[ubuntu-uk] Server OS Suggestion

[Andrew Oakley]

Chris Rowson wrote:
> I've pretty much narrowed the selection down to CentOS 5 and Ubuntu Hardy LTS.

Unsurprisingly on an Ubuntu list, I'm going to recommend Ubuntu.

I've used Ubuntu 8.04 LTS Server on five LAMP servers now, and found it 
much easier to install and much easier to tweak, mainly due to apt-get & 
deb . I've also tried Debian and it was fine, but not as easy to set up 
as Ubuntu.

I've used RHEL/CentOS a lot, we use it at work. It's a bugger to set up 
and the RPM/yum mix quickly descends into dependency hell if you tweak 
anything. It is very easy to break.

That said, RHEL/CentOS is a proven platform for extremely high-demand 
applications requiring things such as load balancing, whereas Ubuntu is 
unproven in that area. "Work" happens to be a government agency, whereas 
my own servers just run middle-of-the-road ecommerce sites.

-- 
Andrew Oakley