[sclug] Spring cleaning

[Chris Aitken]

> Hi all,
>
> It is that time of year again, now I am faced with a few items on my new
> agenda for my home network. I am about to install my old 120GB ATA 100
> HD into my server box. It currently runs whitebox linux, now as you have
> probably gathered from previous posts, I am no longer that much of a
> redhat user and have migrated all my desktop machines away form Fedora
> and Redhat, I plan to be RH free before within the next few days - a week.
>
> What to do, first off I need to choose my new Server operating System,
> the choices are:
> GNU/Linux, a BSD Based distribution, or move to Solaris.( uh maybe not!).
>
> If  I stick with Linux what should I run out of the thousands of distros
> out there,
> 1. Debian (currently top of the list)
> 2. Stick with Whitebox
> 3. Slackware
> 4. Go the whole hog and have gentoo on every machine in the house (can I
> really be arsed to do it?).
> 5. Migrate to SuSE and run cool novell stuff ;)
> 6. other
>
> If I go with BSD the choices are:
> 1. FreeBSD
> 2. GNU/Darwin
> 3. NetBSD
> 4. OpenBSD
>
> If I go with Solaris
> 1. Shoot self in head, for running proprietry software
>
> My requirements are simple. I need a machine that can be a webserver,
> cvs server, storage device, firewall, VPN client and a VPN Server and
> finally a database box. I have to choose wisely because I want to have a
> system that will take the least possible effort for patching etc (gentoo
> and debian come to mind here). I am also paranoid about security so I
> need something that can facilite those needs (BSD comes to mind here
> too!). I am not sure how fast the debian folk are at updates (haven't
> used debian in well over a year!!) and even though the machine itself is
> a suck ass little box (only a 466 celeron) I may be tempted to run a
> private UT2004 server....
>
> So what will it be, I am sure we have quite a bit of direversity in the
> LUG to decide ;)
>

Well debian are currently offering (in various states):

Debian GNU/Linux
Debian GNU/Hurd - essentially Mach
Debian GNU/NetBSD
Debian GNU/FreeBSD

So whatever kernel/base you choose, you still get the best of the debian
world!

http://www.debian.org/ports/

ATEOTD, any *BSD or Linux distro will do what you want. I think you may get
alot more backup with Debian here, mainly because of the amount of users
here. I'm biased towards debian, but have never used a *BSD. I have however
used alot of linux distros. For a mjor security issue, debian often patches
within half a day. a couple of days if it is a very minor one.

HTH

Chris


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