I'm building a Linux VM inside of my Windows box so I can experiment with
setting up different ruby/rails situations, configuring apache, trying out
nginx, etc.
I know this is usually a heated debate, but does anyone have any good
suggestions on which release of Linux I should be using?
I've used Ubuntu before, but just as a desktop, not in a server-type
environment.
Other than that, I really don't have much experience with any Linux flavors.
Thanks.
When I first started out, I got my feet wet on RedHat (back when it was open
source, now it would be Fedora). The gui installers have gotten a lot
better with time. Actually, now that I give it some more thought, another
good distro that doesn't take up a whole lot of memory or space is Zenwalk
Linux. It's a Slackware based distribution that has a lot of dev tools
prepackaged. I have a second machine that's a P3 500Mhz w/ 768MB of RAM and
I've got Zenwalk installed on it. It runs really nice and is a good sandbox
environment.
Another place you can also check out is DistroWatch.
http://distrowatch.com- it shows each distro and what the popularity
of said distro is. After you
get more comfortable in Linux and around the command line, if you want to
learn a lot more, I strongly suggest going either to Slackware or Gentoo.
I've not personally used Slackware, but it's a real good distro from what I
understand. I use Gentoo, which has taught me more about Linux in the six
months I've been using it, than I had learned in the several years of using
Linux on other distros.
Good luck. I <3 Linux.
On 2/6/07, Luke Ivers <technodolt@gmail.com> wrote:
I'm building a Linux VM inside of my Windows box so I can experiment with
setting up different ruby/rails situations, configuring apache, trying out
nginx, etc.I know this is usually a heated debate, but does anyone have any good
suggestions on which release of Linux I should be using?I've used Ubuntu before, but just as a desktop, not in a server-type
environment.Other than that, I really don't have much experience with any Linux
flavors.Thanks.
--
Samantha
"Beware when the great God lets loose a thinker on this planet. Then all
things are at risk."
--Ralph Waldo Emerson
Luke Ivers wrote:
I'm building a Linux VM inside of my Windows box so I can experiment with
setting up different ruby/rails situations, configuring apache, trying out
nginx, etc.I know this is usually a heated debate, but does anyone have any good
suggestions on which release of Linux I should be using?I've used Ubuntu before, but just as a desktop, not in a server-type
environment.Other than that, I really don't have much experience with any Linux flavors.
Thanks.
It depends on what sort of server you're looking at. As you state, Ubuntu is a desktop OS, as is Gentoo. That really leaves you with two practical options, depending mainly on which package management system you prefer, RPM/Yum or apt.
1. RPM/Yum. There are two sub-options here, Fedora and an RHEL clone like CentOS 4.4. Fedora is more bleeding edge, but joined at the hip to Red Hat. CentOS 4.4 is more stable, but is a pure community effort, getting only source RPMs from Red Hat. If it matters, a lot more "professional" servers run with Fedora than with CentOS.
2. Apt. There are a number of Debian-based distros, but I'd recommend either Sarge (Debian stable) or Etch (Debian testing but in pretty good shape for servers and "close to stable").
Unless you have strong feelings to the contrary, you'll probably be better off with a stable Fedora -- I think the latest is Fedora Core 6, but Fedora Core 5 might be in better shape. I don't personally run any of the above regularly -- I run Gentoo (mostly workstations) with occasional shots at CentOS for testing as close to RHEL as I can get without buying something, or Fedora for things like Planet CCRMA, which is Fedora Core 5 based. I haven't touched Debian since the Sarge release -- I loaded it on an ancient laptop and gave the machine away to a friend of mine for a church project. 
--
M. Edward (Ed) Borasky, FBG, AB, PTA, PGS, MS, MNLP, NST, ACMC(P)
http://borasky-research.blogspot.com/
If God had meant for carrots to be eaten cooked, He would have given rabbits fire.
This is a tough question. Personally I think the best bet is go
install a few distros, and see which ones are easiest for the things
you need to do. The distributions mainly differ in their style of
administration more so than anything else.
