Looking for a new linux distro

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Originally Posted by gore

And of course, BSD by default after install, there is no sound. You have to do a small edit to one of the boot files after you do kldload_snd and then cat /dev/snd or something like that (Can't remember the exact one, I did it for my laptop a while ago and haven't since) but basically you won't have sound or anything without setting that up with Vi.

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While I don't mind having to do command line for things, I would prefer not to have to use the command line for things I am not as familiar with, like sound settings and drivers, for example. I remember when I was setting my laptop to be able to use dual screen in Ubuntu before it was able to do it by default, and I remember spending weeks trying different codes to try to get it to be recognized. I just don't want that to happen for something more important while I'm running a server that I hope to run 24/7, I feel like my hacks to get things to work will cause it to lose stability.

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Originally Posted by metguru

While I don't mind having to do command line for things, I would prefer not to have to use the command line for things I am not as familiar with, like sound settings and drivers, for example. I remember when I was setting my laptop to be able to use dual screen in Ubuntu before it was able to do it by default, and I remember spending weeks trying different codes to try to get it to be recognized. I just don't want that to happen for something more important while I'm running a server that I hope to run 24/7, I feel like my hacks to get things to work will cause it to lose stability.

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If it makes you feel better, please consider the following:

#1. The whole thing about sound is actually very easy, and it's not a Hack by any means; It's simply how you do it if you don't want to Compile a Kernel with the Sound Driver in it.

Also, on that; If you're doing this for a Server, you don't need sound anyway, so don't worry about. I wasn't aware you were doing this for a Server machine, which does change things a little bit, but I'll get to that after my points here:

#2. As a Server, you can hardly find something better than BSD. The update process can be a real bitch and a half, but for Stability... Well, I'm not sure if you remember or not, but a few years ago, I was getting tired of the Windows kids saying "Windows is just as good as Unix based stuff for anything" and I ended up hearing Marshal Kirk McKusick saying he remembered something called "/dev/Kidney" where they were running Unix on a Dialysis Machine, and I asked which OS anyone here would literally trust their lives with.

Of course most of the people I WANTED to reply (The Windows Lovers) not only wouldn't answer outright, they actually danced around the question saying "we trust our lives to software everyday because traffic control systems and other things already do this".... Which is somewhat on topic to the question, but dances around it much like Microsoft did by holding up a box of Red Hat when asked if they have a Monopoly lol.

Anyway, the point is, although Linux, Unix, and BSD Unix are all VERY Stable OSs, with World Class Kernels, and are basically a Legend in their own right in the OS World, when it comes to Stability, a properly set up BSD machine, particularly FreeBSD, which is a descendant of 386/BSD, and after that BSD/OS, by BSDi, which came from BSD from Berkeley, which was their version of Unix (Which is why BSD is actually in fact truly Unix, which is why they were sued even though Berkeley was in the right, but back on topic) when it comes to Stability, consider this:

If you tell someone "I run a Windows Server, and it's been up for 8 months" you'll probably hear a few people say "Wow!" and "Oh neat!".

If you tell someone "I run a Linux Server with a VERY high load on very minimal Hardware, and my uptime is, as of today, one year!" you'll maybe hear "So?"...

Now, if you say "I have a FreeBSD Server running on a 486 with a load average of 70 and it's uptime is currently 5 years" no one will think even twice to say "Wow!" because it's expected.

I've set two machines next to each other, and installed Slackware and FreeBSD on them, and then let them roll with a decently high rate, and neither one was budging. In fact if it weren't for Kernel updates, or power outtages, they'd STILL be up.

My own FTP Server, is running Slackware Linux 12.0, and has a current uptime of about 3 months or so, maybe 4. This is nothing really, I had 215 days of uptime last year in January, but had to shut down because I was going to be out of the country for a week or so, and I didn't want to leave anything on without me being here at least once a day.

Now, I have another machine running Slackware 12.2 (Because I wanted KDE 3.5 without having to **** with it.... What can I say? The video card sucks in it, and KDE 4 is resource hungry!) and it too doesn't need to be brought down. I use it as a Desktop AND a Secondary Server.

