Linux File Server. Which One Would You Pick?
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@scottalanmiller said in Linux File Server. Which One Would You Pick?:
CentOS. Because there is no compelling reason to look at anything else and by default I always start there - it's the best known, most stable, best supported. So unless you have a specific reason to look elsewhere, that's what you use IMHO.
I don't feel that this is a real answer to Bill's question. Does it answer it, sure, but doesn't explain why.
What makes CentOS better than Ubuntu, RHEL, Debian (not Linux I know, but still), etc?
Now I'm late to the conversation and the additional reasons might be posted.. I just still wanted to post this. Scott, more explanation is really needed for those who don't know the major players in the Linux community and what makes one better at one thing versus the next.
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@Dashrender said in Linux File Server. Which One Would You Pick?:
@scottalanmiller said in Linux File Server. Which One Would You Pick?:
CentOS. Because there is no compelling reason to look at anything else and by default I always start there - it's the best known, most stable, best supported. So unless you have a specific reason to look elsewhere, that's what you use IMHO.
I don't feel that this is a real answer to Bill's question. Does it answer it, sure, but doesn't explain why.
What makes CentOS better than Ubuntu, RHEL, Debian (not Linux I know, but still), etc?
I think he did answer it...
"Because CentOS is the appropriate Linux for non-experts. It's the easiest to use, best documented, has the best support, is the most stable and secure, has the fewest caveats, is the least confusing, does not do marketing tricks like the Ubuntu LTS thing to confuse users, has a good community of people who understand the product, has the best application support, etc. It requires the least skill to use properly, and lets you do the most with it and provides for the best career options once you learn it."
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@BRRABill said in Linux File Server. Which One Would You Pick?:
@Dashrender said in Linux File Server. Which One Would You Pick?:
@scottalanmiller said in Linux File Server. Which One Would You Pick?:
CentOS. Because there is no compelling reason to look at anything else and by default I always start there - it's the best known, most stable, best supported. So unless you have a specific reason to look elsewhere, that's what you use IMHO.
I don't feel that this is a real answer to Bill's question. Does it answer it, sure, but doesn't explain why.
What makes CentOS better than Ubuntu, RHEL, Debian (not Linux I know, but still), etc?
I think he did answer it...
"Because CentOS is the appropriate Linux for non-experts. It's the easiest to use, best documented, has the best support, is the most stable and secure, has the fewest caveats, is the least confusing, does not do marketing tricks like the Ubuntu LTS thing to confuse users, has a good community of people who understand the product, has the best application support, etc. It requires the least skill to use properly, and lets you do the most with it and provides for the best career options once you learn it."
yeah you beat me to me editing my post
I said he probably did eventually answer it.
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@BRRABill said in Linux File Server. Which One Would You Pick?:
I guess two branches of this could be...
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If you are looking for future Linux work (AKA, what would benefit a new user most.)
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If you are just looking for the best way to go starting from scratch.
- CentOS...
- CentOS...
CentOS is easily the most user friendly of the ones I've played with. I'm running a bit of OpenSUSE at home just to play with it but I 90% of my stuff is CentOS.
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@scottalanmiller said in Linux File Server. Which One Would You Pick?:
@BRRABill said in Linux File Server. Which One Would You Pick?:
@scottalanmiller said in Linux File Server. Which One Would You Pick?:
@BRRABill said in Linux File Server. Which One Would You Pick?:
@scottalanmiller at one point you had mentioned SUSE (openSUSE, I presume) as a suggestion here.
Why was that?
openSuse is what I use, especially Leap. Because I know it well and it has some extensive storage features. But unless you are going to use those features, you don't want to start exploring new distros that require different tools and knowledge unless there is specific need for it.
But if a user (like myself, for this kind of thing) has no prior knowledge of Centos?
I mean at this point, I know Ubuntu pretty well, too.
Everything but CentOS.
Well, you should not have been doing anything else until you were an expert on CentOS
CentOS is far and away the most appropriate for someone with less experience.Says who and why? Where is this magic knowledge that should lead someone to know that CentOS is where they should start?
