5 ms·

I'm not an expert about Linux server-side distros. I'm using Ubuntu Server, I haven't seen any cons for now. Any hint ?

by geoffroy 11y ago

fidget 11y ago
Atm (assuming LTS) you'll have to use upstart, which sucks. Terrible selinux support also.
- rlpb 11y ago
  > Terrible selinux support also. Ubuntu focuses on AppArmor instead.
  - fidget 11y ago
    Sure. I just prefer selinux (along with most of the MAC using world), so this is a negative for me.
    - philtar 11y ago
      > so this is a negative for me. Exactly. For you. This isn't a con of the actual system.
- vacri 11y ago
  Is there an init system which doesn't suck?
  - nilved 11y ago
    Yep: http://core.suckless.org/sinit http://core.suckless.org/sinit
    - wtbob 11y ago
      Well, it certainly sucks less Seriously though, I've found that most things from the suckless guys are pretty great. st is a perfect terminal; surf would be perfect if it had an ad blocker.
      - digi_owl 11y ago
        It almost seems as if they are recreating Acme (plan9 editor).
      - nilved 11y ago
        Why would a web browser need an ad blocker? Do that in your HTTP proxy or DNS server. I recommend Polipo or Privoxy as I've had success integrating them with EasyList.
        wtbob 11y ago
        > Why would a web browser need an ad blocker? Do that in your HTTP proxy or DNS server. In order to be able to perform URL-level blocking without a proxy; and in order to be able to perform context-sensitive blocking and CSS blocking at all.
michel-slm 11y ago
Five year support might be too short for some people. If so there's Red Hat Enterprise Linux (and its community rebuilds like CentOS), and SUSE Enterprise Linux. A paid RHEL subscription will even give you security updates for point releases, in case your needs preclude from upgrading even to backwards compatible versions (e.g. You can use RHEL 6.4 even now, instead of 6.6 or 7.0)
- baldfat 11y ago
  I seriously believe that Ubuntu is not the best decision. SUSE and Redhat have much better support and services. More people know Ubuntu and is why they use it.
  - snuxoll 11y ago
    Seconded, the support lifetime of Ubuntu makes it woefully inadequate for use in an enterprise environment. I get that the hip startup scene wants the latest and greatest, but I work in the medical industry and rock-solid stability and availability are more important than anything else - we still have a couple Windows Server 2003 R2 and Windows XP systems that we haven't finished decommissioning yet, along with a couple SQL Server 2005 installations. When we made our first major Linux deployment this year there's no way I would have picked anything but RHEL/CentOS, we have critical services running on these systems that will be in use for a long time, and playing the upgrade dance in 5 years even (shorter than it sounds) is not an appealing thought.
    - pnathan 11y ago
      This is something not to be neglected: having a patched and backported LTS is not negligible in the enterprise.
    - slgeorge 11y ago
      Honestly, Ubuntu doesn't even try to focus on your type of usage you've defined. Given your companies pattern of doing its first deployment of Linux this year, and needing a very long support cycle - I think it's fair to say that you're looking for the equivalent of a traditional UNIX. Slow moving, with lots of stability and strong guarantees on backward compatibility. Red Hat and SUSE focus on that type of "enterprise computing" - they've grown on doing 'UNIX replacement'. Ubuntu is aimed more at the (as you put it) "hip start-up scene" or at least the area in the technical spectrum that is about new technologies, concepts such as continuous deployment and cloud computing. The funny thing is most enterprises have a bit of both those types of computing. Some slow-moving "eggs in one basket" services, but also the need for fast-moving innovative areas. So there's room for more than just one sort of distribution.
lucaspiller 11y ago
One issue I've found is support for old releases. Ubuntu only has a 5 year support life cycle, where as CentOS / RHEL have a 10 year support life cycle. For most people this isn't an issue, but in the enterprise it definitely is. I recently had to move a bunch of Ruby 1.8 applications (where it didn't make financial sense to upgrade them) to new servers. They wouldn't even run on Ubuntu 10.04, where as CentOS 5.5 is still receiving security updates.
- pmontra 11y ago
  But Ruby 1.8 is EOL. I also got some customers running Rails 3.0 with 1.8.7. I told them they have to rely on good luck not to be hacked and they also made the financial decision not to upgrade so they are running an unsupported language version on maybe an unsupported OS (can't remember which OS they're using).
