Since everyone's become distracted by the lines of code number, I answered a few of the questions that I feel I can answer.
> Apache/modperl installation and updates: I assume installation is > straight forward, how about keeping current? As those are remotely > administered platforms, chances are the OS may not be kept current. So > is it still easy to deal with security updates (Apache, sshd, bind etc) > when the platform is a couple of years old? With FreeBSD this has become > somewhat harder lately (still running 3.x, but the ports system doesn't > support 3.x any longer). You're talking about using their packages? I suspect most people on this list build their own apache/mod_perl binaries. > > Remote maintability: Is it possible to remotely upgrade between OS > versions for either of those platforms (not a must, but would be a plus)? I would be afraid to do that remotely, since it normally involved a kernel change as well. > > Sendmail: Does the system make it easy to replace sendmail with another > mailer of choice (qmail in my case)? I don't know about Red Hat, but it's certainly easy in SuSE. > > Footprint: Is it easy to weed out unused system components to have a > smaller footprint of the OS? Or does that mean fighting the installer > left and right? I don't know if Red Hat is getting any better, but I've always found it difficult to do a "minimal" install. SuSE has options for a very minimal install which is what I use for server installs. > > perl: Any iussues with perl/modperl? Besides modperl I will be running a > perl application with a few hundred thousend lines of code... My current project: http://www.better-investing.org runs on Red Hat. I'm not aware of any perl/mod_perl issues, but I built perl and the apache binaries myself. I don't use their RPMs. > > Security: Is it easy to 'tie down' the system? The web site is behind a firewall and load balancers, so the web servers themselves don't have ipchains, etc. but they also aren't running any services available to the outside except http and ssh. > > Software-based RAID 1: Is it usable (only for a data partition, not > required for the root partition)? Is it easy to recover from a broken disk? > > Robustness: While almost all systems I have are/will be on UPSs, they > still tend to occasionally be 'unplugged' (not shut down cleanly), be it > due to an empty or dead UPS battery, someone tripping over or > accidentaly unplugging the power cable etc. etc. Does the system tend to > survive the then due fsck without manual intervention? Better yet, would > it be possible to mount / and /usr read-only, and have a /var partition > that (if the worst should happen) can be recreated on the fly? Can't help you on RAID, but I have found SuSE with ext3 or ReiserFS to be VERY recoverable. -- Barry Hoggard Tristan Media LLC e: [EMAIL PROTECTED] p: 212-627-1596 aim: hoggardb
