Ask YC: Which OS are you using on your app's server(s)?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=160288

by rob • 18 years ago

10 51 18 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

I'm just curious as to what OS everyone is using for their app (e.g., CentOS, Debian, FreeBSD, NetBSD, Solaris, Ubuntu) and did you have any particular reason for choosing that OS?

For me, I just have a 'play' VPS right now that I'm running Ubuntu 7.10 on. I like Debian-based distros.

nuggien• 18 years ago

ubuntu 6.06 LTS.

I will probably upgrade to the next LTS when it becomes available.

jasonlbaptiste• 18 years ago

os x tiger

sant0sk1• 18 years ago

I run Debian exclusively on my servers. I don't have any great reason why it's better than any other distro, it's just what I learned first and I know where everything is.

dazzawazza• 18 years ago

FreeBSD 6.2

I've deployed it before, it's rock solid, secure and the ports system rocks.

spydez• 18 years ago

Linux. Debian on my shared server and Ubuntu 7.10 on the laptop and dev server.

I've been looking into Solaris (for ZFS), but debian-based distros is what I know, so it's what I'll use for now.

konsl• 18 years ago

RHEL -- wanted Linux and our host doesn't offer many other variants. OS X on dev though ;)

rms• 18 years ago

CentOS, because it seemed best supported by VirtualMin Free

kirubakaran• 18 years ago

Debian Stable.

It is called "stable" for a reason, you know.

chuchurocka• 18 years ago

gentoo, I'm a control freak...

kashif• 18 years ago

1.Debian 2. CentOs

Debian is more stable and just holistically better in my opinion...

entelarust• 18 years ago

Debian and RedHat

dmpayton• 18 years ago

For my personal stuff, I run Ubuntu 7.10 because Ubuntu was my first experience with Linux (in May '07), and it's what I'm most comfortable with.

At work (I work at a startup), we're using CentOS 5 because that's all that (mt) offers.

JackDanger• 18 years ago

Gentoo - it's what I know.

aleo• 18 years ago

FreeBSD 7.0 on dedicated server, Ubuntu 7.10 on 512mb RAM VPS.

ichverstehe2• 18 years ago

Definitely Debian. Had some adventures into the world of FreeBSD, but I have been using Debian for many years, and I know where everything is located and it's pretty solid and stable, if you know your deal. I'll probally stick around for a while.

Does anybody have experience with Ubuntu Server? While Ubuntu is a great distro for people new into the linux-world and people who just need something that Work's Out Of The Box, are there any advantages over Debian, with the server edition, that is?

bretthoerner2• 18 years ago

I use it (in production), and the only real advantage to me are more current packages.

davidw• 18 years ago

Another advantage is that, since the desktop version is pretty nice and easy to use, you can get all your developers using it on their desktops, so that they're running the same system as the servers. In the last company I worked for, we were set up like that - Ubuntu everywhere. It made things easier to keep track of, as well as cheaper because no one had windows, except for a few machines where it was indispensable for running various program.

craigbellot• 18 years ago

If you asked me what the restart command for debian is, I wouldnt be able to say. That's how stable it is.

cstejerean• 18 years ago

the advantage is that you have the same software running on your server as you do on the desktop. i can't tell you how frustrated I've been in the past trying to deploy some code i wrote only to find out I need to upgrade half the libraries on the system for my code to work.

most people agree that it's good to develop on the platform you will run in production, but they take it the opposite way (run outdated server software on their development environment).

sonink• 18 years ago

Debian etch

st3fan2• 18 years ago

"""Does anybody have experience with Ubuntu Server?"""

Ubuntu is great. We decided to go for Ubuntu because at the time we made that decision, Debian was still at 3.1 and very outdated. They have played catchup since then and 4.0 is much more modern (i'm mostly talking about more recent versions of popular stuff like postfix, postgres, mysql, gcc, etc.).

We standardized on 6.06/LTS but I've been also been playing with the 8.04/LTS release that is coming up. Looks very nice and we will probably switch to it. For new installations. Old stuff still runs rock solid.

ichverstehe2• 18 years ago

But I suppose the server-edition is not as 'bloated' as desktop? Personally I'm not much for using Ubuntu on the desktop, because the standard installation contains way too much bloat. Like a `bluetoothd` running standard. But if the server-edition comes pretty 'unbloated' out of the box, I might consider that for my next setup.

lux• 18 years ago

Seems like Debian/Ubuntu is the popular choice around here. Same with me. OS X on my dev box, Ubuntu on our backup server and Debian on our live server. I've used Fedora/Red Hat for a while as well, but just don't like/trust the package management like I do with apt.

bretthoerner2• 18 years ago

In my opinion you should choose what know best, assuming what you know is at least a semi-popular production server OS, especially if you have some decent experience already with said OS.

