Linux distributions

What would you go with

  • Ubuntu

    Points: 10 55.6%

  • Fedora

    Points: 2 11.1%

  • Debian

    Points: 1 5.6%

  • Gentoo

    Points: 0 0.0%

  • I'll suggest something better

    Points: 5 27.8%
  • Total voters
    18
M

ModusPwnens

Poster Extraordinaire
Joined
Mar 25, 2010
Messages
2,955
I set up a TF2 server on my Debian box, and then who knows what happened but it segfaults every time I try to boot it. I'm just ready to format the whole thing and start over again.

It has some crappy ATI GPU, 4 gb ram, and a dual core intel CPU

What distribution would you go with? I liked Debian because it didn't come with that god-awful gnome 3 crap, but I mean, I'm just going to be ssh'ing in anyway so it really doesn't matter after all.

What I do with it:
-write code
-attempt to run TF2 server
-ssh into it
 
Last edited:
Since you don't seem to need/want a GUI, a base install of any of these distros should be fine.

I prefer Debian simply because it's very stable. The downside to stability is that it takes time for updated versions of programs to show up in Debian as opposed to, say, Ubuntu. Since I don't (usually) need bleeding edge software, I'm satisfied with Debian.

I don't like the direction Ubuntu has taken in the last year or so, with Unity on the desktop and a bunch of Canonical enterprise crap on the server version.

If I were forced to use a Red Hat based distro, I'd prefer Fedora over Cent OS or Scientific Linux or any other RHEL derivative.

Gentoo is nice for those who specifically need it. Which has never been me :)
 
NCA said:
I don't like the direction Ubuntu has taken in the last year or so, with Unity on the desktop and a bunch of Canonical enterprise crap on the server version.
Click to expand...

Yeah that's my hang up about it... My next choice is Fedora, but I've never given CentOS a try.


Ph?bus said:
Gnome 3 is terrible.

@MP, I just now learned from where you name is in my logic class. Props. ^.^
Click to expand...
+rep


Here's the thing I hate about Debian:

WHENEVER I install it on ANY MACHINE, apt-get install is broken and I have to change the file that tells it where to download crap from. Maybe that's silly but that's my biggest problem with it.
 
i hate gnome 3. if you're going fedora don't install anything later than fedora 12. fedora 15 is not only macos but also non-functional. at least is has yum but i still wouldn't bother.

i am currently running Peppermint but if you want to run a server pmint is probably not the best choice. i use it because it's very lightweight with very few utilities (i use it effectively as an ssh client for writing code on remote boxes).

this being said, i would go with centos. great os for servers.
 
I personally run Ubuntu on my server, but that's mainly because I've been using it for years and years. If I had to choose something else I'd probably take a hard look at Scientific Linux. It's based on RH and seems to be updated faster than CentOS.

http://www.scientificlinux.org/

For a server that you will just be accessing via. ssh ubuntu-server isn't half bad. I've also used Gentoo in the past, but it gets old compiling everything.

My old trusty server's motherboard burned up yesterday (old Athlon 64 3200+) and has just been replaced by a new shiny i5 2500k on a P8Z68-V LX motherboard with 16GB of DDR3 1600 :D
I'm running Ubuntu 11.10 64-bit on it and agree with the above - Unity kind of sucks... Probably going to end up using XFCE as a primary UI. I'm not used to having a UI on my linux machine, but now that I have the extra power I figured I'd give it a go. It's setup with it's own monitor/keyboard/desk and I moved my extra LAN gaming machine to the living room to serve as a gaming console. I'm liking being able to sit down and work without booting up the power hungry gaming machine. The extra power is already proving to be nice -- setting up some handbrakecli options to monitor a folder so that I can dump files in and have them auto-encode into iPad format for on the go viewing. It also has the cpu power required for running Air Video -- all things my lowly 3200+ wished it could do while serving only as a file server/minecraft server.

Side note: I was surprised how easy migrating my mdadm raid 5 array to a completely new system was. Really impressed me.
 
Last edited:
Fedora is the worst possible server OS, as a cutting edge distro.
 
I started out with slackware back around..oooo, 94 I think it was.

Installation was a tad bit different back then :)

I started using red hat back sometime in the late 90's, don't remember when. Switched to Fedora around 5 years ago.
 
Put ubuntu on it since it's debian based anyway. Works great. And no gnome 3!!!
 
Last edited:
DragonD said:
I started out with slackware back around..oooo, 94 I think it was.

Installation was a tad bit different back then :)
Click to expand...

Understatement of the decade. It's amazing how easy modern distros are to install.
 
Sn1PeR said:
Understatement of the decade. It's amazing how easy modern distros are to install.
Click to expand...

That is so true. It's all point and click now.

I remember, it took me over three days to do the very first installation.

It was up to YOU to decide what drivers you needed, what packages you wanted... and to make sure YOU downloaded and installed any dependent items.

i remember spending countless hours trying to get x-term to work.. had to figure out which graphics card driver to try and then attempt to initialize all the settings by hand.

But.. that's how you learned back then. You attempted it. You failed, you study what you did, and you attempted it again.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Latest posts

Back
Top