All distros have their idiosyncrasies, and depending on your tastes,
you may consider them features or bugs.
I tend to favor fast, simple distributions with package repositories
on the bleeding edge. For me, ArchLinux fits the bill. I think for
doing something like setting up apache + ruby/rails, pretty much any
distro will do for experimentation, though the debian based ones will
annoy you if you try to install ruby via apt.
On 2/6/07, Luke Ivers <technodolt@gmail.com> wrote:
Other than that, I really don't have much experience with any Linux flavors.
Luke Ivers wrote:
I'm building a Linux VM inside of my Windows box so I can experiment with
setting up different ruby/rails situations, configuring apache, trying out
nginx, etc.I know this is usually a heated debate, but does anyone have any good
suggestions on which release of Linux I should be using?I've used Ubuntu before, but just as a desktop, not in a server-type
environment.Other than that, I really don't have much experience with any Linux flavors.
Thanks.
I've tried a few different distros inside vmware and have settled with gentoo - seems to perform a lot better (average RAM use is around 140MB of the allocated 256MB, with postgresql/myslq/litespeed/mongrel/vim in process); it's also very stable - no doubt due to the fact it's been built from source against the 'hardware' provided by vmware. Building from source is very fast if you aren't building KDE etc
One further consideration - if you are using Windows Virtual server you
should be aware that the MS Linux VM additions assume a particular location
for X windows which means that Debian based distros such as ubuntu can't
take advantage of the faster, higher res, virtual graphics card. Its crazy
and a colossal pain in the a$$.
If I had a Linux physical desktop (which I don't) I'd be very interested to
try out a user mode linux VM, which is esentially just a process that runs
ontop of Linux. I'm using RHEL for practical reasons but I would rather be
using Debian or Ubuntu.
On 2/6/07 11:22 AM, "M. Edward (Ed) Borasky" <znmeb@cesmail.net> wrote:
Luke Ivers wrote:
I'm building a Linux VM inside of my Windows box so I can experiment with
setting up different ruby/rails situations, configuring apache, trying
out
nginx, etc.I know this is usually a heated debate, but does anyone have any good
suggestions on which release of Linux I should be using?I've used Ubuntu before, but just as a desktop, not in a server-type
environment.Other than that, I really don't have much experience with any Linux
flavors.Thanks.
It depends on what sort of server you're looking at. As you state,
Ubuntu is a desktop OS, as is Gentoo. That really leaves you with two
practical options, depending mainly on which package management system
you prefer, RPM/Yum or apt.1. RPM/Yum. There are two sub-options here, Fedora and an RHEL clone
like CentOS 4.4. Fedora is more bleeding edge, but joined at the hip to
Red Hat. CentOS 4.4 is more stable, but is a pure community effort,
getting only source RPMs from Red Hat. If it matters, a lot more
"professional" servers run with Fedora than with CentOS.2. Apt. There are a number of Debian-based distros, but I'd recommend
either Sarge (Debian stable) or Etch (Debian testing but in pretty good
shape for servers and "close to stable").Unless you have strong feelings to the contrary, you'll probably be
better off with a stable Fedora -- I think the latest is Fedora Core 6,
but Fedora Core 5 might be in better shape. I don't personally run any
of the above regularly -- I run Gentoo (mostly workstations) with
occasional shots at CentOS for testing as close to RHEL as I can get
without buying something, or Fedora for things like Planet CCRMA, which
is Fedora Core 5 based. I haven't touched Debian since the Sarge release
-- I loaded it on an ancient laptop and gave the machine away to a
friend of mine for a church project.
----------------------------------------------------------
The information contained in and accompanying this communication is strictly confidential and intended solely for the use of the intended recipient(s).
If you have received it by mistake please let us know by reply and then delete it from your system; you should not copy the message or disclose its content to anyone.
MarketAxess reserves the right to monitor the content of emails sent to or from its systems.
Any comments or statements made are not necessarily those of MarketAxess. For more information, please visit www.marketaxess.com. MarketAxess Europe Limited is regulated in the UK by the FSA, registered in England no. 4017610, registered office at 71 Fenchurch Street, London, EC3M 4BS. Telephone (020) 7709 3100.
