I know this has been discussed time and time again on nearly every forum or BBS existing on this wonderful thing we call the internet, however it is rather hard to find anything that could be considered "up-to-date" on this topic.

Here's the spill..... right now I have a RedHat 9 server sitting right next to me setup just like it would be here at SM, but I just really don't care for the way Redhat manages it's file structure, and the fact that support is almost dead for it (In my sitution I can't consider Fedora legacy updates to be "support").

I would like "professional" opinions on any *NIX systems that you use. I'm looking for an OS that is stable, reliable, simple yet fully functional, and isn't going to be dropped by it's manufacturers a year after it's release. I'm not even going to start about the havoc Redhat almost caused me.....

I would really appreciate it if anyone could take the time to post on this. I know absolutly nothing about BSD, except the little Devil logo is pretty cool. I also know even less about SUN/Sparc systems, however I did just order an old clunker from eBay to play around with....

I will be depending on a final *NIX OS quite a bit, so I HAVE to be 100% certian before I invest the time in rebuilding my network.

Thanks!

My vote goes to Debian.

I've never seen Debian have the slightest problem, and apt-get is simply the best package manager in the world, as far as I care. You can keep your server fully up-to-date (Or up-to-date by the Debian update system, which I'll explain) by two simple commands.. apt-get update (To update package list), and apt-get upgrade (To install upgrades).

Debian comes in three flavors. Stable, Testing, and Unstable. Stable is the tried and true packages. Some of them are woefully out of date, but solid none-the-less. The only apt-get updates Stable ever gets are security packages (One was released for MySQL in the past week). Testing is the next branch, and is fairly stable. This is what will (Hopefully some time soon) replace Stable. Unstable is the final branch, which seems 200-300 package updates a month, or more.

Basicly, Stable has been tested into the ground. Its packages are older but won't give you any trouble, and apt-get makes it easy to install and remove them. If you need something from Testing or Unstable (Such as 2.6.4 kernel), you can get pre-made Debian packages for Stable from backports.org. Basicly, they make the newer stuff work with Stable.

Stable has been on the current version for about two years now, maybe three. Its not defunct though.. Stable ONLY recieves security updates, so that it STAYS Stable. For more common package updates you should use Testing, and for bleeding edge, Unstable. (Warrenty not included?)

Anyways. I like Debian. Its quick and easy, and its also the birthplace of GNU. Debian is the official GNU linux distribution.

I'll second the vote for debian. Ferret hit all the major points, take a look at their social contract.

I guess I'll throw FreeBSD into the mix. This perfectly describes FreeBSD. FreeBSD performance and stability are legendary and nobody (not even your local linux or die bumper sticker driving whiz kid) can dispute that. Configuration is simple and straight forward, just like it's file system. One of the major conveniences of FreeBSD is that it's developed as an OS. There is actually a base OS in there. It's not just a kernel with the latest and greatest GNU environment sitting on top. The base OS sits at the root of the file system. Generally any app you install ontop of base goes into /usr/local/ unless of course you decide you want it to live elsewhere during install. Likewise, the configuration files for the base OS are in /etc and the config files for anything you install are in /usr/local/etc.

I could go on and on about FreeBSD, but the best place to go for more info is the FreeBSD site.

I second the vote for FreeBSD. I've never had any of the weird issues i get out of Linux with any of my FreeBSD systems. It doesn't support the latest whizbang hardware like Linux tends to do, but that's not what FreeBSD is there for. It runs a solid, stable, secure server. I could make a 15 minute long post explaining why but like UberDuper I'll direct you to the site.

For a UNIX client its OS X all the way. Hey a UNIX that looks pretty and runs photoshop? w00t.

What kind of weird issues? Almost all of the problems I've had with linux have been related to bad hardware or misconfiguration. I've never used BSD so I can't really compare the two.

RPM issues, everything-and-the-kitchen sink default installations, odd kernel compile issues. In FreeBSD its simple. There's ports for installing nearly any 3rd party app you'd ever want to. FreeBSD installs the OS + a tiny amount of helper apps (like perl in 4.x). It doesn't install something like CUPS, which redhat does by default (which still boggles me ). Kernel compiling is easy. Instead of this weird menu driven system (make menuconfig) you edit a file and compile. Easy as pie and much more UNIX-like.

Neither does Debian. It doesn't use RPMs (Though I believe it can install the RPM frontend if you want it. I've never needed to though. AOT uses .deb binarys). Default Debian is basicly the kernel, ssh, inetd, and one or two more standard things. No CUPS, no FTP, no Apache, no Mysql, no XF86 (I've seen some that default install this even for 'server' installations), etc.

Heh, Debian doesn't even install wget or traceroute by default. Its about 5 seconds to apt-get them though.

But like you said multiple times in describing "Linux" problems, those are a lot of things Redhat does, and I think you got to one of the reasons Lunch[Box] is trying to get away from Redhat.

I agree with you 100% klaude. I hate rpms. "everything-and-the-kitchen sink default installations" is one of the reasons I started using Linux from Scratch.

Well, thanks to eveyone very much for the very educational replies!

Haha, I find it funny that I didn't even list the exact things that I really hate about Redhat, yet everyone knew right off the bat!

Well, to Kevin's post about OSX, I would love to try it out someday.... maybe when Apple decideds their computer's aren't made of gold!

And the posts about Debian and BSD are both very interesting. I've decided to setup another machine and start testing both.

Thanks again for the comments!

Actually, with the introductions of the iMac and the eMac, it is not really that costly nowadays. The lowest end eMac 1.25Ghz is going for $799 on the Apple Website. I remember a couple of years ago, I got my iMac 400Mhz for a lot more than that amount. It is worth the try. Or you could pick up an older machine from ebay or the likes.