[ILUG] Favourite flavours

[Bryan O'Donoghue]

Andoni wrote:
> Hello,
> 
> I have to set up two new servers to act as web servers hosting Apache & Tomcat for my company.
> 
> Does anybody have ideas as to what distribution I should use and why?
> 
> I am sure this has been discussed before but I cannot find a way to search the archives of this list.
> 
> So: is there a reason I should keep away from the free versions of Linux?  Debian / Fedora because it is a commercial platform?
> 
> If I am paying for Linux is RedHat (the most popular?) definitely the best?
> 
> All suggestions welcome.
> 
> Cheers,
> 
> Andoni.


Depends on what your tolerance level is for system setup. If it's low, use and 
RPM based distro.

At the risk of being castigated by the Red Hat party faithful... if you have 
the time/interest, you should consider using a source based distro like Gentoo.

If you think about it, there is no way, a distro which has been compiled and 
optimised for an i586, will *ever* run as quickley as a distro compiled 
specifically for your particular CPU, be that a P3 a P4 or some flavour of AMD.

You can buy the Gentoo DVD, with all the sources and have a functional system 
in a few hours. Sure the setup time *is significantly longer*, however, when 
it's done, you *should* have a faster system, so long as you did the _basic_ 
optimisation for your particular CPU.

-- 
Bryan O'Donoghue
Embedded Software Engineer

Europlex Technologies Ltd
Clonshaugh Business & Technology Park
Dublin 17
Ireland

T:+353 (0) 1 2500500
F:+353 (0) 1 2500590
E:bryano at euoplex.ie
W:www.europlex.ie