MarketAxess Corporation is regulated in the USA by the SEC and the NASD, incorporated in Delaware, executive offices at 140 Broadway, New York, NY 10005. Telephone (1) 212 813 6000.
UBUNTU, as well as several of the other desktop LINUX's, offers a server
installation CD in addition to the 'desktop' installation CD.
On Wed, 2007-02-07 at 01:22 +0900, M. Edward (Ed) Borasky wrote:
>
It depends on what sort of server you're looking at. As you state,
Ubuntu is a desktop OS, as is Gentoo. That really leaves you with two
practical options, depending mainly on which package management system
you prefer, RPM/Yum or apt.
It depends on what sort of server you're looking at. As you state,
Ubuntu is a desktop OS, as is Gentoo. That really leaves you with two
practical options, depending mainly on which package
management system
you prefer, RPM/Yum or apt.
Gentoo is not a desktop OS - it's not really geared that way at all -
sure the fact that you can compile everything optimised for your
processor makes for a potentially faster desktop experience, but there's
no real attempt to create a unified desktop experience like you'll find
in ubuntu and most of the commercial offerings.
I personally use gentoo on my server - I like the flexibility that
portage gives to the build process - especially for the transparency of
the update process.
Dan.
Gregory Brown wrote:
I think for
doing something like setting up apache + ruby/rails, pretty much any
distro will do for experimentation, though the debian based ones will
annoy you if you try to install ruby via apt.
That's a big negative in my book. How is Ruby installation difficult on apt-based distros?
--
M. Edward (Ed) Borasky, FBG, AB, PTA, PGS, MS, MNLP, NST, ACMC(P)
http://borasky-research.blogspot.com/
If God had meant for carrots to be eaten cooked, He would have given rabbits fire.
"M. Edward (Ed) Borasky" <znmeb@cesmail.net> wrote/schrieb <45C8AB13.9040006@cesmail.net>:
As you state, Ubuntu is a desktop OS
There's also a server flavour of Ubuntu:
<http://www.ubuntu.com/server>\.
Thomas
To add specificity: I'm using VMware's Virtual Server.
On 2/6/07, Peter Booth <pbooth@marketaxess.com> wrote:
One further consideration - if you are using Windows Virtual server you
should be aware that the MS Linux VM additions assume a particular
location
for X windows which means that Debian based distros such as ubuntu can't
take advantage of the faster, higher res, virtual graphics card. Its crazy
and a colossal pain in the a$$.If I had a Linux physical desktop (which I don't) I'd be very interested
to
try out a user mode linux VM, which is esentially just a process that runs
ontop of Linux. I'm using RHEL for practical reasons but I would rather be
using Debian or Ubuntu.On 2/6/07 11:22 AM, "M. Edward (Ed) Borasky" <znmeb@cesmail.net> wrote:
> Luke Ivers wrote:
>> I'm building a Linux VM inside of my Windows box so I can experiment
with
>> setting up different ruby/rails situations, configuring apache, trying
>> out
>> nginx, etc.
>>
>> I know this is usually a heated debate, but does anyone have any good
>> suggestions on which release of Linux I should be using?
>>
>> I've used Ubuntu before, but just as a desktop, not in a server-type
>> environment.
>>
>> Other than that, I really don't have much experience with any Linux
>> flavors.
>>
>> Thanks.
>>
> It depends on what sort of server you're looking at. As you state,
> Ubuntu is a desktop OS, as is Gentoo. That really leaves you with two
> practical options, depending mainly on which package management system
> you prefer, RPM/Yum or apt.
>
> 1. RPM/Yum. There are two sub-options here, Fedora and an RHEL clone
> like CentOS 4.4. Fedora is more bleeding edge, but joined at the hip to
> Red Hat. CentOS 4.4 is more stable, but is a pure community effort,
> getting only source RPMs from Red Hat. If it matters, a lot more
> "professional" servers run with Fedora than with CentOS.
