Does anyone have a favorite Linode platform

Fedora usually contains newer versions of software than CentOS does, which is OK for desktops, but not necessarily stable enough for servers. A lot of sysadmins would willingly sacrifice bleeding-edge features in favor of slightly outdated but more widely tested software.

Same with Debian (old, more stable) versus Ubuntu (new, less stable).

For most everyday uses, though, the stability difference would seem negligible.

My personal favorite is Debian.

++Debian

Also Debian

Arch Linux.

I like the simplicity and ease of package management with pacman. I like the quality documentation and help available at the Arch Linux site.

However, I do not like the generally low quality of packages on Arch Linux. While 99% are just great, 1% of the time a package is poorly specified (usually missing dependencies) and breaks itself or something else on upgrade. That happens far too often with Arch Linux unfortunately.

Overall though, while I have mixed feelings about Arch, I still like it the best. It does break badly sometimes but when it works, it is the easiest and simplest distribution to manage, in my experience.

Obviously, for people running something more important than a vanity server, Arch Linux is not a good choice.

I feel like Debian is a good distribution to know, and I wish I was more experienced with it. Debian seems like the distribution with real staying power, because it is so much more complete and comprehensive than just about anything else, and has so much developer and end-user buy-in. I almost installed Debian instead of Arch Linux on my Linode, but went for Arch at the last minute. Since I just created this Linode and it's not too late to turn back, perhaps I should install both side by side and see how well the process of migrating my existing site to both goes. Perhaps Debian will impress me.

Debian for me

~JW

@rss245x:

Several people have indicated they like CentOS better than Fedora

May I ask why? what is better? Performance? Security?

I run Fedora on my desktop, and CentOS on my linodes.

Fedora is a very active distribution, it is not that uncommon to have upwards of 100MB of updates to install on a weekly basis. CentOS is generally considered a 'stable' distribution which has a set (but relatively new) group of software that gets security updates. I get an average of 2 security updates a month, I'd guess.

If I installed a server, I'll choose Ubuntu because I've used it as a server and desktop and I'm most conferrable with it. If your going to use it as a server in the long term, install the LTS version, they last 5 years.

Bottom Line: Use the Distribution your most conferrable with.

techman224 is right. Use what is most comfortable to you.

I use Arch on my desktop. Personally, I find Arch very easy to maintain on my server as well. Have I run into issues? Sure; but I've run into issues on systems that I help administrate that use other distributions that are more geared towards servers.

The key, in my opinion, is to understand the software you're using. Then you can better understand what to upgrade or patch, and when.

Gentoo on my servers and Linux Mint on my Desktops and Laptops 8)

@bji:

Arch Linux.

I feel like Debian is a good distribution to know, and I wish I was more experienced with it. Debian seems like the distribution with real staying power, because it is so much more complete and comprehensive than just about anything else, and has so much developer and end-user buy-in. I almost installed Debian instead of Arch Linux on my Linode, but went for Arch at the last minute. Since I just created this Linode and it's not too late to turn back, perhaps I should install both side by side and see how well the process of migrating my existing site to both goes. Perhaps Debian will impress me.

OK so I spent a few days doing a side-by-side comparison of migrating an aged Fedora Core 5 server to Arch Linux versus doing the same to Debian. I won't go into the gory details, but unfortunately I gave up on Debian. It just doesn't work for me; I don't have the time or patience to read tomes of literature just to know how to install a package or figure out what packages are installed on my system. And when it comes to creating a new package, which I have to do for a few services that I need to migrate from my Fedora server, oh my god the unbelievable complexity of Debian versus Arch.

Arch can certainly bite you because being simpler than Debian, it's also much less sophisticated, and somewhat less well maintained (package update breakage), but wow is it incredibly simpler. I gave Debian another go and once again, it just wasn't for me.

Now if I was being paid for my time to install/configure the system, I'd have no problem with Debian :)

Sorry to hear that Debian didn't work out for you – it's a brilliant distribution. Should you need it in future (and because I couldn't resist):

@bji:

to install a package
apt-get update && apt-get install @bji:

or figure out what packages are installed on my system.
apt-cache policy or, dpkg –get-selections | grep foo

@bji:

creating a new package
By modifying some existing source:

apt-get build-dep Edit source code

dpkg-buildpackage -rfakeroot -uc -b

By converting from the Fedora rpm:

alien dpkg -i Building a package completely from scratch is of course a little more complex, but how often do you need to do that ? :)

@mjrich:

Sorry to hear that Debian didn't work out for you – it's a brilliant distribution. Should you need it in future (and because I couldn't resist):

Thanks for your response. I really like the Debian philosophy; I like the "sticking to principles" aspect of Debian, and the fact that its a distribution that never seems to shy away from maintaining those principles, even if it is more difficult at times. There are things I really like about Debian in theory, but somehow, when the rubber hits the road, I just can never get the hang of it. And I've been using Linux almost exclusively since 1994 (Yggdrasil -> RedHat -> Fedora -> Arch) so … I've seen my share of distributions, it's not like I'm unfamiliar with Unix administration in general. Debian has its own way of doing things and while I admire the principles, I somehow constantly get caught up in the myriad of little details every time I try to use Debian.