@scottalanmiller said in Linux File Server. Which One Would You Pick?:
- Fully commercially supported when needed, both from primary vendors and from countless third parties.
- Best known Linux distro for business use.
- Best supported Linux distro for business use cases and applications.
- Most focus on high stability of any Linux distro (versus latest features.)
- Most focus on business technologies (like clustering that is totally absent in ones like Ubuntu.)
- Best understanding of its community for business needs.
- Longest support cycles of any enterprise Linux distro.
- Few small core package list with extensive support.
This could be all on the brochure for CentOS, doesn't make it true - we would just have to trust it, and hear from the community.
As for why has Bill started with Ubuntu? Because most of the projects that he's deployed so far have come with instructions explicitly for Ubuntu (namely XO and Unifi Controller).
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@Dashrender said
As for why has Bill started with Ubuntu? Because most of the projects that he's deployed so far have come with instructions explicitly for Ubuntu (namely XO and Unifi Controller).
Yeah, that is exactly why.
Plus Mint.
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@scottalanmiller said in Linux File Server. Which One Would You Pick?:
CentOS is also the Dom0 of XenServer. So you get great overlap there for people using that.
yet the XO guys are using Ubuntu instead of CentOS
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I am also a Ubuntu guy. Why? Most of the systems I enjoy using are derivatives of Ubuntu -- or Ubuntu itself. Does that mean I wont' use another distro? No.
One of the things that makes the various distros useful is that instructions for something on Ubuntu may be old, outdated and broken... While the CentOS instructions are newer and actually work... Or vice versa.
Don't let yourself get tied into the "trap" of using just one distro.
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@Dashrender said in Linux File Server. Which One Would You Pick?:
@scottalanmiller said in Linux File Server. Which One Would You Pick?:
CentOS is also the Dom0 of XenServer. So you get great overlap there for people using that.
yet the XO guys are using Ubuntu instead of CentOS
Ubuntu's kool-aid is hard to resist.
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@BRRABill said in Linux File Server. Which One Would You Pick?:
@Dashrender said
As for why has Bill started with Ubuntu? Because most of the projects that he's deployed so far have come with instructions explicitly for Ubuntu (namely XO and Unifi Controller).
Yeah, that is exactly why.
Plus Mint.
Mint is different - it's a desktop OS, not a server OS, different use case.
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@Dashrender said in Linux File Server. Which One Would You Pick?:
@BRRABill said in Linux File Server. Which One Would You Pick?:
@Dashrender said
As for why has Bill started with Ubuntu? Because most of the projects that he's deployed so far have come with instructions explicitly for Ubuntu (namely XO and Unifi Controller).
Yeah, that is exactly why.
Plus Mint.
Mint is different - it's a desktop OS, not a server OS, different use case.
But Ubuntu is also a desktop OS if you don't download the server version. AFAIK, Mint only comes in Desktop edition.
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@dafyre said in Linux File Server. Which One Would You Pick?:
I am also a Ubuntu guy. Why? Most of the systems I enjoy using are derivatives of Ubuntu -- or Ubuntu itself. Does that mean I wont' use another distro? No.
One of the things that makes the various distros useful is that instructions for something on Ubuntu may be old, outdated and broken... While the CentOS instructions are newer and actually work... Or vice versa.
Don't let yourself get tied into the "trap" of using just one distro.
Now this is a double edged sword. If you stick to one distro, you will probably get to know it VERY well. Plus anyone coming in behind you will only need to know that one distro. Of course it does suffer in that another distro might do a specific task more efficiently than your main one, so you have to decide if the efficiency loss of management is worth the gain in whatever from the new distro.
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@dafyre said in Linux File Server. Which One Would You Pick?:
@Dashrender said in Linux File Server. Which One Would You Pick?:
@BRRABill said in Linux File Server. Which One Would You Pick?:
@Dashrender said
As for why has Bill started with Ubuntu? Because most of the projects that he's deployed so far have come with instructions explicitly for Ubuntu (namely XO and Unifi Controller).