>
> 2. Apt. There are a number of Debian-based distros, but I'd recommend
> either Sarge (Debian stable) or Etch (Debian testing but in pretty good
> shape for servers and "close to stable").
>
> Unless you have strong feelings to the contrary, you'll probably be
> better off with a stable Fedora -- I think the latest is Fedora Core 6,
> but Fedora Core 5 might be in better shape. I don't personally run any
> of the above regularly -- I run Gentoo (mostly workstations) with
> occasional shots at CentOS for testing as close to RHEL as I can get
> without buying something, or Fedora for things like Planet CCRMA, which
> is Fedora Core 5 based. I haven't touched Debian since the Sarge release
> -- I loaded it on an ancient laptop and gave the machine away to a
> friend of mine for a church project.----------------------------------------------------------
The information contained in and accompanying this communication is
strictly confidential and intended solely for the use of the intended
recipient(s).If you have received it by mistake please let us know by reply and then
delete it from your system; you should not copy the message or disclose its
content to anyone.MarketAxess reserves the right to monitor the content of emails sent to or
from its systems.Any comments or statements made are not necessarily those of MarketAxess.
For more information, please visit www.marketaxess.com. MarketAxess Europe
Limited is regulated in the UK by the FSA, registered in England no.
4017610, registered office at 71 Fenchurch Street, London, EC3M 4BS.
Telephone (020) 7709 3100.MarketAxess Corporation is regulated in the USA by the SEC and the NASD,
incorporated in Delaware, executive offices at 140 Broadway, New York, NY
10005. Telephone (1) 212 813 6000.
Since I'm already familiar with how Ubuntu works, I think I may go ahead and
do a server installation of it.
I do a lot with the command line already on the desktop versions of Ubuntu I
have/have had.
On 2/6/07, Reid Thompson <Reid.Thompson@ateb.com> wrote:
On Wed, 2007-02-07 at 01:22 +0900, M. Edward (Ed) Borasky wrote:
> >
> It depends on what sort of server you're looking at. As you state,
> Ubuntu is a desktop OS, as is Gentoo. That really leaves you with two
> practical options, depending mainly on which package management system
> you prefer, RPM/Yum or apt.
>
UBUNTU, as well as several of the other desktop LINUX's, offers a server
installation CD in addition to the 'desktop' installation CD.
Gentoo is not a desktop OS
Depends on your definition of "desktop OS". Everything is relative, I
mean there are .net programmers who think windoze is a good server OS,
and it just might be from their perspective. Gross generalizations
like the one you made above are good for nothing but flame wars.
it's not really geared that way at all -
Nope but I have both a Gentoo and a Ubuntu box at my house and the KDE
configurations on both are identical. Just because something isn't,
in your opinion, "geared" toward being a suitable candidate doesn't
mean it can't be used as one.
M. Edward (Ed) Borasky wrote:
Gregory Brown wrote:
I think for
doing something like setting up apache + ruby/rails, pretty much any
distro will do for experimentation, though the debian based ones will
annoy you if you try to install ruby via apt.That's a big negative in my book.
It's not the fact that it's apt which makes it difficult - it's the historical packaging policies of Debian Ruby which splits the core into separate packages for the interpreter, irb, rdoc, and so on, which is confusing. If I remember correctly, there was talk a short while ago of providing a meta-package which would pull all of these together in a single 'apt-get install ruby-full' (or something) to minimise irritation.
I tend to ignore that and use checkinstall, myself.
--
Alex
Thomas Hafner <thomas@hafner.NL.EU.ORG> writes:
"M. Edward (Ed) Borasky" <znmeb@cesmail.net> wrote/schrieb <45C8AB13.9040006@cesmail.net>:
As you state, Ubuntu is a desktop OS
There's also a server flavour of Ubuntu:
<http://www.ubuntu.com/server>\.Thomas
I also think that if the OP just want to experiment with a GNU Linux system, in
either a server or desktop configuration, either Ubuntu or Ubuntu server will
do fine. Same goes with Debian or RedHat. Typically, the differences between a
desktop specific distro and a server distro are irrelevant for experimentation
and learning purposes. Most of the server oriented distros only differ fromt he
desktop ones by having less desktop oriented add-ons (often they are included,
but you have to select them manually), with the desktop distros, its the
reverse, most of the key server stuff is there, its just not installed by
default. Some packages may be slightly different, such as being compiled with
options to support a server configuration (i.e. maybe set to use more file
descriptors or with more restrictive but secure options to incrase system
security etc).
