Hi
I'm about to get a dedicated server, and have the choice of FreeBSD, Debian, Suse, Fedora, Gentoo, Ubuntu and Redhat (standard edition), any recommendations on the OS I should choose

Thanks

CentOS

From your list, I'd probably recommend Redhat.

Avoid Fedora as it isn't really suitable for "enterprise" use - it's a bit "bleeding edge" which means releases are very frequent and keeping up patching to correct the latest bugs/security holes can be difficult.

I'd avoid FreeBSD, but mainly due to Plesk - it's less flexible on FreeBSD than other OS... if you're not using Plesk then I don't (personally) know enough about FreeBSD to comment.

Debian/Ubuntu are pretty much the same thing. Don't really know anything about Gentoo.

Did anything above help?

Will you be managing this dedicated server? If so, the choice obviously depends partly on what you're used to. Other important point is what the software you want to run prefers (if anything).

If you're not managing it - what do the people who will be suggest?

You have only 2 os in that list:
FreeBsd, and different flavors of Linux.

In the end, it all depends of your acquaintance with those os.
I don't know FreeBsd, but I know it have an linux emulation layer that allows him to run linux binary.

Ubuntu, debian are sharing the same base (ubuntu is a fork of debian) and have a large community behind them
RedHat and Fedora are almost the same, fedora being the free, more up to date version of the redHat distribution.

All those linux distributions are package based, meaning that when you install a program, you download a package that is de-compressed on your system.
The drawback is that for some exotic programs or specific versions, you won't find packages corresponding to your distribution version, leading you to compile those package by hand.
It's exactly what drow me away of those distributions.
When you spend 2 hours looking for all the dependencies, and finally have to compile the program by hands, why bother with a package based management...

Gentoo take a totally different approach. It's a source based ditribution. It means that when you want to install something, it fetch the sources and all dependencies, and compile them.
This can lead to several hours to compile a big program (OpenOffice took 8 hours on my p4 3ghz !!!).
Another major drawback is that when you do a system upgrade, it can more easily break installed package by replacing some already installed libs.


I run gentoo for the last 4 years, and I'd recommand it for anyone interested in linux, having time to learn.
If you want things to simply work, don't go that way.

As damien said, centOs is the most used and suported distro on linux web servers.

Thanks for the added detail Thierry - there's only so much a sales guy can understand about these things

Well, if you take my suggestion. If you are well-versed with Linux OS, then you should go ahead with CentOS or FedoraCore. They have a better perception to read through your requirements.

However, control panel such as cPanel is a added advantage. I have also heard recently that they have collaberated with Windows which is again a great step.

Thanks for the replies everyone, we will be managing the server, we have experience of Freebsd and redhat, so I guess its one of those two - thanks again

Hello,

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http://www.bodhost.com/dedicated_hosting.shtml

If you have any further queries, please feel free to contact us through sales@bodhost.com or http://support.bodhost.com/

Regards

Originally Posted by damien_ls

Thanks for the added detail Thierry - there's only so much a sales guy can understand about these things

No problems, that's why I usually goes with the sales guy visiting customers