What Server OS

[dbdg]

Simple Question

You are just about to purchase a ded game server for website and game hosting.

Quake MOD, UT2003 UT etc.

What OS would you install, specifically.

FreeBSD???
some version of Linux???

[Dilitante1]

for me a M$ product as the games are not ported for anything else

[High_Jumbllama]

The UTs can do Linux.

[dbdg]

The OS for the actual web/game server.

I assumed most where a version of *nix.

[leech]

Both Quake and UT2k3 have linux servers, plus a LOT of newer games are being shipped with linux dedicated servers (unfortunately not clients, just the servers) I think even Battlefield 1942 has a server for linux.

I would go with linux myself, only because I don't know how/if they run right on FreeBSD.

Leech

[bsdgeek]

Anything that has a Linux version should run fine on FreeBSD, though it may take a bit of tweaking to get it all properly set up.

[Jammrock]

Unless it's an M$ game, there is almost always a Linux dedicated server port. Halo of course does not have one.

If you want 100% compatibilty go with an M$ server. It just costs more.

If you want less overhead go Linux.

If the server will be in an easily accessible place, you could always build a dual-boot. You'd just have to announce reboots for Halo and such.

Jammrock

[Marshmallowman]

I would almost suggest redhat/fedora as it is the first target linux OS most developers do a server for, but personally I would go for mandrake as similar enough and is easy to configure.

[dbdg]

Cheers guys.

Linux it is then, I'm a linux newbie so one of the easy ones will have to do. I am sure this has been covered but is there really that much difference between the flavours, other then ease of set up.

We don't actually have easy physical access so dual booting is out but with Halo being bad enough on the x-box it isn't much of a concern.

I just wanted to be sure about the choice as my own web server runs FreeBSD, not that I chose it, just what my dedicated server ended up having installed. This is for our clan server, mainly UT/UT2003/4 at the moment.