Yeah, that is exactly why.
Plus Mint.
Mint is different - it's a desktop OS, not a server OS, different use case.
But Ubuntu is also a desktop OS if you don't download the server version. AFAIK, Mint only comes in Desktop edition.
True - but when generically talking bout Ubuntu, real Linux admins are never talking about the desktop version unless specifically stated.
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@Dashrender said in Linux File Server. Which One Would You Pick?:
@dafyre said in Linux File Server. Which One Would You Pick?:
I am also a Ubuntu guy. Why? Most of the systems I enjoy using are derivatives of Ubuntu -- or Ubuntu itself. Does that mean I wont' use another distro? No.
One of the things that makes the various distros useful is that instructions for something on Ubuntu may be old, outdated and broken... While the CentOS instructions are newer and actually work... Or vice versa.
Don't let yourself get tied into the "trap" of using just one distro.
Now this is a double edged sword. If you stick to one distro, you will probably get to know it VERY well. Plus anyone coming in behind you will only need to know that one distro. Of course it does suffer in that another distro might do a specific task more efficiently than your main one, so you have to decide if the efficiency loss of management is worth the gain in whatever from the new distro.
How often is that the case though? There are very few applications that can't be installed on all the mainstream distributions. Only a few more that aren't natively built into one of the package managers.
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@Dashrender said in Linux File Server. Which One Would You Pick?:
@scottalanmiller said in Linux File Server. Which One Would You Pick?:
@BRRABill said in Linux File Server. Which One Would You Pick?:
@scottalanmiller said in Linux File Server. Which One Would You Pick?:
@BRRABill said in Linux File Server. Which One Would You Pick?:
@scottalanmiller at one point you had mentioned SUSE (openSUSE, I presume) as a suggestion here.
Why was that?
openSuse is what I use, especially Leap. Because I know it well and it has some extensive storage features. But unless you are going to use those features, you don't want to start exploring new distros that require different tools and knowledge unless there is specific need for it.
But if a user (like myself, for this kind of thing) has no prior knowledge of Centos?
I mean at this point, I know Ubuntu pretty well, too.
Everything but CentOS.
Well, you should not have been doing anything else until you were an expert on CentOS
CentOS is far and away the most appropriate for someone with less experience.Says who and why? Where is this magic knowledge that should lead someone to know that CentOS is where they should start?
It's not magic knowledge, it's common knowledge in IT. Just because some people don't know things doesn't make it magic or hard to find. Communities like SW and ML cover this all the time, for example. Or just look at things like my Linux Admin guide, it covers this as part of the course. Look at industry certs. Look at jobs and careers. Look at hosting providers, etc.
Like everything in IT, you need to accumulate base knowledge and apply logic when necessary and watch out for the marketing of people with agendas. How does someone know anything in IT? How did you know to play around with Windows?
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@Dashrender said in Linux File Server. Which One Would You Pick?:
@scottalanmiller said in Linux File Server. Which One Would You Pick?:
@BRRABill said in Linux File Server. Which One Would You Pick?:
@scottalanmiller said in Linux File Server. Which One Would You Pick?:
@BRRABill said in Linux File Server. Which One Would You Pick?:
@scottalanmiller at one point you had mentioned SUSE (openSUSE, I presume) as a suggestion here.
Why was that?
openSuse is what I use, especially Leap. Because I know it well and it has some extensive storage features. But unless you are going to use those features, you don't want to start exploring new distros that require different tools and knowledge unless there is specific need for it.
But if a user (like myself, for this kind of thing) has no prior knowledge of Centos?
I mean at this point, I know Ubuntu pretty well, too.
Everything but CentOS.
Well, you should not have been doing anything else until you were an expert on CentOS
CentOS is far and away the most appropriate for someone with less experience.Says who and why? Where is this magic knowledge that should lead someone to know that CentOS is where they should start?
