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  #1  
Old February 18th, 2004, 07:45 PM
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AzerrezA AzerrezA is offline
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Question What Linux for Web Server?

I have found myself once again in the position of being forced to learn as much info about something that I possibly can in a ridiculously short amount of time.
My company (well the owner) has decided to quit using our web host and set up our own web server sites. While this makes since for us to do this, a massive wrench for me was tossed into the works. I have always used DOS and Windows for everything. I once set up a system using NT Server on the web several years back. So doing it again with say 2003 Server would be fairly easy for me. The owner of our company has decided that he is sick and tired of M$ sucking money hear and there for everything we do and wants so badly to rid our company of M$ once and for all. Sounds fine by me because I am getting a fed up with M$ too, even though it's all I know. Since I am the so called IT man here, it fell into my lap to find an alternative and get our server up and on the web.
YEAH! I have never used Linux, Unix, Redhat, Etc. and so I am quit literally going into this project blind and stupid. So now I need to pick an OS and start cramming as much info about it as I can into my head.
This is where I am yelling HELP!!!!
Can anyone tell me what would be the easiest to use for a novice Linux person to get a web server up and running?
Seems like many people have given high praise to Redhat 9, but is that the best for running a web server?
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  #2  
Old February 18th, 2004, 07:52 PM
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MishY MishY is offline
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If it's going to be a corporate webserver go with Redhat Enterprise and it has a longer EOL period than Redhat9.

The security concious would go with a BSD flavour because they are renowned for being pretty damn secure out of the box.

Redhat however requires quite a lot of tightening - uninstalling useless packages, firewall, policies etc.

Redhat however also has a huge community of people who help each other so you would be in good hands. Redhat also is very very popular among webhosts as it is easier to configure than BSD in my experience.

I would go with Redhat and apache (not version 2) if I were you. Remember to kill telnet
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  #3  
Old February 19th, 2004, 03:33 PM
restin256 restin256 is offline
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Being an open source jackarss, I would suggest if you liked redhat to go with fedora. If you know what you're doing when it comes to programming, and you like redhat, yeah.. go with fedora. If you want corporate help like microsoft would give you, go with RedHat, but the open-source zealots like myself will hate you.

OpenBSD is based on security mainly. I would go with that if not Linux.
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  #4  
Old February 20th, 2004, 08:22 AM
bAdWaYz bAdWaYz is offline
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Re Webserver

If it were me "and I know its not" I'd go with FreeBSD. I won't waste time going into why because its been covered by others I think, but for my money out of the box BSD is as solid and secure as they come. Actually anything non windows I'm a fan of, but thats another story.
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  #5  
Old February 24th, 2004, 07:28 PM
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AzerrezA AzerrezA is offline
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What to start with.... MMMM?

Quote:
Originally Posted by bAdWaYz
If it were me "and I know its not" I'd go with FreeBSD.
I have been kinda following your thread on FBSD. I did go and check out the web site and even grabbed a few of the manuals the site has available. Haven't yet taken the time to sit down and read them though. I have been checking out some of the other sites as well, but the FBSD has my curiosity up. I need to find my old 166MMX box and use it as a test machine just to familiarize myself with it before going into a server and hosing that all up. Seems like I saw something about it being able to run on old hardware with not much under the hood.

Found a site about Yellow Dog and wanted to go with that one just because of the name, but it looked like it was geared towards Macs and we have already set our sites on an IBM server.
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  #6  
Old February 25th, 2004, 03:38 AM
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zipulrich zipulrich is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by AzerrezA
..able to run on old hardware with not much under the hood.
Did you happen to see bAdWaYz computer specs in his profile? :no:
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  #7  
Old February 25th, 2004, 02:04 PM
restin256 restin256 is offline
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Yellow Dog is based on RedHat, just compiled for PPC arch.
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  #8  
Old March 2nd, 2004, 03:17 PM
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AzerrezA AzerrezA is offline
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Thumbs up Well we finally decided to go BSD

I have been researching the Unix/Linux based OS and have even talked to a few people at our local college about it. For the most part (I am still far from any expert on the subject) it appears that most of these OS's are similar with only minor differences here and there. Everyone that I have talked to on the subject recommended something different. Some of the OS's are free and some can cost a small company like ours a good bit of cash.
Naturally I am working on this project with a very limited budget so the one thing that appeals to me is the fact that to run a Unix/Linux OS doesn't require the top of the line server in order to get decent performance. This helps cut down cost, because now instead of eyeballing Xeons I can focus on a cheaper P3 or maybe an affordable P4 system. Since this is a new OS for all of us here in the office I have decided that maybe going with free would be a better route to go.
Two reasons why I am going to go with free. One it is free so if for some reason we get going on it and decide that it is just not going to work out then we are out just time and energy trying to set it up and not the cost of the OS. Two this helps cut the cost of this project and will ultimately leave some money left over for my next project.
So by mid March I should have the server and be working towards getting this thing up and running our web site with FreeBSD as the OS. I have been reading the manual and also checking out some of the support and stuff they have on their web site and it does seem like it will work out for us. From what I gather Yahoo uses FBSD and I use Yahoo every day.

Thanks again everyone for your input on this matter and I would like to thank the folks at cybertechhelp.com for having this message board for people like me that are always needing help with something.
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