
Debian or Ubuntu for server? - jamongkad

======
orlick
I've been using Debian stable as a server for the past 8 years. The stability
has been top-notch and I actually prefer having a distro that doesn't update
very often. The less time I can spend updating a server the more time I can
spend delivering value to my customers.

~~~
jamongkad
Your not the only one, I've heard very good things about Debian as well.

------
SwellJoe
Debian or Ubuntu LTS releases are fine. Avoid the usual Ubuntu releases, as
their lifecycle is too damned short. Likewise for Fedora (if you like Red Hat
based free systems, CentOS will do).

I wrote an article about this based on my experience with thousands of
Webmin/Virtualmin/Usermin users:

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

~~~
jamongkad
Thanks man this article should be very helpful!

------
tx
All linuses are supposed to be rock-solid on a server. I went with Ubuntu
because I figured it's not going away any time soon and because there seem to
be more documentation available online.

We've been running 6.06 TLS with no problems for almost a year and just
recently we moved our staging/production to 7.04 and we (as expected) are
seeing no difference. We compiled apache and all libs we needed from source
and never used apt-get for anything.

Besides, is it really important? IMO production server is just that: a
production environment. You set it up just once and you're not supposed to
mess around alot.

~~~
SwellJoe
"IMO production server is just that: a production environment. You set it up
just once and you're not supposed to mess around alot."

That's why you should have stuck with LTS. 7.04 will likely be EOL'ed in the
next few months (unless they branch another LTS version of it), and then
you'll be forced to upgrade under duress. Long life cycle is probably single
most important factor in choosing a good server distribution, because "you're
not supposed to mess around alot".

~~~
tx
Correction: I wanted to say staging/testing instead of staging/production.
Production is runnin on 6.06

~~~
SwellJoe
That's wise. When they do an LTS version, then bumping to 7.x is sane. ;-)

------
jamongkad
Hi guys I'm about to configure a VPS for my web app(for testing and learning
purposes plus it's my first time to launch a site in my life much less
configure a webserver.) And upon recommendation of my webhost(a2b2) Debian and
Ubuntu would be the best choice as I only have a small VPS to begin with. So
what do YCers think? which should I choose?

~~~
dfranke
Go with Debian stable. It's rock-solid.

I've done very poorly with Ubuntu. I've tried installing it twice. The first
time, it installed successfully but then when I rebooted it trashed my RAID
configuration and dropped into single-user mode. The second time, which was
last week, the installer kept hanging in bizarre places. The whole
distribution just seems to be geared toward very simple hardware
configurations and chokes at the slightest violation of its expectations.

Also consider a BSD, though.

~~~
jamongkad
Thanks for the response I'm definitely leaning on Debian...

------
arete
I'd recommend a distro designed for server use, like CentOS. You'll find its
packages are a little out of date because they are well tested and known to be
stable. The default install is hardened and security updates are prompt. Also
automatic updates are pre-configured and just need to be enabled.

~~~
migpwr
I will second CentOS... it's solid.

~~~
bls
What are you using on your workstation? If you are using Ubuntu on your
desktop, I would deploy Ubuntu on the server also. This allows you to combine
your desktop and testing machines into one. Then, you only need a dedicated
staging (virtual) machine and the production machine.

Otherwise, I also recommend CentOS, especially if your hosting provider lets
you run it with SELinux enabled.

~~~
zurla
CentOS is a very common distro for rails production environments. Several high
profile hosting cos use it, like RailsMachine for example. Hard to go wrong
with CentOS.

------
brlewis
Initially I used Debian's "testing" release. With PostgreSQL 8.1 now in
stable, I recently switched to "stable". I develop on an Ubuntu notebook and
have never had any nasty surprises deploying from development to production.

~~~
bk
I've been running Debian on a VPS for about two years and the ease of
maintenance and overall sensible default security policies make it a great
server OS. I'll always go for an OS where my default system is well-tested,
stable, and trivial to maintain. I can then spend some time manually
installing the latest versions of the two apps (web server and db) whose
latest features I may need.

It seems to me that Ubuntu is pretty much like Debian with a more shorter
upgrade cycle. Is that impression accurate? Also, does Ubuntu have any extra
overhead that a Debian system might not have?

~~~
brlewis
AFAICT the only extra overhead with Ubuntu is that there are more desktop-
oriented packages installed by default. Yes, the upgrade cycle is shorter than
debian stable, but it's longer than debian testing. It doesn't sound to me
like you'd have any reason to switch your server from debian to Ubuntu.

------
Keios
For the server use debian if you are going to use the server for anything
serious, for your desktop you could use ubuntu. There is no reason IMHO that
you would want to use ubuntu on a production server.

------
muhfuhkuh
fedora 7 FTW!

