Ubuntu on a server, eh? [LWN.net]

Ubuntu on a server, eh?

Posted Jun 1, 2006 15:52 UTC (Thu) by cventers (subscriber, #31465)
Parent article: Ubuntu Dapper and the distribution business

This is slightly off-topic, but with the release of Dapper I'm wondering
how good Ubuntu measures up in the server department. Anyone care to
comment?

Personally I'm a fan of Gentoo on the desktop, but Gentoo seems a little
wild to me for future server deployments (though it is functioning well
on a server cluster I'm currently manning).

I decided to give Debian a whirl recently (before Gentoo, I was holding
out in the Slackware camp from years ago).

Would I be better off with Debian or Ubuntu? I will say that Debian
officially drove me crazy when I downloaded the April stable release and
discovered the only way to get 2.6 was through testing (etch).

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Debian 3.1 (sarge) has the 2.6.8 kernel available

Posted Jun 1, 2006 16:31 UTC (Thu) by cortana (subscriber, #24596) [Link]

I would base a decision about whether to pick Debian or Ubuntu based on two factors.

1. The support status of the software I wanted to run. Software in Ubuntu 6.06 (dapper)'s 'main' section will be supported for 3-5 years. Updates for software in 'universe' are not guaranteed. By contrast, all of Debian's packages will be supported for one stable release cycle + 18 months.

2. Ease of installation. Sarge was released 18 months ago, and it sometimes tricky to install it on recent hardware. Booting the installer with 'linux26' will help; this causes a 2.6.8 kernel to be installed instead of the default 2.4.27[0]. If you need something more recent than 2.6.8, you could try the image available from http://kmuto.jp/b.cgi/debian/d-i-2615.htm; this is the sarge installer with a 2.6.15 kernel.

[0] To install the kernel on a running system, install one of kernel-image-2.6-686 or kernel-image-2.6-k7 depending on whether you have an Intel or AMD processor. 'apt-cache search' is your friend. ;) Packages of more recent kernels are available from http://backports.org/.

Ubuntu on a server, eh?

Posted Jun 1, 2006 20:20 UTC (Thu) by tjc (subscriber, #137) [Link]

I decided to give Debian a whirl recently (before Gentoo, I was holding out in the Slackware camp from years ago).

Just curious as to why your switched away from Slackware..

Ubuntu on a server, eh?

Posted Jun 2, 2006 4:33 UTC (Fri) by cventers (subscriber, #31465) [Link]

As time went by, Slackware served me well... but it was a few years back,
during the time when I was still using Windows on the desktop, and I
didn't keep my server as clean as I should have. I'd want to upgrade
stuff, and I'd end up building it by hand, so I'd end up with a system
half filled with Slackware packages and half filled with stuff I've
hand-compiled.

After I got a new job as a software engineer, I tried Slackware on the
desktop, but after a month or so I gave Gentoo my first try ever (at
home). I loved it so much that I immediately moved my work desktop over,
and when it came time to set up a cluster at work, Gentoo was the
choice...

Switch from Slackware

Posted Jun 9, 2006 16:40 UTC (Fri) by rvfh (subscriber, #31018) [Link]

I can tell why I did: apt-get install package instead of:-

- find dependencies
- download dependencies
- compile dependencies
- download package
- compile package
- find out how to configure it
- realise one dependency needs a special option
- compile dependencies again
- compile package again
- etc...

2.6 in Debian sarge

Posted Jun 8, 2006 11:58 UTC (Thu) by robbe (guest, #16131) [Link]

> the only way to get 2.6 was through testing (etch).

cortana already mentioned that 2.6.8 is in sarge. Or maybe you run a non-i386 architecture?

One could also be thrown off by the fact that the sarge packages are kernel-image-X.Y.Z while the newer (etch) packages are more sensibly named linux-image-X.Y.Z