[Techtalk] distro for production server

[Mary]

On Sun, Oct 16, 2005, Travis Casey wrote:
> I'll fourth it, and point out that if you really need a newer version  
> of an individual package than Debian Stable provides, you can get it  
> from backports.org.

Note that one problem with Debian stable is that the *new* Debian stable
is released at unpredictable intervals. This is most commonly cited as a
problem because the software in it ages, but for production servers, the
*real* problem is that this means that security support for any given
release ends at an unpredictable time. (It doesn't usually end on the
day the new release comes out, but reliable security support usually
ends not long after that, because Debian doesn't have the volunteers to
maintain security support for two releases reliably,)

This can be an argument in favour of choosing a distribution with an
advertised security support schedule (eg Red Hat Enterprise) or with a
reliable release schedule (eg Ubuntu).

I'd actually recommend Ubuntu, with the following provisos:

 1. Ubuntu has security support for only 18 months at present (Ubuntu
    6.04, due for release in April 2006, will have five years of
    security support for server software, but it's the first)

 2. It's a comparitively minority distribution, particularly in the US
    where Red Hat has a lot of market share. If you need to hand over
    maintainence, it might be hard to find someone who knows the
    distro's tools well. (Debian has the same problem in the US.)

-Mary