And just to give some examples of why Arch is just so much easier:

> @bji:

to install a package
apt-get update && apt-get install

pacman -Sy > @bji:

or figure out what packages are installed on my system.
apt-cache policy or, dpkg –get-selections | grep foo

pacman -Q | grep foo

> @bji:

creating a new package
By modifying some existing source:

apt-get build-dep Edit source code

dpkg-buildpackage -rfakeroot -uc -b
> There is no simple tool for building a package "automatically" in Arch, at least not one that I know of. However, the process itself is simple enough that it doesn't really require such a tool.

> By converting from the Fedora rpm:

alien dpkg -i

Not sure if you can do this in Arch. Probably not.

> Building a package completely from scratch is of course a little more complex, but how often do you need to do that ? :)

In my case, there were a few packages that I did need to build from source. They were:

• tmda

• tmda-cgi

• gallery2

I created Arch packages for them fairly easily, and added them to the AUR (Arch User Repository) easily too.

Anyway, nothing against Debian - like I said, I admire it and if I had more time to devote to it, I am sure it would be a great choice.

I like both Debian and Ubuntu, but I'm more confortable with Ubuntu.

@bji, as you know Linux is all about Freedom, so if you feel comfortable with Arch enjoy it BUT in those given examples 'of why Arch is just so much easier' you forgot to mention pacman vs dpkg (which even has less letters ;-))

• Install a standalone package:

Arch -> pacman -Sy <package>
Debian -> dpkg -i <package></package></package>

• Installed packages list:

Arch -> pacman -Qde (I think)
Debian -> dpkg -l

Regards

(Edit a typo)

I have been running cento for a while and I am switching to Debian.

The problem I had with Centos is that if you need a recent version of a software the chances that you need to use a non-official repository or even have to compile from source are pretty high. The whole concept of CentOs is that you use only yum and you are very very confident that everything will work together. Right now, CentOs is stuck at php 5.1.6 and more and more projects are requiring php 5.2+…

I chose CentOs in the first place because that was what my former shared webhosting (lunarpages) was using. Now, I understand why they use it: it is really stable and since their customers do not need cutting edge versions of the major software, it is a very good deal for them.

I am moving to Debian because (1) I found a gerat tutorial to setup my mail server on Debian (2) this is the lightest distro offered by linode (3) php 5.2.6 (4) g++ 4.3.2 versus 4.1.2 in Centos.

Hopefully, I will be able to move all my linodes to Debian fast because I believe it is much better to have all its linodes running the same distro.

I can still imagine many situations where Centos is the best distro though.

@jcr:

The problem I had with Centos is that if you need a recent version of a software the chances that you need to use a non-official repository or even have to compile from source are pretty high. The whole concept of CentOs is that you use only yum and you are very very confident that everything will work together. Right now, CentOs is stuck at php 5.1.6 and more and more projects are requiring php 5.2+…

There is a great tutorial on how to upgrade php to the 5.2+ on CentOS –> http://www.shestakovsky.me.uk/blog/?p=20

Please do not forget that you have to choice either a cutting edge system (Fedora?) or something more stable (CentOS) or something extremely stable (Debian Woody/Sarge). There is almost no compromise.

Personally, I like RPM based Linux so my choice would be CentOS or Red Hat Enterprise. For laptop/desktop I like Ubuntu or Fedora.

@alexsh1:

There is a great tutorial on how to upgrade php to the 5.2+ on CentOS –> http://www.shestakovsky.me.uk/blog/?p=20

Remi's repository is great and I installed php 5.2.10 easily.

But the day after, I typed "yum update" and I got php 5.3, which is a totally different beast with numerous breaks and nothing was working properly anymore The solution was to add uninstall php, add something like exclude=php-5.3 to remi.repo and install php again.

@alexsh1:

[…] or something extremely stable (Debian Woody/Sarge) […]

That is not extremely stable, that's extremely outdated or maybe you mean by stable 'fossilized' ;-)

Currently, Debian Oldstable is Etch and Debian Stable is Lenny.