

Ask YC: Which OS are you using on your app's server(s)? - rob

I'm just curious as to what OS everyone is using for their app (e.g., CentOS, Debian, FreeBSD, NetBSD, Solaris, Ubuntu) and did you have any particular reason for choosing that OS?<p>For me, I just have a 'play' VPS right now that I'm running Ubuntu 7.10 on. I like Debian-based distros.
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ichverstehe
Definitely Debian. Had some adventures into the world of FreeBSD, but I have
been using Debian for many years, and I know where everything is located and
it's pretty solid and stable, if you know your deal. I'll probally stick
around for a while.

Does anybody have experience with Ubuntu Server? While Ubuntu is a great
distro for people new into the linux-world and people who just need something
that Work's Out Of The Box, are there any advantages over Debian, with the
server edition, that is?

~~~
st3fan
"""Does anybody have experience with Ubuntu Server?"""

Ubuntu is great. We decided to go for Ubuntu because at the time we made that
decision, Debian was still at 3.1 and very outdated. They have played catchup
since then and 4.0 is much more modern (i'm mostly talking about more recent
versions of popular stuff like postfix, postgres, mysql, gcc, etc.).

We standardized on 6.06/LTS but I've been also been playing with the 8.04/LTS
release that is coming up. Looks very nice and we will probably switch to it.
For new installations. Old stuff still runs rock solid.

~~~
ichverstehe
But I suppose the server-edition is not as 'bloated' as desktop? Personally
I'm not much for using Ubuntu on the desktop, because the standard
installation contains way too much bloat. Like a `bluetoothd` running
standard. But if the server-edition comes pretty 'unbloated' out of the box, I
might consider that for my next setup.

~~~
rob
The default installation is pretty bare just like Debian. I've had no issues
with it, and it does offer more up-to-date software compared to Debian (as
well as Python 2.5 being the default unlike Debian, if you're using that).

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SwellJoe
I've written at length about this:

<http://www.obsceneart.com/?p=30>

Our software runs on millions of servers world-wide running every OS
imaginable, and so I'll self-righteously claim the exclusive privilege of
making bold pronouncements and expecting everyone just to go along with them.

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RyanGWU82
I use CentOS on my server, mostly because I'm the most familiar with Red Hat-
based distributions. I like Ubuntu a lot more on the desktop. If I was using
an Ubuntu desktop full-time, I'd certainly consider using Ubuntu on the server
as well.

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bretthoerner
In my opinion you should choose what know best, assuming what you know is at
least a semi-popular production server OS, especially if you have some decent
experience already with said OS.

I recently looked into (Open)Solaris for DTrace and ZFS, but unless I want to
put in a lot of time understanding the differences between Solaris and what
I'm familiar with (recent GNU/Linux), I don't want to be in an "oh god what do
I do something is wrong?!" state. In the end, I don't see enough value in
DTrace/ZFS to relearn everything, because in the end it's just infrastructure.

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yan
FreeBSD.

Makes most sense to me, but I have nothing against other oses. Just what I
started with and what I keep coming back to.

~~~
extantproject
I also found my way back to FreeBSD when I wandered -- so often, in fact, that
now I don't use anything else except OS X on my PowerBook.

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lux
Seems like Debian/Ubuntu is the popular choice around here. Same with me. OS X
on my dev box, Ubuntu on our backup server and Debian on our live server. I've
used Fedora/Red Hat for a while as well, but just don't like/trust the package
management like I do with apt.

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sant0sk1
I run Debian exclusively on my servers. I don't have any great reason why it's
better than any other distro, it's just what I learned first and I know where
everything is.

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underscore
FreeBSD (6.3) on one, OpenBSD on another.

Both choices were made mostly for the fact that I'm familiar with them, and
they seem trustworthy (reliable, lacking gaping security holes out of the box,
though I'd hope the latter is the case for most Linux distros as well). While
I'd probably enjoy spending time improving my sysadmin-fu, it wouldn't have
been a wise way to spend time for either of these projects.

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Hexstream
I use Ubuntu Server since I already useUbuntu as my desktop so there's no
learning curve (besides using the console instead of X).