  - krunaldo 11y ago
    Assuming they are using RHEL/CentOS 6. You can get supported ruby 1.9.3 on RHEL6 or CentOS6 https://www.softwarecollections.org/en/scls/rhscl/ruby193/ https://www.softwarecollections.org/en/scls/rhscl/ruby193/ or https://wiki.centos.org/AdditionalResources/Repositories/SCL https://wiki.centos.org/AdditionalResources/Repositories/SCL Unless they are unwilling to upgrade their rails and using the ruby version as an excuse :) Best of luck to you!
    - darkr 11y ago
      Software Collections aren't "supported" in the same fashion that core RedHat packages are (i.e timely security fixes, backported if needs be, for the lifetime of the OS release). From the ruby193 SCL page you linked to: "Community Project: Maintained by upstream communities of developers. The software is cared for, but the developers make no commitments to update the repositories in a timely manner."
      - krunaldo 11y ago
        Yeah, if they are in CentOS land it will be a bit touch and go (as usual). But if you have a redhat subscription they are fully supported. I should have pointed that out in my first comment though, thanks for bringing it up :) "All Red Hat Software Collections components are fully supported under Red Hat Enterprise Linux subscription terms of service. Components are functionally complete and intended for production use. " [0] [0] <https://access.redhat.com/products/Red_Hat_Enterprise_Linux/Developer/#rhscl=&dev-page=5> https://access.redhat.com/products/Red_Hat_Enterprise_Linux/...
beagle3 11y ago
If you have an unattended server, there's an open bug since 12.04 that hasn't yet been fixed, that might make it get stuck in grub, forcing you to connect a keyboard to make it start. (Yes, it bit me with embedded hardware stored in a closet on a pole 20 feet high in the air) http://serverfault.com/questions/243343/headless-ubuntu-server-machine-sometimes-stuck-at-grub-menu http://serverfault.com/questions/243343/headless-ubuntu-serv... The fix is in 12.04-proposed, but was never released, never applied to 14.04 and 15.04 last time I checked. Which is quite ridiculous, IMHO. (Can't find the Launchpad entry right now)
- barosl 11y ago
  I second that this is pretty annoying. The problem is that Ubuntu's grub.cfg is configured to wait forever until the user manually chooses a new boot option if the last booting failed. However, sometimes a temporary error can happen during the booting process, and this will make the server hang after the next reboot. This is probably not what server users want. In addition, I think this behavior is not ideal for desktop users either, because (1) spurious errors can also happen in desktop and in that case waiting a few seconds is better than waiting indefinitely, and (2) it is not uncommon to use Wake-on-LAN nowadays. But I'm not sure this problem is unique to Ubuntu, as Ubuntu shares much of its codebase with Debian. Does anybody know this is also problematic in other distributions?
  - jhasse 11y ago
    It looks like this will be fixed in 15.10: http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=ubuntu-15.10-grub-fixed http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=ubuntu-15...
  - beagle3 11y ago
    When I checked (in 2013), Ubuntu had this problem, and Debian did not. Ubuntu shares a lot with debian, but grub configuration is one thing that Ubuntu appear to be doing on their own.
- mdeslaur 11y ago
  That bug was fixed in all releases last july. This was the bug: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/grub2/+bug/1443735 https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/grub2/+bug/1443735
_yy 11y ago
Debian is more conservative with changes - if you want your systems to be rock-solid, go with Debian. The downside is that it's so stable that packages are usually outdated, but in many cases there are more recent backports which you can cherry-pick. In my experience, Debian's security team responds to new CVEs faster than Ubuntu's, but this is purely subjective.
- kristopolous 11y ago
  Also the users are a bit more, um accurate, in their answers; so if you run into problems, you may be in better hands if you reach out ( so long as people in help places aren't being hostile twats ).
  - jokr004 11y ago
    Absolutely, I've found the debian community to be one of the best out there as far as support goes.
    - ris 11y ago
      I've found them to be a highly mixed bag in IRC.
nailer 11y ago
Ubuntu 14.04 was one of the last distros to use upstart, which is pretty close to dead. As .service files become normal in the RHEL & Fedora/Debian world, and 14.04 LTS long life cycle runs, upstart is going to look increasingly out of date.

