Re: Linux Distribution Preferences?

On 14/01/13 16:46, Scott Marlowe wrote:
> On Sun, Jan 13, 2013 at 4:06 PM, SUNDAY A. OLUTAYO <olutayo(at)sadeeb(dot)com> wrote:
>> 4 reasons:
>>
>> 1. One place where I worked Ubuntu was standard, I tried it and found
>> that it lacked at least a couple of desktop features in GNOME 2 that
>> I found very useful into Fedora. Fortunately, I was allowed to
>> revert back to Fedora. Prior to that, I was using Fedora mainly by
>> default.
>>
>> 2. Twice I came across features that I liked and Ubuntu seemed to imply
>> they had done them, later I found the projects been initiated and
>> sponsored largely by Red Hat. Especially as Red Hat is in the top
>> ten contributors to the kernel, and the contribution of Ubuntu is
>> not significant.
>>
>> 3. Ubuntu distributions are now starting to be filled with crapware and
>> ant-privacy features features.
>>
>> 4. Ubuntu seems very good at collecting fanbois.
> Not one of those is a good reason to avoid Ubuntu server for pgsql.
> There are reasons to not use it, but those are not them. I've run
> PostgreSQL servers on Redhat (before RHEL existed and there was JUST
> Redhat) 5.1, RHEL 4, 5 and 6, Debian Lenny and Squeeze, just one on an
> old version of Suse, and on Ubuntu server 8.04LTS and 10.04LTS and
> 12.04LTS.
>
> My preference personally is for debian based distros since they
> support the rather more elegant pg wrappers that allow you to run
> multiple versions and multiple clusters of those versions with very
> easy commands. RHEL is great for building a stable but not
> necessarily ultra faster server, and if you can afford their
> commercial support it IS top notch. Debian and Ubuntu feel much the
> same to me, from the command line, on a server.
>
> The reasons to NOT use ubuntu under PostgreSQL are primarily that 1:
> they often choose a pretty meh grade kernel with performance
> regressions for their initial LTS release. I.e. they'll choose a
> 3.4.0 kernel over a very stable 3.2.latest kernel, and then patch away
> til the LTS becomes stable. This is especially problematic the first
> 6 to 12 months after an LTS release. Ubuntu support is a pitiful
> thing compared to RHEL support. I've reported bugs for RHEL that were
> fixed within weeks, or at least a workaround came out pretty quick.
> I've reported LTS bugs that are now YEARS old and Canonical has done
> NOTHING to fix them. There's a bug in 10.04LTS workstation for
> instance that meant you couldn't have > 1 profile for a given WAP.
> Never fixed. Only recommendation was to upgrade. From an LTS. sigh.
>
> There are reasons TO use Ubuntu as well. Of if you are running very
> late model hardware you can't get good support from an older release,
> and using a more recent, possibly not LTS release is a good way to get
> best performance. I have often installed a late model release like
> 11.10, to get support for odd / new / interesting / high performance
> hardware, and then at a later date could update that platform to an
> LTS release for stability. Note that I often waited til a good 3 or 4
> months after the next release before I even started testing it, let
> alone upgrading to it. Ubuntu often has fairly late model versions of
> many packages like pgsql or php or whatever that more RHEL like
> distros will not get due to their longer release cycles. It's easier
> to add a ppa: repo to debian or ubuntu than to add an RPM repo to RHEL
> and I've found they're usually better maintained and / or more up to
> date.
>
> Simple answer of course is that there is no simple answer.
>
> Frequently released / updated distros (fedora, ubuntu non-LTS, debian
> beta and so on) are GREAT for doing initial development on, as once
> the stable branch based on it comes out you'll be deploying against
> something with a long stable release branch. So the latest version of
> Ruby, Perl, PHP, Python and so on are on the server, as are the
> latest, or nearly so, versions of pgsql and slony and other packages.
>
> Long term distros (debian stable, Ubuntu LTS, RHEL) are all good for
> deploying things on you don't need the latest and greatest hardware
> support nor the absolute fastest performance but instead stability are
> paramount. When downtime costs you $10k a minute, using the latest
> code is not always the best idea.
>
> Most importantly, if you've got LOTS of talent for one distro or
> another, you're probably best off exploiting it. If 95% of all the
> developers and ops crew run Ubuntu or Debian, stick to one of them.
> If they favor Fedora / RHEL stick to that. If they work on windows,
> find a new job if at all possible.
I have zero experience of setting up Linux as a _PRODUCTION_ server.

If I had to support one myself, I would probably consider RHEL. Anyhow,
I would do some serious research before making a final decision. Even
if I had made such a decision a year ago, I would still need to reassess
the situation if I had to do it again - things keep changing.

I would be very reluctant to choose an Apple or Microsoft O/S for a
production server.

Cheers,
Gavin