In your opinion, what is the best server OS available today and why? It is 2009 and I'm looking for the best available OS to host 20 or 30 domains. Some will become wildly popular and merit their own dedicated hardware. Some will flop and get little traffic
The box I have for this project is: Dual 3.2 Ghz Xeon 2 GB ram 2x250 GB SATA mirrored
I threw RHE 4 on it. It's what I used years ago for a similar project but realize it is probably very outdated. Runs great with Virtualmin but there has to be something better.
My options are open.
Thanks for your help and I hope this thread serves as a good reference to anyone that has the same question.
I hope lots of folks toss out their thoughts on their preferred distributions.
Just some thoughts on your specific circumstances -- if you're used to RHEL, you could simply put RHEL 5 on there, since it's the latest and greatest from RedHat.
If you like RHEL, but don't want to buy a new license (and don't need it's associated support), CentOS will get you a very similar experience.
RHEL and CentOS come with the advantage of being the distro Joe and Jamie tend to recommend for Virtualmin, as it's the best tested.
That said, so long as you're picking from the Grade A supported distribution list, you should be just fine in terms of compatibility with Virtualmin. You can see that list here:
http://www.virtualmin.com/os-support.html
Have a good one,
-Eric
My servers run centos 5.2 for reasons mentioned in previous posts. It's stable, well supported, easy to maintain.
At home, Ubuntu 8.10 64bit as a desktop.
Somehow I wouldn't use debian based OS's for a server but that is just a personal preference.
I don't need 23000 different pieces of software on a server. On a desktop it is nice to have this availability if you're into experiments and try-outs.
Thanks for the feedback, it has been eye opening!
Per the discussion and research, I'm going to go with CentOS 5.
Now for the last question, 32 or 64 bit CentOS?
<div class='quote'>Now for the last question, 32 or 64 bit CentOS?</div>
How much RAM do you have in your box?
There's some thoughts on all that here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/64-bit#Pros_and_cons
However, many folks use 32bit unless they have more than 4GB of RAM.
-Eric
<div class='quote'>Now for the last question, 32 or 64 bit CentOS?</div>
This one is super easy to decide:
Do you have more than 4GB of RAM? If yes, 64 bit. If no, 32 bit.
--
Check out the forum guidelines!
Thanks Eric. That confirms what I thought. I don't plan on putting more than 4GB memory on the server. If any sites get so big that server performance becomes an issue, they get their own box. This is why I felt fine with 32 bit until I saw Bryan's CentOS how too and he uses 64 bit: <a href='http://www.virtualmin.com/documentation/id,centos_5_install/' target='_blank'>http://www.virtualmin.com/documentation/id,centos_5_install/</a>
I read a lot of posts on other sites where people talked about 64 bit running applications 30% faster on the same hardware as their 32 bit CentOS installs. I also read things how 64 bit is less stable but 32 bit is a dinosaur. I don't believe everything I read which is why I was certain 32 would do me fine until I saw Bryan's guide on here. This is the type of place where I'm more apt to believe things I read. LOL
Thanks for the help!
Howdy,
Sure thing!
My thoughts on all this are that while it's good to ask around for advice -- when it comes down to the well being of your business and your customers, you should put as little to chance as possible :-)
Don't take my word for anything -- grab some hardware, and put a 32bit distro on it. Grab some more of the same hardware, and put a 64bit distro on it.
Then install the software you want to use, and run a bunch of benchmarks on it, and see if there's a difference in performance that might effect which you'd prefer to run.
You could then also look into how much a difference the RAM usage is on 64bit vs 32bit.
That said, while I'm not familiar with Bryan's setup in the link you provided -- that Howto is describing a Xen setup, which deals in Virtualization. When you start running multiple operating systems on the same box, you'd tend to need a lot of RAM. I'd guess that Bryan has more than 4GB of RAM setup on his box (or at least, is planning for such an occasion in the future).
-Eric
<div class='quote'>I read a lot of posts on other sites where people talked about 64 bit running applications 30% faster on the same hardware as their 32 bit CentOS installs.</div>
This is simply not true. All things being equal 64 bit runs slower. I can't possibly be any other way--it has more data to move around.
I actually haven't looked at that guide. I'll make sure there's no misinformation about 64 bit systems.
--
Check out the forum guidelines!
It's definitely not RHEL4. (But it might be RHEL5.) ;-)
I recommend either CentOS 5, RHEL 5, or Debian 4, depending on your preferences and what you're used to and whether you like having commercial backing and support for the OS. Which of those is "best" is wholly determined by your experience and what you're building.
CentOS is the most popular (by far), and so getting help is easiest on this platform.
Debian has more packages (by far), and so finding an easy to install package for just about anything is easiest on this platform.
RHEL, obviously, has the commercial backing going for it. And Red Hat actually is pretty good at what they do, so if you have the money to spend (on the license and ongoing annual maintenance--because if you don't keep it subscribed to Red Hat Network throughout it's life, RHEL is by far the worst OS choice you could make) and desire that level of support for the OS, it might be the right choice.
And, in the interest of full disclosure, we use CentOS 5 on all of our current servers, and RHEL 4 on an older server. Jamie and I also have Ubuntu desktop or laptop machines, and I have a Fedora desktop machine.
As Eric mentioned, CentOS 5 is the best tested, and that's because it is the most popular for servers and for use with Virtualmin. (And it's a dramatic level of popularity, too...this isn't a 55/45 split we're talking about. CentOS is at least 80% of our users.)
--
Check out the forum guidelines!
I switched from Debian to Ubuntu LTS because it just has the more recent software packages regarding web hosting business and still proved to be stable.
On the not-web hosting level I'm more conservative and running Debian only.
I like debian etch for a server
I went with CentOS purely because of it's mass popularity as a server platform. My only grouse is that CentOS 5.2 does not support PHP 5.2.x. I have one other pending issue, but am not entirely sure if it relates to the OS...my virtualmin proxy to https is not supported stating cookie and session issues.
Other than the server, a Core2Duo that I lease from Wholesale Internet, my laptop runs on Fedora 10 and my desktop (mainly used by my wife) runs out of Ubuntu 8.10. No Windows here...main reasons being boot time, running virus scans, and other application issues.
I love Fedora...but from what I have read in some posts here by Joe, and articles elsewhere, it is 'bleeding edge' and possibly not as stable as CentOS in a live server environment...? For some reason, I have always asociated Ubuntu as a 'popular' desktop operating system, therefore, for me, the obvious choice for my server was CentOS.
<div class='quote'>My only grouse is that CentOS 5.2 does not support PHP 5.2.x</div>
We provide a 5.2.6 php package set, for folks that really need it, in our bleeding edge repository.
http://www.virtualmin.com/component/option,com_openwiki/Itemid,48/id,vir...
<div class='quote'>I love Fedora...but from what I have read in some posts here by Joe, and articles elsewhere, it is 'bleeding edge' and possibly not as stable as CentOS in a live server environment...?</div>
My biggest concern with Fedora is not the bleeding edge nature of the OS--though that's also a big concern. My major concern is the horribly short lifecycle of the OS. That alone makes it completely unusable for servers, in IMNSHO.
--
Check out the forum guidelines!