I'm not an expert about Linux server-side distros. I'm using Ubuntu Server, I haven't seen any cons for now. Any hint ?

fidget 11y ago

Atm (assuming LTS) you'll have to use upstart, which sucks. Terrible selinux support also.

rlpb 11y ago
> Terrible selinux support also. Ubuntu focuses on AppArmor instead.
- fidget 11y ago
  Sure. I just prefer selinux (along with most of the MAC using world), so this is a negative for me.
  - philtar 11y ago
    > so this is a negative for me. Exactly. For you. This isn't a con of the actual system.
vacri 11y ago
Is there an init system which doesn't suck?
- nilved 11y ago
  Yep: http://core.suckless.org/sinit http://core.suckless.org/sinit
  - wtbob 11y ago
    Well, it certainly sucks less Seriously though, I've found that most things from the suckless guys are pretty great. st is a perfect terminal; surf would be perfect if it had an ad blocker.
    - digi_owl 11y ago
      It almost seems as if they are recreating Acme (plan9 editor).
    - nilved 11y ago
      Why would a web browser need an ad blocker? Do that in your HTTP proxy or DNS server. I recommend Polipo or Privoxy as I've had success integrating them with EasyList.
      - wtbob 11y ago
        > Why would a web browser need an ad blocker? Do that in your HTTP proxy or DNS server. In order to be able to perform URL-level blocking without a proxy; and in order to be able to perform context-sensitive blocking and CSS blocking at all.

michel-slm 11y ago

Five year support might be too short for some people. If so there's Red Hat Enterprise Linux (and its community rebuilds like CentOS), and SUSE Enterprise Linux. A paid RHEL subscription will even give you security updates for point releases, in case your needs preclude from upgrading even to backwards compatible versions (e.g. You can use RHEL 6.4 even now, instead of 6.6 or 7.0)

baldfat 11y ago
I seriously believe that Ubuntu is not the best decision. SUSE and Redhat have much better support and services. More people know Ubuntu and is why they use it.
- snuxoll 11y ago
  Seconded, the support lifetime of Ubuntu makes it woefully inadequate for use in an enterprise environment. I get that the hip startup scene wants the latest and greatest, but I work in the medical industry and rock-solid stability and availability are more important than anything else - we still have a couple Windows Server 2003 R2 and Windows XP systems that we haven't finished decommissioning yet, along with a couple SQL Server 2005 installations. When we made our first major Linux deployment this year there's no way I would have picked anything but RHEL/CentOS, we have critical services running on these systems that will be in use for a long time, and playing the upgrade dance in 5 years even (shorter than it sounds) is not an appealing thought.
  - pnathan 11y ago
    This is something not to be neglected: having a patched and backported LTS is not negligible in the enterprise.
  - slgeorge 11y ago
    Honestly, Ubuntu doesn't even try to focus on your type of usage you've defined. Given your companies pattern of doing its first deployment of Linux this year, and needing a very long support cycle - I think it's fair to say that you're looking for the equivalent of a traditional UNIX. Slow moving, with lots of stability and strong guarantees on backward compatibility. Red Hat and SUSE focus on that type of "enterprise computing" - they've grown on doing 'UNIX replacement'. Ubuntu is aimed more at the (as you put it) "hip start-up scene" or at least the area in the technical spectrum that is about new technologies, concepts such as continuous deployment and cloud computing. The funny thing is most enterprises have a bit of both those types of computing. Some slow-moving "eggs in one basket" services, but also the need for fast-moving innovative areas. So there's room for more than just one sort of distribution.

lucaspiller 11y ago

One issue I've found is support for old releases. Ubuntu only has a 5 year support life cycle, where as CentOS / RHEL have a 10 year support life cycle. For most people this isn't an issue, but in the enterprise it definitely is. I recently had to move a bunch of Ruby 1.8 applications (where it didn't make financial sense to upgrade them) to new servers. They wouldn't even run on Ubuntu 10.04, where as CentOS 5.5 is still receiving security updates.

