pickin a linux server for work

hypermegachi · 2006-01-20 14:44:45

pikass wrote:

hypermegachi wrote:
debian has deborphan, which has to search and "guess" the orphans. it seems like with debian you end up with a lot of useless packages after a while if you don't keep track yourself.
Not true if you use the recommended aptitude.

right you are!

eedok · 2006-01-27 16:05:27

no one on these boards do commercial support for arch linux?

Gullible Jones · 2006-01-27 20:29:00

No, definitely not.

Anonymo · 2006-01-28 18:16:42

How about Rubix? It is going to be at 1.0 in 3 or 4 days. I am trying the release candidate and it is really good. Has 3 kernels to boot from:

* Kernel 2.6.15.1 with reiser4 support (including the installer)
* Kernel 2.4.32, vanilla and patched for grsecurity

it's a fork of Slackware 10.1 and uses pacman like Arch.

The admin is Joshua Rubin, who has been answering many of my nagging questions.

so far, it hasn't crashed once. There is no gnome, but KDE is great.

http://www.rubixlinux.org/

I see it as using Arch's more stable cousin. Arch is great and so is Rubix.

Gullible Jones · 2006-01-28 18:34:42

That looks quite interesting... Very slackish.

iphitus · 2006-01-28 23:53:45

Anonymo wrote:

How about Rubix? It is going to be at 1.0 in 3 or 4 days. I am trying the release candidate and it is really good. Has 3 kernels to boot from:
* Kernel 2.6.15.1 with reiser4 support (including the installer)
* Kernel 2.4.32, vanilla and patched for grsecurity
it's a fork of Slackware 10.1 and uses pacman like Arch.
The admin is Joshua Rubin, who has been answering many of my nagging questions.
so far, it hasn't crashed once. There is no gnome, but KDE is great.
http://www.rubixlinux.org/
I see it as using Arch's more stable cousin. Arch is great and so is Rubix.

Dont use reiser4 on a production server.

Just......... dont. There's countless reasons why it isnt in the vanilla kernel. It simply isnt stable, nor ready.

If you go back onto the lkml, reiser4 was first posted for inclusion 2 years ago. 2 years. It still isnt ready.

iphitus

Gullible Jones · 2006-01-29 00:35:01

Good point about Reiser4, but that distro doesn't look bad despite its support for said filesystem. Still, I wonder about the level of support,,,

afu · 2006-01-29 02:32:48

I'm using my fragile Linux skills to help pay for my education and am heading toward 6 years production server time - so for what it's worth here's my take:

Haven't played with SUSE or Debian (and spinoffs)

All our production stuff is RedHat (the boss pays to have someone to blame if need be). For most common heavy stuff it works great. RPM hell only comes around when your packages are not supportted by RedHat or you need compile options that are not met in the RedHat packages. For the 10 or so servers I work with all is taken care of via RedHat packages except some printing software and a few programs we use in our e-mail gateway system. All of the programs we compile from source have no issues with RedHat configurations. Life is good.

We have had several Slackware systems in the past, two of which had uptimes over 500 days before powereoutages killed them. One's hardware died after we performed /sbin/shutdown -h. It halted and never came back. We took the disk out, put it in similar hardware and up it came. (These OS's were so old we couldn't understand how we didn't get hacked).

So.... if your skills are good or you need to compile source packages, I suggest Slackware. Otherwise a RedHat like system.

The biggest problem with this is there are many good Linux distro's to use. I really like Arch, BUT, bleeding edge is a bit risky on a production server where users get pissed when things don't go quite right. If your skills are good and your user base minimal you could use any of the Distrowatch top 30 and have little issues. Well, maybe...

Anonymo · 2006-01-29 16:31:23

Gullible Jones wrote:

Good point about Reiser4, but that distro doesn't look bad despite its support for said filesystem. Still, I wonder about the level of support,,,

what do you mean by level of support? Joshua Rubin, the admin of Rubix is always willing to help out anyone. Also, you send him PKGBUILDS and he will add them to the community repos. You can also always start your own repos with your own programs. Pretty much like arch, but with a stronger slackware philosophy. I am using it right now and it has not crashed once. All the programs run great. it has reiser4, but you don't have to use it for a server. I think it supports all filesystems. you can use it in a server or on your desktop or laptop.

hypermegachi · 2006-01-29 20:06:24

Anonymo wrote:

what do you mean by level of support?

basically, for some companies it is important to be able to blame someone when something goes wrong. the rubix guy is probably very helpful from what you say, but it's not his job to help and if he chooses to he can ignore you completely and there's nothing you can do about it.

Gullible Jones · 2006-01-30 03:25:09

Then again, Slackware has no official support and finds use on a lot of servers.

Anonymo · 2006-01-30 10:11:42

I think the Slackware support can find it's way around in Rubix

Jefg60 · 2006-02-02 18:32:59

Gullible Jones wrote:

Then again, Slackware has no official support and finds use on a lot of servers.

slackware's been around a lot longer than arch though. I really dont want to bash arch, because I really like it. But truth be told im still a little wary of it. great community it has yes, but its not very big. I dont expect to get quick answers on this forum because I know arch isnt that widely used (relatively) YET. (p.s. not a dig at all, I dont mind waiting, im not one of these "your distro sucks, i spent 10 minutes trying to fix it and nobody will help me" people! ) If I was running a heavily used server, I'd want SOME way of getting really fast answers to weird and wonderful problems. A long established big user base like slackware has could provide that, or at least greatly increase the chances of it.

I do think that arch will get to that level though. Its got so much going for it. It doesnt deserve not to.

marcob · 2006-03-24 17:04:18

Ay yai yai!! I wish I hadn't read this thread. Our whole business has been running and depending on Arch for the last two years, and now I find out I shouldn't be doing that!! Thousands of users accessing our site and the whole thing could go kablooey at any time???

(Of course, we do have our own local repo that's locked in time -- it only gets updated after extensive testing of new packages/updates. 8) )

Arch Linux

#26 2006-01-20 14:44:45

Re: pickin a linux server for work

#27 2006-01-27 16:05:27

Re: pickin a linux server for work

#28 2006-01-27 20:29:00

Re: pickin a linux server for work

#29 2006-01-28 18:16:42

Re: pickin a linux server for work

#30 2006-01-28 18:34:42

Re: pickin a linux server for work

#31 2006-01-28 23:53:45

Re: pickin a linux server for work

#32 2006-01-29 00:35:01

Re: pickin a linux server for work

#33 2006-01-29 02:32:48

Re: pickin a linux server for work

#34 2006-01-29 16:31:23

Re: pickin a linux server for work

#35 2006-01-29 20:06:24

Re: pickin a linux server for work

#36 2006-01-30 03:25:09

Re: pickin a linux server for work

#37 2006-01-30 10:11:42

Re: pickin a linux server for work

#38 2006-02-02 18:32:59

Re: pickin a linux server for work

#39 2006-03-24 17:04:18

Re: pickin a linux server for work

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