What is the most efficient operating system for a webhosting company? I am looking into purchasing or building my own - and there seems to be different types...red hat, centos, fedora...I'm curious as to which one you guys would personally recommend me, why, and which one you guys prefer yourselves.
Personally I use Centos 4.2 server on my server. Its rock solid and stable. I haven't had any trouble with it. I have been using Centos for over a year now. I will be using Centos on every server I build from now on.
I agree totally with Soulwatcher, the main thing you want as a webhost is stability. Many of the linux distros are constantly changing and being updated, but in general, you don't need the latest bleeding edge software.
The way redhat develop RHEL is that they keep the bleeding edge stuff in the free fedora core, so fedora is effectively beta software. Redhat are famous for relasing bug ridden code in that distribution, so if your a webhost, your clients are going to be raising far more tickets with various problems.
Once the code is considered stable, then it is merged into the next release version of RHEL and stability tested before release. So you are getting a well tested and stable OS. Redhat then have to release the majority of that code under the terms of the GPL, as most of it is actually free software.
The code they release to the public is freely downloadable, but is not quite a complete distribution, as some of the propriatory redhat code has been removed. This code is then repackaged into Centos by the Centos developers, and the few missing programs replaced with free alternatives. Most notably though, Centos also has yum avaialble for updates, which IMO works far better than the redhat alternative (up2date).
I have been running versions of Centos on servers for almost 2 years now, and have only ever had one problem when a bug in the bind update deleted my /etc/named.conf file (that was about a year ago, and happened to a lot of webhosts).
In comparison, I also used to run gentoo on servers at home. It worked well for a source distribution, but I would end up ineviatably having to fix some dependancy or build problem on at least a monthly basis.
At the hosting company I work for, they use CentOS too. They used Fedora, and according to them, Fedora made the system allowed more users per server but wasn't as stable as CentOS is.
If you're talking about creating a business, then it's probably easier to use an established name like RHE. End users probably want to stick to the name that they are most familiar with.
I have been real pleased with Redhat Linux Enterprise. We been using version 3, but started using version 4. So far everything runs well for us.
1.) I have no kwonledge on linux yet (Managing windows servers and linux based hardware-firewall), and I was going to choose centos, but my ISP recommended me Debian, so we installed debian. Do I have any incompatiblity, securtiy or stability issues with anything when using it with DA for a hosting company? Is it good choose to start from scrath or do I still consider choosing Centos? I googled around and everybody says something different. But generally speaking Debian seems to be a better choise from the results that I read. Because this is my first linux server, my other servers also will be linux so first choise is important to me.
2.) Centos life is till 2012 but what will happen then to all those users especially web host companies? Will they have to switch to an other OS that has a longer life?
Well said I do prefer linux.
Debian GNU/Linux provides more than a pure OS: it comes with over 18733 packages, p recompiled software bundled up in a nice format for easy installation on your machine.All the guides and tutorials regarding this operating system is available on the Internet .
Last edited by FedoraKarooz; 09-22-2008 at 05:35 AM.