Ubuntu a poor choice for servers

[ubuntu at rio.vg]

Charles Yao wrote:
> So what would you guys recommend for servers? thats easy to to administer of
> course. we do not have any IT staff to configure it if its gonna be
> complicated.
> 

Honestly, I've found SuSE to be the easiest to set up for administrators
who aren't Unix gurus.  SuSE's installer/configuration program "YaST" is
a one-stop shop for configuring just about everything, and is both a GUI
and console interface.

After using YaST for a few years, it's rather weird to use other distros
whose configuration is somewhat piecemeal.  Sure, you'll find
configuration programs for most of what YaST does, but it's all
scattered about under different names that may or may not be obvious,
and the quality of each varies.  YaST creates a consistency that is
certainly comforting for people who aren't used to running Linux servers.

One note: If you do use SuSE, it's important to get fou4s, (
http://fou4s.gaugusch.at/ Download the beta for 10.1, it works fine.).
The current version of SuSE's update system sucks hard.  It looks like
Novell forced them to use ZenWorks in some sort of misguided attempt to
drum up sales, and it seriously backfired.

I'm seriously worried about SuSE's future, with more Ximian folks and
Novell execs calling the shots.  That said, YaST is really nice.