

Debian is now the most popular Linux distribution on web servers  - mariuz
http://w3techs.com/blog/entry/debian_is_now_the_most_popular_linux_distribution_on_web_servers

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JoelMcCracken
I was thinking "Hasn't it always been?", and then remembered Redhat.

Debian shows that actually solving real problems well is a valid way to
approach open source software over the long term.

I first got into Linux years ago, before Ubuntu really existed. At the time,
Debian was really awesome. It solved the biggest problem at the time:
installing, updating, and removing software on *nix systems.

By contrast, Redhat had rpms, but they sucked. I still, to this day, have a
difficult time figuring out how to do /anything/ with packages on anything
derived from redhat. What is up2date? what is yum? where does the rpm command
it? why aren't all of these documented well?

I think ultimately the rise of Debian illustrates the conflict of interests
that comes from certifications. Making your software easier to use makes
certifications less valuable, after all.

~~~
asomiv
I haven't used RedHat-based distros for years now but I remember that back
when I switched to Debian-based distros I was equally confused about Debian's
package management system. I didn't think, and still don't think, that dpkg
and apt are documented that well. To answer your question: yum is to rpm as
apt is to dpkg. But I've always found it weird that there's a difference
between apt-get and apt-cache; in contrast, "yum install" and "yum search" use
the same executable. The documentation concerning building Debian packages is
often out of date and scattered all over the Internet with no clear central
place. And finally there's this "aptitude" thing; I still don't understand why
it exists and how it's different from regular apt.

~~~
sirn
>And finally there's this "aptitude" thing; I still don't understand why it
exists and how it's different from regular apt.

Aptitude is a APT frontend that solves exactly the problem you mentioned; no
more `apt-cache search` nor `apt-file`, it's all just `aptitude`. Plus a
little bit of dependencies tracking (which I think apt has it available for a
while already). aptitude is exactly what apt should be, IMHO.

------
redsymbol
Our web servers run Debian for the most part. The only real hassle has been
with PCI-DSS compliance. For example, Debian Squeeze has Apache v. 2.2.16 (or
did until recently), which our compliance scanning vendor flagged as having
several unacceptable security holes.

The solution that's worked well is to just selectively upgrade the handful of
offending packages: either from testing, or some other source, or in rarer
cases, compiling from source. Annoying and time-consuming, but soluble, and
IMO worth the tradeoff given Debian's other good qualities right now.

~~~
kev009
Your scanning vendor should know better and advise you properly. Just kidding,
the "security" industry sucks.

Debian and other long term enterprise distributions backport fixes for these
unacceptable security holes. A better solution is to simply turn off the minor
version string as that's the extent of their testing.

I'd guess a good number of people intuitively do what you did. The problem is,
instead of getting sucked in by a scheduled apt-get update, now you probably
wont notice critical fixes until the next quarterly scan is due.

------
pdx
I started with Debian because I perceived it to be the safest. As I became
more comfortable with Linux, I became frustrated with the versions available
to me through apt-get of software that I wanted, and I rapidly became tired of
compiling everything I wanted from source in order to get a more recent
version. I finally took the chance on Ubuntu for that reason, and haven't
looked back. I suspect my story is a common one.

~~~
billpatrianakos
Though I made the switch too, I don't get your problem with packages. Debian
uses Aptitude same as Ubuntu. It sounds like the problem you had with Debian
was that you didn't have the sources you needed in your sources list.

I started with CentOS but found it difficult to maintain and set up. Then I
switched to Debian because for some reason I felt pressure to not use Ubuntu.
People often imply that Ubuntu is for bad programmers, inexperienced people,
etc. It's kind of like "well, all the cool kids are using distro X because
we're l33t and you're not cool because you use Ubuntu" so I stayed away from
it for a while. Finally I ended up deciding that it was more important to just
get a fucking app running on a server I could most effectively use. I'd been
using Xubuntu and Crunchbang on my laptop for a while and so I made the switch
and I'm very happy with it. I subsequently redeployed all my VPSes with Ubuntu
11.10 or 10.10 depending on what the hosts offered. I like it because not only
is it the easiest for me to manage but it seems like its easier to find help
for any problems you may run into and good documentation.

