Which *nix?

Im just about to setup a intranet web server. Got all the hardware ready with a cheap IDE RAID card, lol, gunna just run mirrored/striping.

Now all i need to decide is which distro to use. I dont want to be setting this up and then 6months down the line when its live and people are relieing on it, to realise that I would have been better with x distro, or y software wont work with the installed distro, etc etc.

It will be running primarily as a simple apache server supporting mainly PHP and MySQL based sites. SSH root access would be nice as i dont plan on having a monitor attached.

I can work with CLI, just takes abit to get back into the swing of navigating *nix filesystems, so i could manage without a GUI as long as i have instructions/guide to follow.


Your recommendations on which distro and which software please :D :beer:

Hardware list

ITE Raid Card
2x maxtor 40gb HD
512mb ddr 2700
1.7-2gb celeron
msi motherboard
2x 100mb realtek NICs

Spec can and will be upgraded. I think the celeron will cope, what do you think? 300 workstations but nowhere near all will access at once

You're going to regret asking this! Everybody likes a different distro for a different reason.

For my two-penneth-worth... Debian

Ubuntu. It has a specific installation method for what you want (commonly referred to as LAMP) and is based on the rock-solid Debian.

My recommend is Centos (redhat enterprise) or Ubuntu server.
Ubuntu has a preconfigured 'install LAMP server' option

WRT really cheap IDE raid - these are usually software raid and most modern distro's won't use software bios raids because its generally accepted linux software raid is better than bios software raid. Use the raid card just as another IDE port then setup either mdadm or evms

Migrating everything to Ubuntu 6.06 LTS here.

Debian, without gui.

Ive recently been "playing" with ubuntu and have found it realy easy - as thats what its designed to be. But im concerned that as its abit kiddyish does it have holes that are going to be exploited?

Obviously its not like its the end of the world if it goes down but at the same time id rather it be totally secure. If ubuntu does the job securely then it will probably get the job as it seems quite idiot proof and thats what i need :D


//1st post edited to include hardware//

It's based on Debian unstable. Security updates are regular. At least weekly.

Kiddyish? ;) Not if you don't run a GUI on it and manage it via SSH :D And as Geoff rightly said, it's based on Debian unstable (not as bad as it sounds) and security updates are regular.

Cheers people. Will probably go for ubuntu then. Was just abit concerned as ive donloaded LAMPs before and some say "only for development, not to be used in a live environment".

:beer: from me

That's just the disclaimer. It's no worse than the MS EULA. :)

I have always used debian, recently been using Ubuntu as its an easy transition being Debian based but with more regular updates etc as Geoff has stated.

I'm a Linux newbie but have set up Ubuntu LAMP server for my school's intranet.

I used parts of Ubuntu Perfect Setup

Follow steps 1, 2 (choose LAMP server), 4, 5, 6. (skip step 3).

Then, from your windows desktop, use WinSCP3 to navigate the files sytem and upload the web site (/var/www), and PuTTY to administer it remotely.

I now have an intranet server in my server cupboard that I never have to touch.

Works for me.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by OverWorked

I now have an intranet server in my server cupboard that I never have to touch.

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Be careful doing this. After a few months and several servers it's hard to track where each server physically is. I've lost machines before now this way. They are up and respond over the network, but can I find the cupboard/room they are in? Can I hell...

www.UbuntuGuide.org includes some good pointers, too.