If all you really want is a linux box that has a web server, ruby, rails, a
database and associated ruby packages, then any modern desktop distro will be
fine. there is no need to worry about desktop vs server until you decide to get
serious about developing server based apps in ruby and even then, you probably
don't have to be too concerned until you get tot he UAT and production stages.
regards,
Tim
--
tcross (at) rapttech dot com dot au
> Gentoo is not a desktop OS
Depends on your definition of "desktop OS". Everything is relative, I
mean there are .net programmers who think windoze is a good server OS,
and it just might be from their perspective. Gross generalizations
like the one you made above are good for nothing but flame wars.
I meant it as a counter to the dismissal of gentoo as a valid choice for
a server OS. This thread was a discussion about which linux OS should be
selected for a server environment, and an earlier poster said 'Ubuntu is
a desktop OS, as is Gentoo', I was pointing out that that was not the
case at all.
The primary purpose of ubuntu is to be a desktop linux os (it is geared
towards desktop use). The primary purpose of gentoo is to provide an
optimised build using a special package management system (it's not just
geared towards desktop use).
I was dismissing a generalisation not making one.
Dan.
Alex Young wrote:
M. Edward (Ed) Borasky wrote:
Gregory Brown wrote:
I think for
doing something like setting up apache + ruby/rails, pretty much any
distro will do for experimentation, though the debian based ones will
annoy you if you try to install ruby via apt.That's a big negative in my book.
It's not the fact that it's apt which makes it difficult - it's the historical packaging policies of Debian Ruby which splits the core into separate packages for the interpreter, irb, rdoc, and so on, which is confusing. If I remember correctly, there was talk a short while ago of providing a meta-package which would pull all of these together in a single 'apt-get install ruby-full' (or something) to minimise irritation.
I tend to ignore that and use checkinstall, myself.
Isn't the RPM world the same, in terms of how the whole Ruby package set is distributed? For example, if you install a Rails RPM it will pull in only the packages it needs. On Gentoo, though, when you install Rails, you can specify a USE flag for each database you want and it will pull those in as well. On my system everything is enabled so I get
dev-ruby/rails-1.2.1 USE="doc fastcgi mysql postgres sqlite sqlite3"
It pulls in fastcgi and all its dependencies, mysql, postgres, sqlite(2) and sqlite3. Assuming I didn't have Ruby and Rake installed already it would bring them in as well.
--
M. Edward (Ed) Borasky, FBG, AB, PTA, PGS, MS, MNLP, NST, ACMC(P)
http://borasky-research.blogspot.com/
If God had meant for carrots to be eaten cooked, He would have given rabbits fire.
I also think that if the OP just want to experiment with a GNU Linux
system, in
either a server or desktop configuration, either Ubuntu or Ubuntu server
will
do fine. Same goes with Debian or RedHat. Typically, the differences
between a
desktop specific distro and a server distro are irrelevant for
experimentation
and learning purposes. Most of the server oriented distros only differ
fromt he
desktop ones by having less desktop oriented add-ons (often they are
included,
but you have to select them manually), with the desktop distros, its the
reverse, most of the key server stuff is there, its just not installed by
default. Some packages may be slightly different, such as being compiled
with
options to support a server configuration (i.e. maybe set to use more file
descriptors or with more restrictive but secure options to incrase system
security etc).If all you really want is a linux box that has a web server, ruby, rails,
a
database and associated ruby packages, then any modern desktop distro will
be
fine. there is no need to worry about desktop vs server until you decide
to get
serious about developing server based apps in ruby and even then, you
probably
don't have to be too concerned until you get tot he UAT and production
stages.regards,
Tim
--
tcross (at) rapttech dot com dot au
While this is somewhat accurate, I do have enough experience with Linux/Unix
in general that hacking at Gentoo is okay with me. I finally (after 6
initial failed attempts) got a build done late Saturday/early Sunday. That
was on my home machine. Today I'm going to mess around with it some more.
