Recommended Linux for Servers

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Hi everyone.

What Linux distribution would you recommend for server use?

You can recommend distributions for both general hosting, or specific hosting (such as email only for example).
Base your response on personal experience, prefrence, cost, support, whatever you prefer, and be as elaborate as possible.

We all know there is no such thing as a "best" Linux distribution, so please don't see this as a battle of distributions.



Thanks.
 
CentOS....it's the community & free version of Red Hat Enterprise Linux.
 
kingrob said:
CentOS....it's the community & free version of Red Hat Enterprise Linux.
Click to expand...

Out of curiosity. Because it is the enterprise version? I haven't used RHEL in a couple of years and last time I used Linux, Ubuntu server worked quite well.
 
I'm sure the OP was not looking for names of Linux servers, but rather why it's your chosen server (features, support etc.) I don't use servers for anything more than downloading so I'm about as useful as everyone else here...:)
 
I have been working with Ubuntu server for 6 years now. Definitely my choice.. the support community for Ubuntu is also excellent
 
kingrob said:
CentOS....it's the community & free version of Red Hat Enterprise Linux.
Click to expand...

My choice as well for free OS but only because I've been using it for years, I'm sure Ubuntu is also a good choice if that's your background.
 
Hidden Attribute said:
Hi everyone.

What Linux distribution would you recommend for server use?

You can recommend distributions for both general hosting, or specific hosting (such as email only for example).
Base your response on personal experience, prefrence, cost, support, whatever you prefer, and be as elaborate as possible.

We all know there is no such thing as a "best" Linux distribution, so please don't see this as a battle of distributions.



Thanks.
Click to expand...

CentOS+cPanel is the best for hosting. Nothing beats it.

CentOS because cPanel runs on it, cPanel because you dont get a better hosting controller anywhere (despite what our blind Plesk supporting friends say)

If you are going to setup everything yourself instead of using a hosting controller than Debian or Ubuntu. Ubuntu if you are going to make an OpenStack cloud or something.
 
I agree with CentOS for Cpanel webhosting servers.

Although Ubuntu/Debian also has it's place, which we use for our email spamfilter clusters.

It really depends on what you want to host on the server. We make use of most popular distros, but we use the one best suited towards the job of the server. But I believe Ubuntu and CentOS nowadays are by far the most in use at out our company.
 
If you want to take it one step further, you can have one server running RHEL, then get the support contract for it.

If anything goes wrong with any of your CentOS servers, you can tell Red Hat the problem is with your Red Hat server & get support.

Just will give you peace of mind, should anything goes wrong.

But I'm sure there is Canonical support contracts for Ubuntu as well.
 
We are running about 20+ Ubuntu servers about 30+ FreeBSD boxes and around 100 running Centos/RHEL/OEL, Centos is preferred due to being able to get Spacewalk working on it, puppet is easier, nagios is easy on both ubuntu and centos, munin is easy on both as well. They all have their advantages and disadvantages.
 
centos/rhel

not a fan of ubuntu because of how much they are changing standards
 
avert said:
centos/rhel

not a fan of ubuntu because of how much they are changing standards
Click to expand...

What standards would that be?

CentOS and RHEL are not exactly the king of standards either. They fk with perl all the time cause of yum.
 
kingrob said:
....But I'm sure there is Canonical support contracts for Ubuntu as well.
Click to expand...

I think this makes Ubuntu LTS a more flexible choice over CentOS or RHEL. You can get started and then get a paid support contract with Canonical if you need one. CentOs is great but as far as I know, there is no official support path for CentOS.
 
InvisibleJim said:
I think this makes Ubuntu LTS a more flexible choice over CentOS or RHEL. You can get started and then get a paid support contract with Canonical if you need one. CentOs is great but as far as I know, there is no official support path for CentOS.
Click to expand...

Well, if he needs a support contract, then best would be to go all out RHEL.

Alternatively, like I have mentioned before, you can have one server running RHEL, the rest CentOS and get a support contract from Red Hat. Just need a server running RHEL.

CentOS community is alive and kicking, but if you need quick answers, then the Red Hat way is better.
 
Be careful with CentOS 6.x in your server enviroment

It uses Transparent Huge pages to help keep memory fragmentation to a minimum, and on a server environment with high concurrency and a lot of CPU cores, can actually cause memory page locks.

echo never > /sys/kernel/mm/redhat_transparent_hugepage/enabled

or add that to your rc.local and reboot to disable
 
CentOS/RHEL seems to be standard in big corps for linux, while Ubuntu is used more often with open source startups etc.

I suspect companies use RHEL for the support contract with it and CentOS for their lesser important servers(instead of RHEL). I've yet to see a production box running ubuntu to be honest. CentOS works with most RHEL products hence i reckon it is used.
 
krycor said:
CentOS/RHEL seems to be standard in big corps for linux, while Ubuntu is used more often with open source startups etc.
Click to expand...

A little while ago, I read that Google actually have a support contract with Canonical. Not sure if that is servers and/or desktops but they obviously take Canonical's support offerings seriously on a significant level.
 
Yah.. for me though I just use Ubuntu. I think the key is a lot of software is build for RHEL which often works easily on CentOS.

Also perception I got was that they viewed RHEL/CentOS as being more stable release process? I just think its more entrenched from past use.
 
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