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st3fan
Ubuntu. But I would love to deploy more on Solaris or Open Solaris. When you
have to deal with performance issues then Solaris is king. It has so many
excellent tools to figure out what applications are doing. Standard linux
can't even show on a per-process basis what is causing disk io for example.
Stuff like that is a no-brainer on Solaris.

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chrisbolt
Slackware and Slamd64 on ~190 servers, stripped down to 120 megs. Downloads
root filesystem with netboot and runs it in-memory.

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ken
Ubuntu.

We used CentOS when I started (because it was the EC2 default back then or
something), but as we grew everybody seemed to know Debian better, so we
switched. I find it's much easier to find and install packages for Ubuntu than
it was for CentOS, but I admit that may well be because I'm an idiot (esp.
w.r.t. RPMs).

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ubudesign
I use fedora but striped down to the core. I like to build the webserver and
other tools so that I can customize.

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thorax
CentOS, SuSE, Fedora, Windows Server 2003.

I've had the most enjoyment (surprisingly) with SuSE because of AppArmor's
ability to cover holes in flaws for open-source PHP software we used early on.
yast is also kind of handy for some of our non-Linux gurus.

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dmpayton
For my personal stuff, I run Ubuntu 7.10 because Ubuntu was my first
experience with Linux (in May '07), and it's what I'm most comfortable with.

At work (I work at a startup), we're using CentOS 5 because that's all that
(mt) offers.

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modoc
Another vote for Debian. I've been using it for years, so I know how to secure
it really well, it's solid, easy to use, all that jazz. I run OS X for my
local development machine, but in production I use Debian everywhere.

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spydez
Linux. Debian on my shared server and Ubuntu 7.10 on the laptop and dev
server.

I've been looking into Solaris (for ZFS), but debian-based distros is what I
know, so it's what I'll use for now.

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JackDanger
Gentoo - it's what I know.

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culturestate
CentOS 5.1 - we started on a hosted LiquidWeb box (they were installing
CentOS4 at the time), and since it worked near-flawlessly for us, decided to
standardize on it as we grew.

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bap
In my wanderings I see CentOS more than anything else. A lot of people here
mention Debian which I haven't run across at all and of course Ubuntu is
pretty frequent as well.

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ezmobius
gentoo on ~1800 virtual machines.

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kogir
Windows Server 2003/2008, Ubuntu 7.10, CentOS 5, and FreeBSD 6.3/7

I'm hoping to move to Windows 2008 and FreeBSD 7 or Ubuntu 7.10 everywhere.

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flashgordon
mate try and experiment with a couple - i know it is easier said than done. I
am currently using Fedora 8. for an intermediate user like myself, it was not
too packed and at the same time not too stripped so I could configure it as I
learnt more and more.

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konsl
RHEL -- wanted Linux and our host doesn't offer many other variants. OS X on
dev though ;)

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dazzawazza
FreeBSD 6.2

I've deployed it before, it's rock solid, secure and the ports system rocks.

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kashif
1.Debian 2\. CentOs

Debian is more stable and just holistically better in my opinion...

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nuggien
ubuntu 6.06 LTS.

I will probably upgrade to the next LTS when it becomes available.

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initself
Slackware. Call me crazy.

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aleo
FreeBSD 7.0 on dedicated server, Ubuntu 7.10 on 512mb RAM VPS.

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kirubakaran
Debian Stable.

It is called "stable" for a reason, you know.

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rms
CentOS, because it seemed best supported by VirtualMin Free

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bayareaguy
rPath Linux. I used the public rBuilder to create a recipe and then build both
an EC2 AMI and a local Xen DomU image with everything I needed in a day.

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attack
Gentoo on Xen host.

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xenoterracide
Test server is gentoo, production may vary.

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thingsilearned
ubuntu 7.10 on EC2. Chosen simply because of familiarity, excessive
documentation and the ease of apt-get.

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tlrobinson
A mixture of Ubuntu and Mac OS X.

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chuchurocka
gentoo, I'm a control freak...

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thehigherlife
debian, ubuntu, novell netware, mac os x, win 2k3

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entelarust
Debian and RedHat

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brianr
Fedora 7 64-bit.

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dous
Only Debian.

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jasonlbaptiste
os x tiger

