stressful on a server, so my opinion isn't well
tested.

I like CentOS.

- very stable

- well supported (by Red Hat)

- facilities are familiar to me: much like the Red Hat products that I've
  been using for over 15 years.  (But not a rollercoaster like
  Fedora.)

- although upgrades (major version changes) are not easy, they are
  very infrequent and support lasts for a long long time (quite often
  longer than the hardware you using)

I also use Ubuntu LTS.  I've not been as impressed.  Support isn't as
long, nor is it as good.  LTS feels like an afterthought.  When it
comes down to it, Red Hat has way more staff working on their product.

Why, then, do I use Ubuntu LTS?

(1) for MythTV.  Mythbuntu seems to be the best canned MythTV support.

(2) for stable desktops (i.e. for people that don't want to do an
    upgrade every six months or a year).  Ubuntu comes with most of
    the candy without having to work at configuring it (eg. MP/3 players).

Right now, if you install CentOS 6, you can expect a long future for
it.  Ubuntu 10.04 LTS will be superceded in a month (by 12.04 LTS).  I
don't actually like the way Ubuntu (or Fedora) desktops are heading
and 12.04 LTS will likely get you into the middle of that swamp.

I've not used Debian directly very often.  I expect that it is very
good for server deployments.
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