The only part that I'm having any real trouble with is customizing the
kernel before the build. Everything else is pretty much straightforward
unix/linux stuff that you do on any server to get things done. If anyone
has references to a guide or something (not the default Gentoo installation
guide) on what to do while configuring the kernel, I'd appreciate the help.
Thanks for everyone's help, it's greatly appreciated.
The vgrails thing sounds interesting, you can send me an email off-list if
you want.
technodolt :: at :: gmail :: dot :: com
Again, thanks to you all.
Daniel Sheppard wrote:
Gentoo is not a desktop OS
Depends on your definition of "desktop OS". Everything is relative, I
mean there are .net programmers who think windoze is a good server OS,
and it just might be from their perspective. Gross generalizations
like the one you made above are good for nothing but flame wars.
I meant it as a counter to the dismissal of gentoo as a valid choice for
a server OS. This thread was a discussion about which linux OS should be
selected for a server environment, and an earlier poster said 'Ubuntu is
a desktop OS, as is Gentoo', I was pointing out that that was not the
case at all.The primary purpose of ubuntu is to be a desktop linux os (it is geared
towards desktop use). The primary purpose of gentoo is to provide an
optimised build using a special package management system (it's not just
geared towards desktop use).I was dismissing a generalisation not making one.
Dan.
I was the one who dismissed Gentoo as a server OS. Let me point out that I have three workstations running Gentoo and it is my distro of choice for workstations. If you want, I'll hunt down the blog post on why Gentoo is not practical as a server OS except under some extremely rare circumstances. The main point is that it just takes too much wall clock time to do routine security and stability updates relative to Debian and Fedora/Red Hat/CentOS.
I'm a big Gentoo fan. However, in a business setting where time is money and cost minimization is king, Gentoo is probably the wrong choice. As an additional negative, Gentoo system administration, while easy and well-thought out and designed, is just plain *different* from what most people know -- Red Hat. I've been using Gentoo for a number of years -- at least three. I can fix anything on my boxes and I can even break them and fix them again. But I can't bail out a stupid Red Hat user without reading the manual.
So I will stick with my recommendation: the vast majority of non-professional servers are better off with Fedora than any other Linux distro.
--
M. Edward (Ed) Borasky, FBG, AB, PTA, PGS, MS, MNLP, NST, ACMC(P)
http://borasky-research.blogspot.com/
If God had meant for carrots to be eaten cooked, He would have given rabbits fire.
M. Edward (Ed) Borasky wrote:
Alex Young wrote:
M. Edward (Ed) Borasky wrote:
Gregory Brown wrote:
I think for
doing something like setting up apache + ruby/rails, pretty much any
distro will do for experimentation, though the debian based ones will
annoy you if you try to install ruby via apt.That's a big negative in my book.
It's not the fact that it's apt which makes it difficult - it's the historical packaging policies of Debian Ruby which splits the core into separate packages for the interpreter, irb, rdoc, and so on, which is confusing. If I remember correctly, there was talk a short while ago of providing a meta-package which would pull all of these together in a single 'apt-get install ruby-full' (or something) to minimise irritation.
I tend to ignore that and use checkinstall, myself.
Isn't the RPM world the same, in terms of how the whole Ruby package set is distributed? For example, if you install a Rails RPM it will pull in only the packages it needs.
I wouldn't know. What would `yum install ruby` pull in? Judging from this recipe:
http://oe.openendstudios.com/2007/1/19/fedora-core-5-and-ruby-on-rails-server-recipe
(first on Google, no idea of the accuracy), it looks like that's all you need for ruby itself, but there will be others watching who can better answer...
--
Alex