My Laptop now has FreeBSD 8.1-RELEASE on it, as does my other machine. The "other" machine, is a secondary Workstation I used for everything from Email to Making Music with LMMS, and I'd generally have a little play list in Xine running on it watching Movies while doing everything else, and it was running as so:

The Hard Drive it came with, is an 80 GB Drive, and it had Windows XP on it, except for a small 11 GB Partition I made for Fat32. Basically to share files and test things on.

The Second Hard Drive, is a 160 GB HD I installed, and that had Debian Linux on it, except for, again, an 11 GB Partition I made for the same reason. (I was bored lol).

Now, last night / this morning, I couldn't sleep, and while watching my movie / documentary "Nine Inch Nails and the Industrial Uprising" I got bored, and basically planned out where I wanted to install FreeBSD over top of Debian, and have FreeBSD and Windows XP dual booting.

Well, I was half asleep (I'm a total insomniac, so quite a lot, I'll be totally exhausted and unable to actually fall asleep without almost ODing on Caffeine and waiting for the Crash to put me to sleep lol) so anywya, half asleep I accidentally made the wrong drive the Boot one, and so I started the install over again (Yea, I was tired lol) and, then, like a moron, I basically put the Boot Loader on the WRONG ****ing hard drive.... Yea, smart huh?

Me, gore, the OS guy... I screwed up THAT badly lol. Ah well, I have back ups, and I didn't care THAT much, because everything on the Partitions, is on my server anyway.

So anyway, I say "**** it, I'll delete everything" and proceed to grab my FreeBSD CD, and decide again "Nah" and grab the Boot Only CD. I boot from that, erase ALL the partitions on ALL the drives, and then tell it to install over FTP and erase everything. I made the first 80 GB HD the / file system, and Auto Allocate (Handy feature too!) and then, select the other Hard Drive, and tell it "yes, I'd like you to use that too!" and it asks me, so I make that 160 GB drive one big Partition with the FreeBSD stuff on it.

I make that "/storage" and, today, made it "777" so all users can use it. (Yes, I would normally actually take the 2 minutes to make REAL permissions, but I don't care THAT much as that drive, is basically something that I wanted my other accounts, and accounts of Family members, to be able to use as needed).

I'm currently watching some stuff install on that machine as I type this actually. Anyway though, the point is; You say you'd like to set up a server that runs 24/7, and I'll say this:

If you DO stick with Linux, I'm going to tell you I HIGHLY RECOMMEND you go with either Slackware, or Debian.

You most likely know this already, but ANY Server, will benefit from being as minimal as possible. And Slackware is very good in this manner. You can even tell it to install everything, and then remove what you don't want.

Also, I thought you said you wanted to test out something new because you were more comfortable with a Shell than a GUI? Ubuntu is a distro I just don't like, or enjoy, at all, so I don't blame you for wanting out, but saying you don't want to screw with configuration files, kind of narrows it down a bit.

I'd say to think this over for a while. I know I hate having to reinstall a Server. Especially once I've gotten it how I want it! THAT is annoying heh.

Slackware and BSD are very similar, and neither one has a GUI or even tools to configure anything other than a few small ones. FreeBSD actually has a few more things than Slackware does, but, mostly, both of those will require you to set up everything by hand.

Now, before I continue this chapter of "A really long ****ing book by gore who's trying to help but now rambling on like a jack ass" can I ask what kind of Server you're going for?

Basically, what kind of hardware are you using in this machine? What kind of Servers are you setting up? What kind of load are they likely to get? How many users?

I'm not nosey really, just want to help is all :)

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Originally Posted by gore

Now, before I continue this chapter of "A really long ****ing book by gore who's trying to help but now rambling on like a jack ass" can I ask what kind of Server you're going for?

Basically, what kind of hardware are you using in this machine? What kind of Servers are you setting up? What kind of load are they likely to get? How many users?

I'm not nosey really, just want to help is all :)

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I actually just installed Debian and I'm in it right now, I figure what the heck, I'll just install them all for a week or two to get the 'real' feel for them instead of using a VM. Also, sorry to let you down, the 'server' is really just for me, so yea, boring, and it will probably just have ssh and SQL and a few others, as I said in the OP it is for a home file server. Also, I will still be using it as a desktop while I'm in the room just for convenience. So it does have gnome, but I'll probably drop out of the X window system every time I log out for the sake of resources.

