Best Linux Distro?

[spices]

I was a linux admin, back in time, 6 or 7 years ago. Now i am a FreeBSD admin, using it with great success (for those that did not heard about FreeBSD, Yahoo uses it, also Hotmail used it before it was purchased by microsoft).

Everyhing is fine with FreeBSD, which is not much different from linux, still linux is more known and some people need linux setups, so coming back to linux my question to you is what is now the best linux distribution for Servers (web, mail, vpn, router - usages)?

I heard about CentOS, Whitebox which are descendants of RH9, also about Ubuntu, but I want to know your experience tips about what's best for servers.

thank you
ovidiu

[Rick]

Linux distros are like religions. But, if you are looking for a quick and easy to setup distro, with php/sql/apache/dns/sendmail, use CentOS. Its the most widely used distro out for general use and its the jack of all trades distribution. If you need more flexibiliy, you could check out Gentoo Linux. The amount of RPMs available for centos4/rhel4 makes it an easy to use distro which you can always find a software rpm for.

[Oxydius]

What's best for servers depends on what you consider the best server administration model.

If you're looking for simplicity and some similarity to Windows administration procedures, you might like CentOS and its plethora of tools and GUI-based configuration tools and web-based control panels. It offers a fair amount of packages targeted towards server use, as well.

Obviously this might not be the case since you've been a FreeBSD sysadmin for a number of years. FreeBSD is a fine OS with great focus on security and best practices. To those familiar with the typical Linux packaging systems such as RPM, the FreeBSD Ports system is quite a relief in functionality, simplicity and flexibility.

One guy got tired by Linux and switched to FreeBSD for a few years. When he came back to Linux, he decided to create his own distribution based on the neat things he saw in BSD. That new distribution was Gentoo, which is based around the Portage package management system. Portage lets you build the whole system from source, customizing every package from a set of global flags that impact the kind of system you get in the end, with every package compiled for your specific processor. It can be as secure or fast as you want, and you have total control over the installation and updating process of your OS. In my experience, Gentoo has enabled Linux to be faster and more feature-complete than any other distribution. Given that it builds from source, you always have easy access to the latest versions of software and the amount of available software exceeds most binary-based package distributions. If you like FreeBSD, give Gentoo a try! The documentation on their site is also awesome to learn Linux in depth.