Which Linux Distribution?

[Paddy]

Cheers! For some ungodly reason, when i visited the page I failed to notice the fact that there were different versions!

[Admiral]

Say, does Nero check the image integrity by default before it starts burning ?
(don't want to screw the CDs for nothing)

edit: never mind, there were instructions on the ftp site on how to check for integrity

Important note: take care to download the ISO in binary mode (FTP). By default Netscape download the file in ASCII mode which corrupt the image. You can check the integrity of the ISO file with the md5 key (md5sum mandrake.iso under Linux), go to http://www.etree.org/md5com.html to get the md5sum.exe version if you are using Windows)

[Paddy]

if the ISOs FUBARd it shouldn't load it.

[efty]

I don't feel comfortable using package management tools. I usually do a manual install.

[Byock]

Ok, heres the break down...( I'm sure I will get flamed, but hey! I'm a chicken)

Red Hat- Stable, easy to use. RPM Blows!

Mandrake- Red Hat Based, easiest to install,use, learn

FreeBSD- Secure, Stable. Pain in the *** as conf files in diff locations than in linux distros. Annoying.

Slackware- Advanced. If you dont like CLI, dont touch.

Corel-Great, easy to use, install, ect. Outdated. Don't expect a new version any time soon.

Debian- Install blows. Wouldn't touch it for that reason.

my .02 worth.

[Wulfman]

can someone explain me the problem with the debian installer?

it starts, you partition the hdd, choose / install whatever network & misc stuff you need, it runs some config scripts (mail, ssh, X?) - finish.

I've only used yast2 (suse) & debian installer so far - but I liked the debian version better: reduced to the necessary, imho.

mfg
wulfman

[Paddy]

As soon as my router arrives, i'll download it and tell you what i think. I am probably going to attempt to create a http/mail/file server. Would debian be suitable?

[DGhost]

the fun thing about FreeBSD is that its configuration files all go in standard, easy to figure out places... the places that config files are supposed to go in UNIX systems... places like /etc and /usr/local/etc - instead of having /etc/sysconfig/ containing a couple networking config files and /etc/sysconfig/networking containing ones as well...

about X on FreeBSD, they are shipping with 4.x standard on the latest releases, i believe. i don't believe its 4.2, but it is still 4.x. installing a new release of X isn't that difficult...

with the 3d support, that is mostly cause NVidia has not bothered trying to make it happen. their module will only run on linux, unfortunately. ATI's have been working in FreeBSD and with hardware accelerate, as has the Matrox G400 cards... with the Parhelia it would be harder as Matrox is relying on Linux kernel modules...

as far as parititoning support goes, what is poor about FreeBSD's? i'm not gonna say its infinately better than parititons, but all you need is a single partition for the drive and can divide it up as much as you want... instead of Linux where most distributions use a minimum of 2 of the 4 partitions available, with some going well beyond that and requiring all 4 of the partitions to be used (with one defined as an extended partition).

i completely fail to see how that makes it so hard to blend with a normal partitioning scheme... it only uses one partition, much less than linux distros...

[Marshmallowman]

Admiral, there is a little proggie called MD5 that will generate a checksum/crc thingy for each of the ISO's, compare that with the one's shown on the mandrake site to see if the images have downloaded correctly before burning the CD's.

Something nice about 9 and probably some other distros is that they are LSB compliant (linux standard base) so more and more software should install more conisistantly over all the compliant distros's

[Admiral]

How much space should I reserve for the linux partition ?
I'm only installing it for learning purpose and not willing to give it more than 5gb.
Is 3 gb about right ?

[bsdgeek]

FreeBSD:
XFree86 4.2.1
Recently released Nvidia Accelerated drivers, ATi up to 8500 supported, all recent Matrox except Parhelia of course.

Edit:

http://people.freebsd.org/~anholt/dri/

http://www.nvidia.com/view.asp?IO=freebsd_1.0-3203

[Gear]

Originally posted by Paddy [MU]
As soon as my router arrives, i'll download it and tell you what i think. I am probably going to attempt to create a http/mail/file server. Would debian be suitable?