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Originally Posted by metguru

I actually just installed Debian and I'm in it right now, I figure what the heck, I'll just install them all for a week or two to get the 'real' feel for them instead of using a VM. Also, sorry to let you down, the 'server' is really just for me, so yea, boring, and it will probably just have ssh and SQL and a few others, as I said in the OP it is for a home file server. Also, I will still be using it as a desktop while I'm in the room just for convenience. So it does have gnome, but I'll probably drop out of the X window system every time I log out for the sake of resources.

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Ahhh OK! I got ya now :)

Heh, I LOVE Debian. Well, NOW I do. I used to not like it too much atall back in the day....Well, about 8 years ago anyway. I just didn't like it because they seemed to ALWAYS use versions that were long passed the old date, and the installer was crappy too.

But aftre like 3.0 or something around there, it seemed to get better and better to the point that I even wanted to give it a try again, so I did. I've been liking it since.

In my personal opinion, with what you want to do, it's basically what I'm doing on my newest install of FreeBSD, and my other Slackware box; You're setting up some servers on it, and at the same time, using it as a Desktop machine, which is exactly what that Slackware 12.2 machine is doing, and, as I said, my newest install of FreeBSD.

Both of them are going to be used for regular stuff, but I also just happen to have SSH and FTP open on them.

One thing I do enjoy doing while setting up a test FTP Server, is this:

I'll basically install the OS, and whatever else I want on it, and then, instead of using the FTP user, I make my own. Normally it's something like "slackFTPAccount" or something smaller in length, and that way not only does the FTP portion have a valid account where messages can be left, or sent, because it's a normal user account, but on top of that, I can use it to test other things.

And of course, if I want to give any access, like, for example, to my Cousin, I can give him that user name and password, pop a hole in my firewall, and router, and allow him to log in to either upload something he'd like for me to back up for him, or to download something (I have about 300 E books on Unix, Linux, BSD, and Computer Security), and if I have an issue where I need to either change or delete something, I don't need to mess around with anything at all. I can just log in and do it.

Of course, I don't do this sort of thing on my main FTP Server; It's set up properly lol.

I may not even install FTP. ssh is just more secure, I don't see any reason why not to just use that instead. But yea, I going to have it for basically the same reason.

You can do this very well with either Linux or BSD, so it's going to come down to basically which you like best. In my personal opinion, I'd say to use any of these:

FreeBSD
Slackware
OpenSUSE / SUSE
Debian

All of those are more than suited to the task you're wanting done, and so, basically, like I said, you'll be able to do this with any of them. Shouldn't be to hard either.

My machines are all set up in a very similar way, but if it maybe helps, this is what I've got right now:

My Laptop is running FreeBSD 8.1-RELEASE, as is my other workstation, and then I have Slackware 12.2 on my test machine (The only AMD I own, it blows) and then this machine is dual booting Windows 7 and Slackware 13.1.

What have you tried as of now? I mean OS wise.

I've tried lots of linux distros, but only in VMs, so I never really messed with them long enough to become very comfortable with them. I really like Debian right now, I'll probably give it another week or so to make sure my router is not the thing giving me network issues. Then I'll continue messing with new ones. I have done BSD in a VM (I don't remember which) and it seemed a little different, but not anything I couldn't handle with time. I installed SUSE a long while ago, and it was either 9 or 10, so I'm not sure how much it has changed. I'll give that a try again, and I'll probably go from there. But yea, I'm enjoying Debian a lot. It's not much more advanced than Ubuntu, and it seems the things that are required to do via command line result in much more control, and at the same time are not difficult to implement. I'm just going to try to take it slow and learn as much as possible.

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Originally Posted by gore

I haven't ever had any real issues with SUSE. The versions being released right now aren't anything compared to the 8.1 and 8.2 days where everything worked out of the box, but the most I've ever had to do was set up a few things myself, which took like a half hour to make it look and act how I wanted.

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I'm sorry, SUSE is the lizard...I like SUSE. I was thinking Gentoo.

Ah, yes, Gentoo blows like a Fan.

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Originally Posted by gore

Ah, yes, Gentoo blows like a Fan.

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Where's the "Like" button on this thing!? ;)