I recently looked into (Open)Solaris for DTrace and ZFS, but unless I want to put in a lot of time understanding the differences between Solaris and what I'm familiar with (recent GNU/Linux), I don't want to be in an "oh god what do I do something is wrong?!" state. In the end, I don't see enough value in DTrace/ZFS to relearn everything, because in the end it's just infrastructure.

bap• 18 years ago

In my wanderings I see CentOS more than anything else. A lot of people here mention Debian which I haven't run across at all and of course Ubuntu is pretty frequent as well.

ezmobius• 18 years ago

gentoo on ~1800 virtual machines.

attack• 18 years ago

Gentoo on Xen host.

RyanGWU82• 18 years ago

I use CentOS on my server, mostly because I'm the most familiar with Red Hat-based distributions. I like Ubuntu a lot more on the desktop. If I was using an Ubuntu desktop full-time, I'd certainly consider using Ubuntu on the server as well.

thingsilearned• 18 years ago

ubuntu 7.10 on EC2. Chosen simply because of familiarity, excessive documentation and the ease of apt-get.

culturestate• 18 years ago

CentOS 5.1 - we started on a hosted LiquidWeb box (they were installing CentOS4 at the time), and since it worked near-flawlessly for us, decided to standardize on it as we grew.

ubudesign• 18 years ago

I use fedora but striped down to the core. I like to build the webserver and other tools so that I can customize.

ken• 18 years ago

Ubuntu.

We used CentOS when I started (because it was the EC2 default back then or something), but as we grew everybody seemed to know Debian better, so we switched. I find it's much easier to find and install packages for Ubuntu than it was for CentOS, but I admit that may well be because I'm an idiot (esp. w.r.t. RPMs).

SwellJoe• 18 years ago

I've written at length about this:

http://www.obsceneart.com/?p=30

Our software runs on millions of servers world-wide running every OS imaginable, and so I'll self-righteously claim the exclusive privilege of making bold pronouncements and expecting everyone just to go along with them.

bayareaguy• 18 years ago

rPath Linux. I used the public rBuilder to create a recipe and then build both an EC2 AMI and a local Xen DomU image with everything I needed in a day.

tlrobinson• 18 years ago

A mixture of Ubuntu and Mac OS X.

thorax• 18 years ago

CentOS, SuSE, Fedora, Windows Server 2003.

I've had the most enjoyment (surprisingly) with SuSE because of AppArmor's ability to cover holes in flaws for open-source PHP software we used early on. yast is also kind of handy for some of our non-Linux gurus.

thehigherlife• 18 years ago

debian, ubuntu, novell netware, mac os x, win 2k3

underscore• 18 years ago

FreeBSD (6.3) on one, OpenBSD on another.

Both choices were made mostly for the fact that I'm familiar with them, and they seem trustworthy (reliable, lacking gaping security holes out of the box, though I'd hope the latter is the case for most Linux distros as well). While I'd probably enjoy spending time improving my sysadmin-fu, it wouldn't have been a wise way to spend time for either of these projects.

brianr• 18 years ago

Fedora 7 64-bit.

chrisbolt• 18 years ago

Slackware and Slamd64 on ~190 servers, stripped down to 120 megs. Downloads root filesystem with netboot and runs it in-memory.

kogir• 18 years ago

Windows Server 2003/2008, Ubuntu 7.10, CentOS 5, and FreeBSD 6.3/7

I'm hoping to move to Windows 2008 and FreeBSD 7 or Ubuntu 7.10 everywhere.

modoc• 18 years ago

Another vote for Debian. I've been using it for years, so I know how to secure it really well, it's solid, easy to use, all that jazz. I run OS X for my local development machine, but in production I use Debian everywhere.

yan• 18 years ago

FreeBSD.

Makes most sense to me, but I have nothing against other oses. Just what I started with and what I keep coming back to.

extantproject• 18 years ago

I also found my way back to FreeBSD when I wandered -- so often, in fact, that now I don't use anything else except OS X on my PowerBook.

Hexstream• 18 years ago

I use Ubuntu Server since I already useUbuntu as my desktop so there's no learning curve (besides using the console instead of X).

flashgordon• 18 years ago

mate try and experiment with a couple - i know it is easier said than done. I am currently using Fedora 8. for an intermediate user like myself, it was not too packed and at the same time not too stripped so I could configure it as I learnt more and more.

dous• 18 years ago

Only Debian.

xenoterracide• 18 years ago

Test server is gentoo, production may vary.

st3fan2• 18 years ago

Ubuntu. But I would love to deploy more on Solaris or Open Solaris. When you have to deal with performance issues then Solaris is king. It has so many excellent tools to figure out what applications are doing. Standard linux can't even show on a per-process basis what is causing disk io for example. Stuff like that is a no-brainer on Solaris.

initself• 18 years ago

Slackware. Call me crazy.

Ask YC: Which OS are you using on your app's server(s)?

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