@scottalanmiller said in Linux File Server. Which One Would You Pick?:
- Fully commercially supported when needed, both from primary vendors and from countless third parties.
- Best known Linux distro for business use.
- Best supported Linux distro for business use cases and applications.
- Most focus on high stability of any Linux distro (versus latest features.)
- Most focus on business technologies (like clustering that is totally absent in ones like Ubuntu.)
- Best understanding of its community for business needs.
- Longest support cycles of any enterprise Linux distro.
- Few small core package list with extensive support.
This could be all on the brochure for CentOS, doesn't make it true - we would just have to trust it, and hear from the community.
Other than researching for yourself, you can make that statement about all knowledge everywhere.
Many of these things are incredibly well known facts, though. Many can be verified, like how support is available, how it has true LTS, how it is the most used (through surveyes running for decades), how the core packages are handled, etc.
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@dafyre said in Linux File Server. Which One Would You Pick?:
I am also a Ubuntu guy. Why? Most of the systems I enjoy using are derivatives of Ubuntu -- or Ubuntu itself. Does that mean I wont' use another distro? No.
One of the things that makes the various distros useful is that instructions for something on Ubuntu may be old, outdated and broken... While the CentOS instructions are newer and actually work... Or vice versa.
Don't let yourself get tied into the "trap" of using just one distro.
Very much the opposite. Don't get sucked into the "distro sprawl" trap. Having a "different OS for every task" is difficult to do well and expensive to support. It adds risk and is one of those bad things about Linux culture that Windows does better. When possible, you want as few distros as possible, all things being equal you want only one. Using a single distro is not a trap, it's a goal.
There is no business class distro that is a derivative of Ubuntu, what are you thinking of? And why would that lead you to using Ubuntu for business on its own?
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@travisdh1 said in Linux File Server. Which One Would You Pick?:
@Dashrender said in Linux File Server. Which One Would You Pick?:
@scottalanmiller said in Linux File Server. Which One Would You Pick?:
CentOS is also the Dom0 of XenServer. So you get great overlap there for people using that.
yet the XO guys are using Ubuntu instead of CentOS
Ubuntu's kool-aid is hard to resist.
It's marketed to non-IT and/or non-Linux people heavily, which is part of what makes it bad for Linux people.... so much of how it is used and why people use it is bad.
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@dafyre said in Linux File Server. Which One Would You Pick?:
@Dashrender said in Linux File Server. Which One Would You Pick?:
@BRRABill said in Linux File Server. Which One Would You Pick?:
@Dashrender said
As for why has Bill started with Ubuntu? Because most of the projects that he's deployed so far have come with instructions explicitly for Ubuntu (namely XO and Unifi Controller).
Yeah, that is exactly why.
Plus Mint.
Mint is different - it's a desktop OS, not a server OS, different use case.
But Ubuntu is also a desktop OS if you don't download the server version. AFAIK, Mint only comes in Desktop edition.
What does "edition" mean in that context, though? All desktops are servers if you want them to be. This isn't Windows.
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@Dashrender said in Linux File Server. Which One Would You Pick?:
@dafyre said in Linux File Server. Which One Would You Pick?:
I am also a Ubuntu guy. Why? Most of the systems I enjoy using are derivatives of Ubuntu -- or Ubuntu itself. Does that mean I wont' use another distro? No.
One of the things that makes the various distros useful is that instructions for something on Ubuntu may be old, outdated and broken... While the CentOS instructions are newer and actually work... Or vice versa.
Don't let yourself get tied into the "trap" of using just one distro.
Now this is a double edged sword. If you stick to one distro, you will probably get to know it VERY well. Plus anyone coming in behind you will only need to know that one distro. Of course it does suffer in that another distro might do a specific task more efficiently than your main one, so you have to decide if the efficiency loss of management is worth the gain in whatever from the new distro.
Also, you get to use a single set of tools, learn fewer commands, know your patch cycles and needs better, etc.
