Arch Linux

gregben

Member

Registered: 2007-04-28

Posts: 6

Archlinux as a server

I've been playing with Archlinux on a spare server box for a couple of days
and it looks pretty good, but I'm wondering how many others use Arch for
serving (Samba, Apache, Postfix, Postgresql, etc.)
Any ideas on Arch vs other Linuxes or BSDs or Solaris for server duty?

Pajaro

Member

Registered: 2004-04-21

Posts: 884

Re: Archlinux as a server

there is no rigorous comparison. What people usually do is:
- never update if it stable enough
- update when the desktop computer seems stable

In my case, i wouldn't doubt to use arch as a standard server. In the lasts months 0 crashes. It only went down when the lights went down (usually every 2 days). Now it has been up for: 6 days 01 h 24 m.

The only programs that seem unstable are:
- amule (closing tabs makes it crash),
- firefox (it doesn't crash, it looses integrity, this has to do with firefox itself, not arch),

in particular: apache, mysql, proftpd. Always up. Never stop. Never fail.

gregben

Member

Registered: 2007-04-28

Posts: 6

Re: Archlinux as a server

Thanks Pajaro!

Just a datapoint: I currently run my main servers on Sun Solaris 8. One time I didn't reboot a machine
for more than 400 days. I only shut it down to clean out the dust.

I'm looking to replace Solaris 8 and don't really like Solaris 10 (though it is a fine OS, I want something
a little easier to administer)

Jessehk

Member

From: Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Registered: 2007-01-16

Posts: 152

Re: Archlinux as a server

I'm set to administer a Linux server in an environment where the employer realizes I'm learning. I was thinking Debian, solely based on my experience with Ubuntu (I've also run Etch on my PC), and Debian's record for stability.

Arch is considered "bleeding-edge". It's not something I would use (but I've never found anything better for my desktop!).

byte

Member

From: Düsseldorf (DE)

Registered: 2006-05-01

Posts: 2,046

Re: Archlinux as a server

Arch is not a replacement for a long-running Solaris box. Never. Debian stable sounds more like it.

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paulr

Member

Registered: 2007-03-23

Posts: 59

Re: Archlinux as a server

The aMule problem is aMule, not arch. I've come across this when I was running version 2.1.3 on Gentoo ; on the search page close down all the open search windows and it falls over with a gtk error.

Oddly though on my system (a Gnome install) it actually works in Arch, still the same version 2.1.3

gregben

Member

Registered: 2007-04-28

Posts: 6

Re: Archlinux as a server

Thanks Jessehk and byte.

I have played with debian in the pre-ubuntu days. Time to go back and look more seriously.

kth5

Member

Registered: 2004-04-29

Posts: 657

Website

Re: Archlinux as a server

Of course there is no "best" or "direct" replacement for Solaris and it definetely wouldn't be Arch, I would say. If you like Solaris for the fact that it doesn't require you to do much to keep it running, consider using a BSD flavour such as OpenBSD. Very secure, very stable and doesn't need you to touch it too often. I wouldn't recommend Debian out of my own experience, as soon as you need to apt-get something it just might break horribly. Nothing that can't be fixed but it's hard to find the problem in the chain of .deb rules sometimes.

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I recognize that while theory and practice are, in theory, the same, they are, in practice, different. -Mark Mitchell