I say screw the hipster crowd who are too cool for Ubuntu and just focus on
what's best for you. I think people like that are trying to convince
themselves of how great they are more than anything else.

~~~
pdx
I believe I could have perhaps, hacked the sources list, but the 'correct'
debian sources for a given package are often a version or two behind the
Ubuntu sources.

~~~
cullenking
This is a desirable trait in a server. You keep behind everything by a version
or two and you are essentially guaranteed more stability. Considering how
Ubuntu 11.10 has run on my desktop, I would not want to build my business off
it.

Mot vendors offer a PPA for easy integration with apt on debian. MongoDB,
Maria/MySQL/Percona etc. This way your core system stays solid and well
tested, but you can build your app layer using whatever version you want. It's
definitely a win-win.

------
lysol
As it should be. Basically everything that Ubuntu brought to the table is now
in Debian, except for all the crap.

~~~
freehunter
I'm curious because I don't follow server distro updates often: what server-
side stuff did Ubuntu improve on? I was under the impression that most of
their gains were on new user experience as opposed to traditional
administration.

~~~
lhnn
They have created Screen, and they have a lot of Cloud tools they've created
based on Openstack. They also have some better default service configurations.
[citation needed].

~~~
tmhedberg
Canonical did not create screen; it is a GNU project that existed before
Ubuntu ever did. They did, however, develop an extended, improved version of
it (byobu).

~~~
dspillett
It isn't really a "version" of screen. It is a bunch of scripts and wrappers
using/around hooks that screen had built in (but hardly anyone ever knew
existed).

It is a rather nice little set of basic improvements though.

------
buster
It should be noted that technology wise you could add CentOS and RHEL. I'm
pleased to see Debian #1 though, i hope it stays that way! :)

~~~
BCM43
You could also add debian and ubuntu, but I guess the connection is not quite
as strong.

~~~
buster
No, you could not. Afaik Ubuntu releases don't correlate that much with Debian
releases.

CentOS on the other hand is always binary compatible and basically just a re-
branding of RHEL without the commercial support.

So, apart from the commercial side CentOS and RHEL are pretty much exactly the
same.

I don't beliebe this is true for Debian and Ubuntu.

As far as i know, it's like that: Fedora is the bleeding-edge Desktop RedHat
version that gets the latest stuff. At some time it's forked, fixed and baked
into a RHEL release. When this is released it's taken by the community,
recompiled/branded (with the exact same sources) and released as CentOS.

------
rilindo
Expect this to be brief. For a while, there was uncertainty because CentOS
updates were way behind Red Hat (the upstream vendor). As of January, CentOS
is effectively in sync with RHEL.

------
emehrkay
As a non-hardcore linux guy, I find Debian a lot easier to maintain than
CentOS

~~~
bwarp
It definitely is. The upgrade path between major versions is significantly
easier which is where it really hurts. Also, despite the Debian packages being
a little older, they always just work and have sensible patches and defaults
applied.

~~~
giulivo
actually the major versions upgrade problem is fixed in Fedora, there are some
"yum upgrade faq" which document how to do it:
<http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Upgrading_Fedora_using_yum>

but I'd still prefer a rolling release like Archlinux does

------
strictfp
Can anyone point to some strong points for CentOS over Debian? I was surprised
that CentOS has been in lead, always preferred Debian myself.

~~~
bradleyland
I'm not sure there are many completely objective reasons to choose one or the
other. Things like release-cycle style and package layout come to mind. CentOS
also has a different toolchain for some system management tasks like run-level
management. Keep in mind that for everything you like about Debian, there
maybe someone else who dislikes it. For example, some sysadmins would rather
the Apache 2 package _not_ create folders like sites-enabled/sites-disabled
along with the associated tools.

It comes down to a matter of preference.

~~~
quicksilver03
Quite right, I seriously dislike the scattered approach to configuration files
of Debian packages and thus I stay clear of Debian and any derivative like
Ubuntu.

However the end result is the same, a properly configured a Debian box works
just as well as a properly configured CentOS or Arch box.

~~~
uggedal
The scattered approach to configuration files is great when you automate your
configuration with tools like Puppet or Chef.

------
realschool
Although CentOS and Fedora both come from Red Hat, so maybe Red Hat is the
most popular?