Hmmm, IMO Debian, even Sid/Unstable it's too slow in updates (security & other sys apps), for a server.
On the other hand, for workstations I choosed debian because I just ssh to them, run apt-get update && apt-get dist-upgrade, maybe confirm some dialogs & I'm done. When there are 2,3 dozen machines, I don't want to have run into problems and/or spend hours and hours ... And it has a pretty nice default config: no unneeded and dangerous services running (rpc, daytime, ftp... etc), and X is run with unix sockets only (X -nolisten tcp) .

If you're building just 1 or 2 server's, and have a little bit of experience, I'd recomend Gentoo Linux. Before I tell you why, you should now that you need 2 things in order to be efficient with it:
1) bandwith (the more, the better - just like ... u know) 2) Mhz/Ghz same rules as 1), and a decent amount of RAM. After you install it (read the extensive install instructions on gentoo.org), with i.e. stage 3, which takes no more than 15-20 min, you get a base system. Just after you boot the install cd and config the net card, you can copy/transfer files with ftp,scp, or connect with ssh, and then continue with cd/network install.
The next step is to config. the general 'make' options (compiler flags), rsync the list of packages, and recompile new/all/single packages with the same settings. You can configure also what dependencies you want, e.g. if it's a server you can set USE='-xfree -gnome -kde -opengl ...etc' so it's not installed automatically if some stupid package could run on X also, or some other stupid depend.
The package system is named Portage, written in Python (not very fast, but I had no problem, or inconsitencies with it - unlike RPM based distro's where when there are many packages, it goes crazy... ), is the best that I found till now (it's 'stollen' from OpenBSD ports system, which in turn is 'stolen' from FreeBSD's ports system), because it's the most flexible one, the fastest in terms of vers. update (not all packages, but security bugs are a priority), and if you want, you can mask certain packages, and install them by hand, or with special config. options, and it never touches those files, even if you update all the other ones.
Oh, and another reason why I consider Portage better the *BSD's one is that majority of packages are written for Linux, and because of that they ar less likely to brake, and easier to maintain/update (i.e. don't need any linux emulation with separate glibc libraries in a fbsd/obsd box, and various quirks/hacks to make it work - think of 3D X apps that require libGL.so, and half want the linux one, the other half the fbsd one... .... ....). I almost forgot: when I installed fbsd 4.5 on a P4 1.5ghz with 256ram, G400 max, and I recompiled the default kernel, rebooted and saw that the kernel msgs (the one in bold white) were printed in red, and after that crashes and lock-ups. I managed somehow to build another one....
Of course, if you want to update package X with the sec. patch that came out an hour ago, you can install Slackware, and do all by yourself. And it's probably faster...
I don't consider RedHat/Mandrake/SuSE (I installed over 40-50 SuSE workstations) as a viable option for a server. They are just too bloated, easy to brake, and dangerous....
FreeBSD, hmmm... how impressed I wast the 1st time when I installed it on a machine (wkstation), over Linux (with 4yrs of exp. then), because of it's compiling speed (I still am, but OpenBSD it's pretty close if not faster), straightforwardness, and the lack of christmas tree feeling - the jungle some/most linux distro's are now in. That was on a slow and old machine - a P233 MMX, with 32MB RAM, a CL GD5446 2meg card, with SCSI onboard and fbsd was v. 3.5/3.6 (I think). I had problems, but at that time I needed smth. different from Linux, and it appeared a much better choise. If I had a brand new rig. I think I would run into many driver/buggy support issues... I installed a few other machines with newer versions, both desktops and servers.

If you really want security/clean code/speed/robust design, AND have a single processor machine with common hardware, you can install the best UNIX os for a server, OpenBSD. It has so many new advancedments(mechanism) in (proactive)security, than any other BSD or Linux (check openbsd.org, all the headlines on deadly.org for the past 2 years). And it has the most simple/clean/straightforward/fastest install I ever encounterd, and maybe that's why It had no remote root hole in 5 years (or 1 in almost 6 years), with the default install.