pmontra 11y ago
But Ruby 1.8 is EOL. I also got some customers running Rails 3.0 with 1.8.7. I told them they have to rely on good luck not to be hacked and they also made the financial decision not to upgrade so they are running an unsupported language version on maybe an unsupported OS (can't remember which OS they're using).
- krunaldo 11y ago
  Assuming they are using RHEL/CentOS 6. You can get supported ruby 1.9.3 on RHEL6 or CentOS6 https://www.softwarecollections.org/en/scls/rhscl/ruby193/ https://www.softwarecollections.org/en/scls/rhscl/ruby193/ or https://wiki.centos.org/AdditionalResources/Repositories/SCL https://wiki.centos.org/AdditionalResources/Repositories/SCL Unless they are unwilling to upgrade their rails and using the ruby version as an excuse :) Best of luck to you!
  - darkr 11y ago
    Software Collections aren't "supported" in the same fashion that core RedHat packages are (i.e timely security fixes, backported if needs be, for the lifetime of the OS release). From the ruby193 SCL page you linked to: "Community Project: Maintained by upstream communities of developers. The software is cared for, but the developers make no commitments to update the repositories in a timely manner."
    - krunaldo 11y ago
      Yeah, if they are in CentOS land it will be a bit touch and go (as usual). But if you have a redhat subscription they are fully supported. I should have pointed that out in my first comment though, thanks for bringing it up :) "All Red Hat Software Collections components are fully supported under Red Hat Enterprise Linux subscription terms of service. Components are functionally complete and intended for production use. " [0] [0] <https://access.redhat.com/products/Red_Hat_Enterprise_Linux/Developer/#rhscl=&dev-page=5> https://access.redhat.com/products/Red_Hat_Enterprise_Linux/...

beagle3 11y ago

If you have an unattended server, there's an open bug since 12.04 that hasn't yet been fixed, that might make it get stuck in grub, forcing you to connect a keyboard to make it start. (Yes, it bit me with embedded hardware stored in a closet on a pole 20 feet high in the air) http://serverfault.com/questions/243343/headless-ubuntu-server-machine-sometimes-stuck-at-grub-menu http://serverfault.com/questions/243343/headless-ubuntu-serv... The fix is in 12.04-proposed, but was never released, never applied to 14.04 and 15.04 last time I checked. Which is quite ridiculous, IMHO. (Can't find the Launchpad entry right now)

barosl 11y ago
I second that this is pretty annoying. The problem is that Ubuntu's grub.cfg is configured to wait forever until the user manually chooses a new boot option if the last booting failed. However, sometimes a temporary error can happen during the booting process, and this will make the server hang after the next reboot. This is probably not what server users want. In addition, I think this behavior is not ideal for desktop users either, because (1) spurious errors can also happen in desktop and in that case waiting a few seconds is better than waiting indefinitely, and (2) it is not uncommon to use Wake-on-LAN nowadays. But I'm not sure this problem is unique to Ubuntu, as Ubuntu shares much of its codebase with Debian. Does anybody know this is also problematic in other distributions?
- jhasse 11y ago
  It looks like this will be fixed in 15.10: http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=ubuntu-15.10-grub-fixed http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=ubuntu-15...
- beagle3 11y ago
  When I checked (in 2013), Ubuntu had this problem, and Debian did not. Ubuntu shares a lot with debian, but grub configuration is one thing that Ubuntu appear to be doing on their own.
mdeslaur 11y ago
That bug was fixed in all releases last july. This was the bug: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/grub2/+bug/1443735 https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/grub2/+bug/1443735

_yy 11y ago

Debian is more conservative with changes - if you want your systems to be rock-solid, go with Debian. The downside is that it's so stable that packages are usually outdated, but in many cases there are more recent backports which you can cherry-pick. In my experience, Debian's security team responds to new CVEs faster than Ubuntu's, but this is purely subjective.

kristopolous 11y ago
Also the users are a bit more, um accurate, in their answers; so if you run into problems, you may be in better hands if you reach out ( so long as people in help places aren't being hostile twats ).
- jokr004 11y ago
  Absolutely, I've found the debian community to be one of the best out there as far as support goes.
  - ris 11y ago
    I've found them to be a highly mixed bag in IRC.

nailer 11y ago

Ubuntu 14.04 was one of the last distros to use upstart, which is pretty close to dead. As .service files become normal in the RHEL & Fedora/Debian world, and 14.04 LTS long life cycle runs, upstart is going to look increasingly out of date.