[ale] Web server OS

Jeff Hubbs hbbs at comcast.net
Tue Dec 23 12:47:57 EST 2008


There is, but its use is frankly not recommended.  The days of 
"compiling everything" are gone - that's the "Stage 1" install that has 
been deprecated for a few years now.  After the Stage 3 tarball is put 
in place and the kernel compiled and installed, you've got an 
up-and-running system but subsequent to that, most anything you install 
will be compiled in place.  There are binary packages for OpenOffice and 
Firefox.  Of course, once you're up and running, you can always make it 
compile everything it's got if you really want to; the whole point is 
that you're in the driver's seat as far as that goes. 

The Portage package management system works extremely well; it's great 
for going "okay, give me this, this, and this" and telling it what 
support you want put into packages at compile time.  As I said, Gentoo 
is effectively versionless; unless you tell it otherwise, it'll set you 
up with the most current well-tested versions of anything you want to 
install for whatever architecture you're on.  If you want to skip ahead 
into bleeding-land you can do that in a very orderly way and it's the 
same if you want to back up a step or two, like I recently had to with 
Nvidia's proprietary drivers to get a driver version that would work on 
the hardware.

Bear in mind, it took me about a year to "get" Gentoo but once I did, it 
really makes the Red Hat etc. world from which I came seem just a little 
quaint.

I will say, though, that desktop and laptop HW can be a bit of a 
challenge and that can sometimes get too daunting even for me (hello, 
MacBook!)

- Jeff

David Hamm wrote:
> Is there any kind of auto install for Gentoo?  I looked at installing
> Gentoo recently and it seemed every package would have to be compiled
> during the installation process.  
> On Tue, 2008-12-23 at 09:47 -0500, Jim Kinney wrote:
>   
>> emerge jeff
>>
>>
>> :-)
>>
>> On Tue, Dec 23, 2008 at 9:08 AM, Jeff Hubbs <hbbs at comcast.net> wrote:
>>         You might also try Gentoo, the meta-distribution that is
>>         versionless and
>>         only installs what you tell it beyond a very minimalist,
>>         functional OS
>>         that has a completely functional build system from the
>>         get-go.  You
>>         don't have to fool with finding different repositories, and
>>         the docs and
>>         online support are very good.
>>         
>>         - Jeff
>>         
>>         
>>         Jim Kinney wrote:
>>         > My $0.20 is to use centos 5.2. Add the EPEL repo
>>         > (http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/EPEL) and install wordpress
>>         with yum
>>         > install wordpress The base level OS is supported for another
>>         5 years
>>         > and the system is rock-solid stable. The EPEL packages are
>>         provided
>>         > and maintained by the upstream providers.
>>         >
>>         > Note: Centos and all RedHat derivatives will try (and
>>         usually suceed)
>>         > at installing X. This is because many tools for managaing
>>         the system
>>         > are gui-fied. The hard drive space is minimal and the X can
>>         be turned
>>         > off with a runlevel 3 in inittab.
>>         >
>>         > Note: I do NOT recommend the Fedora 10 distro for server use
>>         at this
>>         > time. They shift to all network sockets controlled by
>>         NetworkManager
>>         > is not as stable as it needs to be yet. It's fine for
>>         laptops (I'm
>>         > using it and like it a lot) but it's not for servers yet.
>>         >
>>         > Staying well back from bleeding edge is good. When F10 first
>>         came out
>>         > the x86_64 version was not "bleeding edge" it was a
>>         "spurting death
>>         > wound". It's feeling MUCH better now! My 64 bit laptop has
>>         been up for
>>         > about 8 days now without a hard reboot. Resuming from
>>         suspend or
>>         > hibernate still leaves Radeon chip is terminally stupid mode
>>         so that
>>         > has been avoided 'till I see a patch
>>         >
>>         > On Tue, Dec 23, 2008 at 2:03 AM, aaron <aaron at pd.org
>>         
>>         
>>         > <mailto:aaron at pd.org>> wrote:
>>         >
>>         >     Even knowing that Jon is active with the Ubuntu
>>         >     community, I'd have to throw in with CentOS.
>>         >
>>         >     In fact, I'll recommend CentOS twice, then you'll
>>         >     have my $.02 on the subject.
>>         >     ;-)
>>         >
>>         >     White box RedHat without the bleeding edge pains of
>>         >     Fedora.  It was my choice when I had to build a
>>         >     server for a Drupal development site last summer.
>>         >
>>         >     Someone mentioned Wordpress packages being in the
>>         >     Ubuntu repositories, but that may not be saying much.
>>         >     LAMP web packages like Wordpress and Drupal will
>>         >     generally install pretty easily on any common server
>>         >     distro, though I will note that I did have to add
>>         >     a non-default repository to get a yum-my Drupal
>>         >     installation into CentOS 5.
>>         >
>>         >     peace
>>         >     aaron
>>         >
>>         >     On 2008, Dec, 22, , at 10:57 PM, Jon Reagan wrote:
>>         >
>>         >     > hey folks... got a quick question.
>>         >     >
>>         >     > I have a new computer that I will be using as a web
>>         server.
>>         >      From past
>>         >     > experience, I know that the computer does not have any
>>         hardware that
>>         >     > presents compatibility issues.  So, with this in mind,
>>         which system
>>         >     > would y'all recommend for a complete noob looking to
>>         set up a
>>         >     > wordpress blog?
>>         >     >
>>         >     > I have been using Ubuntu, as well as Fedora and
>>         Debian... but I
>>         >     am not
>>         >     > sure which is best (or rather, easiest) for me to use.
>>         >     >
>>         >     > Thanks in advance!
>>         >     >
>>         >     > Jon
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>>         >
>>         >
>>         > --
>>         > --
>>         > James P. Kinney III
>>         >
>>         
>>         >
>>         ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>         
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>>
>> -- 
>> -- 
>> James P. Kinney III               
>>
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