Just my 2 cents...

pfiu... the largest post i wrote, so it seems...

[Gear]

Originally posted by Admiral
How much space should I reserve for the linux partition ?
I'm only installing it for learning purpose and not willing to give it more than 5gb.
Is 3 gb about right ?

It's .... about right. But if you install all Gnome 1.4 or 2.0, all KDE 3.1 (or 2.2), lots of games, OpenOffice, all HowTo's/Docs/FAQs, and many other programs, you can end up filling it up. But if you select your packages carefully, you should be ok. One notice though, it's wise to have a separate /home partition for your files, so that if for example you want to reinstall it (sys broken, or smth), you keep you files, and most settings...
And don't forget the swap partition, usually 2x ram, but no more than 500MB, if it's just for your home machine, because if you fill it up (ram + swap ~= 700-800) you really have some problem: memory leaks (hint, hint Bugzilla, sorry Mozilla), or way to many apps running, and the system shoud crawl because of the HDD seeks for new 4k pages in swap, while reading others...

I assume you have broadband, from the CD(install ISO's) links you listed before... good 4 you...

[rugger]

Originally posted by DGhost
the fun thing about FreeBSD is that its configuration files all go in standard, easy to figure out places... the places that config files are supposed to go in UNIX systems... places like /etc and /usr/local/etc - instead of having /etc/sysconfig/ containing a couple networking config files and /etc/sysconfig/networking containing ones as well...

Doesn't happen that way on slackware. everything is in /etc and /usr/local/ect, where it should be. X configuration is in /etc/X11

Originally posted by DGhost
about X on FreeBSD, they are shipping with 4.x standard on the latest releases, i believe. i don't believe its 4.2, but it is still 4.x. installing a new release of X isn't that difficult...

Yep, X isn't a big deal to install, even from source or precompiled tarballs

Originally posted by DGhost
with the 3d support, that is mostly cause NVidia has not bothered trying to make it happen. their module will only run on linux, unfortunately. ATI's have been working in FreeBSD and with hardware accelerate, as has the Matrox G400 cards... with the Parhelia it would be harder as Matrox is relying on Linux kernel modules...

Nvidia now has 3d drivers for freebsd. Someone, somewhere tempted fate by abusing a freeBSD user because linux had Nvidia drivers.

Originally posted by DGhost
as far as parititoning support goes, what is poor about FreeBSD's? i'm not gonna say its infinately better than parititons, but all you need is a single partition for the drive and can divide it up as much as you want... instead of Linux where most distributions use a minimum of 2 of the 4 partitions available, with some going well beyond that and requiring all 4 of the partitions to be used (with one defined as an extended partition).

Yep, all I need is a single normal partition. Unfortunately, it has to be a primary partion and that means I can't get the FreeBSD onto my system.

Linux can just as easily run on a single partition. In fact, I am too lazy to bother using multiple partitions in my linux setups and I haven't run into any problems yet.

Originally posted by DGhost
i completely fail to see how that makes it so hard to blend with a normal partitioning scheme... it only uses one partition, much less than linux distros...

Well, my excuses are:
1) If you have more than one partition per slice, linux will have difficulty mounting the data on the freebsd drive. Same with any other operating system that doesn't understand FreeBSD slices.
2) It demands to use a primary partition for its slice, I don't have any of those left. Whereas linux can install anywhere and LILO will happyly boot it for you.

[Paddy]

hmm.. lots of opinions here!

Perhaps if i rephrase the question...

I have a P2 300 with 256MB of RAM and approximately 16GB of disk space. I want to use it as a http/mail server.
I have limited experience with linux, but i hear it is the way to go for this sort of thing.

I have tried this in the past using 2Kserver and Exchange but i was never able to configure it properly.

Would linux be a better option? If so which operating system should i go for?