Server Distribution?
I'm on the hunt for a new distribution. I've gone through several distros in my time, and I've stuck with Ubuntu for a while now. Usually, I end up trying out a few new ones every year or so just to make sure that I'm not missing out on something spectacular, and then end up settling back down with the distro that I had before I started. This time, however, I'm looking for something a little different.
Every other time I've gone looking for a distribution, I've been looking for something that's "a little more slick" wrt the desktop. This time, I'm looking for essentially the opposite. I've poked around all of the usual channels a bit, but thus far I've been unable to find what I'm looking for. I'd like something that's fairly small (wrt disk and overall memory footprint when running), secure, and easily maintaintable; in essence, a distro that would be well-suited to a high-availability, low-cost server environment...without all the bells and whistles that the more desktop-centric distros have to offer.
The difficulty here is manifold. First, I'm not used to searching for a linux distribution w/o looking at screenshots (which, sadly, often have more of an impact on decision-making than they should). A second related problem is that "beautiful desktops" have become quite the marketing point for a lot of distributions (due mostly to the first problem).
A bigger issue is one of "familiarity". It would seem to me that a system's security has a fair amount to do with just how familiar the admin is with the ins and outs of that system. Every linux distribution has its own little quirks, no matter how rigidly the maintainers try to stick to some kind of standards. For the most part, this is a good thing. Everyone has their idea of how Things Should Be Done (tm), and in general it's nice to have your choice of multiple ways of doing things. Presumably, this gives the sysadmin the chance to find a distribution that does things in a manner that he/she finds to be appropriate for his/her needs. However, this also means that changing distributions can be a hassle.
For example, say I have a choice between two systems. One has a flawless implementation of SELinux enabled by default, but the system is organized (directory/file locations, config scripts, etc.) in a way that's completely alien to me. The other doesn't have SELinux, but is organized such that I can find everything very easily - either by intuition, or simply b/c the locations of things closely mirrors the distros that I've worked with in the past. I'm much more likely to choose the second distro; I like to have control over the system that I'm using, and I have a better feeling about the security of that system if I know where everything is and in what manner it's configured.
Anyhow, the bottom line is that I still haven't found what I'm looking for. The hunt continues...
Every other time I've gone looking for a distribution, I've been looking for something that's "a little more slick" wrt the desktop. This time, I'm looking for essentially the opposite. I've poked around all of the usual channels a bit, but thus far I've been unable to find what I'm looking for. I'd like something that's fairly small (wrt disk and overall memory footprint when running), secure, and easily maintaintable; in essence, a distro that would be well-suited to a high-availability, low-cost server environment...without all the bells and whistles that the more desktop-centric distros have to offer.
The difficulty here is manifold. First, I'm not used to searching for a linux distribution w/o looking at screenshots (which, sadly, often have more of an impact on decision-making than they should). A second related problem is that "beautiful desktops" have become quite the marketing point for a lot of distributions (due mostly to the first problem).
A bigger issue is one of "familiarity". It would seem to me that a system's security has a fair amount to do with just how familiar the admin is with the ins and outs of that system. Every linux distribution has its own little quirks, no matter how rigidly the maintainers try to stick to some kind of standards. For the most part, this is a good thing. Everyone has their idea of how Things Should Be Done (tm), and in general it's nice to have your choice of multiple ways of doing things. Presumably, this gives the sysadmin the chance to find a distribution that does things in a manner that he/she finds to be appropriate for his/her needs. However, this also means that changing distributions can be a hassle.
For example, say I have a choice between two systems. One has a flawless implementation of SELinux enabled by default, but the system is organized (directory/file locations, config scripts, etc.) in a way that's completely alien to me. The other doesn't have SELinux, but is organized such that I can find everything very easily - either by intuition, or simply b/c the locations of things closely mirrors the distros that I've worked with in the past. I'm much more likely to choose the second distro; I like to have control over the system that I'm using, and I have a better feeling about the security of that system if I know where everything is and in what manner it's configured.
Anyhow, the bottom line is that I still haven't found what I'm looking for. The hunt continues...
posted by cliff at 7:56 AM
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