Re: what Linux to run

On Feb 28, 2012, at 9:16 AM, Adam Cornett wrote:

> On Tue, Feb 28, 2012 at 11:57 AM, <mgould(at)isstrucksoftware(dot)net> wrote:
> Our application runs on Windows, however we have been told that we can
> pick any OS to run our server on. I'm thinking Linux because from
> everything I've read, it appears to be a better on performance and there
> are other features like tablespaces which we could take advantage of.
> On our hosted solution, the application runs in a Software as a Service
> model and being able to keep each companies tables in their own table
> space would be nice. Additionally it appears that there are a lot more
> ways to tune the engine if we need to than under windows, plus the
> capability to hold more connections.

Sounds like a good choice.

> If we move to Linux, what is the preferred Linux for running Postgres
> on. This machine would be dedicated to the database only.

There isn't really a preferred distro in technical terms - all the major
distros are fine. Where they differ is available support, stability and
support lifespan.

For production a good bet is probably RHEL if you have money to
spend. Other good options include CentOS (RHEL knock-off without
the Redhat infrastructure), Debian and maybe Ubuntu LTS[1]. Anything
that has decent support available (both peer and paid) will be fine.

Ununtu is a little friendlier to beginners, and RHEL a little more unfriendly,
but there's not that much in it.

> I'd like a recommendation for both a GUI hosted version and a non-GUI
> version. I haven't used Linux in the past but did spend several year s
> in a mixed Unix and IBM mainframe environment at the console level.

They all provide a fairly similar command line environment and all
offer several GUI environments.

Cheers,
Steve

[1] I love Ubuntu and use it on many of my servers, but it's a bit too far
towards the cutting-edge end of the stable-to-bleeding-edge spectrum.