15 Oct
2011
15 Oct
'11
4:50 a.m.
On Fri, Oct 14, 2011 at 10:53:36PM +0100, Graham Bleach wrote:
On 13 October 2011 15:12, Dom Latter
<bitfolk-users(a)latter.org> wrote:
I would also add:
- Up-to-date (or not so old at least :-P) stable software
I trust I can ask this sort of question here
without sparking a
religious war - but what advantages are there in using Ubuntu on
a server? I've been an Ubuntu desktop user for some years [1],
but for servers I generally stick with Debian.
Based on about 8 years of running 1-3 low-usage personal servers on
Debian and 6 months running ~150 Ubuntu server hosts professionally:
Ubuntu Pros:
- Hardware certification. I can buy hardware with a reasonable
expectation that it'll work with a specific release without spending
hours attempting to find out how well individual hardware components
work. It's not a perfect scheme, but it's a start.
- Vendor support. Dell, VMware and others package various useful bits
of software and put them in their own repos. They don't all do a
brilliant job at it (e.g. VMware's kernel modules are often several
ABI versions behind the latest kernel security release) but they do
it. [1]
Ubuntu Cons:
- Security releases. The Debian security team seem to ship patches
first and the Ubuntu ones lag a bit.
I would also add that ubuntu main repository (I mean the main branch/component)
is smaller than debian's main. So if you use a bunch of software/packages from
universe/multiverse/etc, don't expect security updates, response to bug reports or
anything like that. Universe in ubuntu is mostly an "import" from debian
archive
at the time the release was made, and that's it.
The release notes are more "desktop oriented" and there is little, if any, note
for servers. Debian's release note are way more complete and detailed.
Also, the upgrade procedure in ubuntu is sometimes, IMHO, kind of invasive and
you have to restore some of your configs, or remove packages or something like
that. Nothing terrible, but I think it shouldn't be needed.
Thanks,
Rodrigo