On Mon, 09 Feb 2004 13:08:29 +1300 Hamish McBrearty <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Hi all > > Currently I seem to be expanding my client base a little, and have been > rolling out some Linux servers to them. But seeing as I don't have a great > deal of experience with all things Linux I'd like some frank pros and cons > about certain things. > > Firstly distro. My personal preference is Gentoo, I know where it puts the > config files, I understand the packaging system, patching is dead simple, > and overall I'm comfortable. But what are the pros and cons of Gentoo vs > say Debian? most would say debiam for rock solid stability, using the stable branch. having said that i am using gentoo for my new office server (postfix/procmail/courier-imap/squirrelmail/spamassassin/mailman/apache/samba/dhcp/dns) all is going well, and i love the configuration and packaging. I think using pure server software, as opposed to the latest kde/mozilla/gnome etc will be quite stable. I have not been brave enough to crontab emerge rsync && emerge -u world quite yet..., but i wouldn't do the equivalent with debian either. > > Secondly kernels. At home I use 2.6.2-mm, or in Gentoo speak mm-sources, > which performs fantastically. It's notably faster than 2.4.22-gentoo-r5 on > my laptop, and performed great under heavy load, ie compiling KDE3.2. So > stick with the tried and true but slightly slower kernel? Or the newer, > untested but faster kernel? > I am running 2.4 something on the server, but 2.6 seems stable on the home desktop machine. > And finally filesystem. I really have no preference here as I don't fully > understand the differences between them. On my most recent server I used > Reiserfs and it goes great, but there's only 5 workstations on the > network. The next one is likely to have 20-30 clients accessing the > server, all via Samba. Again, pros and cons of using Reiserfs vs Ext3 vs > XFS. > take a look at LVM to start with, it gives you the ability to add space on the fly (unless you want to physically install another disk), but you still need to put a filesystem on top. I am using reiser, but i am no expert on that aspect. > Thanks > > ------------------------------------------------- > Hamish McBrearty MCSE MCSA > Network Engineer > Rangi Ruru Girls' School > 59 Hewitts Road > Christchurch > NEW ZEALAND > Ph 03 355-6099 > Fax 03 355-6027 > CELL 021 999770 > E-Mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > -------------------------------------------------- > -- Nick Rout <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
