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Anybody got experience with enterprise-class distro's?

AmieAmie Regular
edited March 2011 in Tech & Games
Hi there

I'm looking for a free (as in free beer) OS of enterprise quality for a (small x86) server. I know of CentOS and Oracle linux. However, I'm not going to install CentOS as long as 6.0 isn't out. I'm probably going to try Oracle, but it seems like there's absolutely zero documentation available without paying for support. Can you just use the RHEL manuals for Oracle or do they differ too much?

I've thought about switching to BSD, but the software availability for BSD is just too low.

Does anybody know of any other free enterprise-class distro's, preferably with good documentation?
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Comments

  • SlartibartfastSlartibartfast Global Moderator -__-
    edited March 2011
    I don't know much about Oracle Linux but i'm sure you can use Oracle Linux with the RHEL manuals fine. Oracle clearly states that you can use "RHEL certified Hardware and Software" that generally means that it's near 100% compatible.


    Redhat has recently made it more difficult for Oracle to use redhat patches by removing a lot of patch documentation. It's still unclear how Oracle will be affected by this.

    I'd still go with CentOS if i were you.

    CentOS 6 will be be releases by the end of the month.
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  • DfgDfg Admin
    edited March 2011
    Used RHEL 5.5 with Oracle. IMO Oracle Linux would be great for you if you're planning to use Oracle DB, however it will run on Cent OS as well.

    Wait for 6.0 or just use RHEL 6.0 for a month and then switch the yum repository to CentOS and it will automatically upgrade to CentOS 6.0
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  • buddhabuddha Regular
    edited March 2011
    Did I miss something? What *nix are you using normally? Doesn't pretty much every distro have an enterprise version?

    I am drunnk btw.
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  • AmieAmie Regular
    edited March 2011
    At the moment I'm using Arch Linux. Works very well, but I'd prefer a fixed-release distro which can be auto-updated (not recommended in Arch) for this thing, preferably one which is as secure, stable and simple as Arch Linux.

    I've tried an OpenSuse 11.4 server installation but it's suffering from a huge ammount of bugs (the clean install is) and there is basically no documentation at all about managing OpenSuse without Yast so I'm not too keen on diggin around blindly trying to fix stuff.

    I'm not going to try Ubuntu 'cause it's not stable enough for my needs (I've seen a very simple ubuntu fileserver get completely bugged up by some stupid security update, don't want that to happen).
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  • buddhabuddha Regular
    edited March 2011
    Amie wrote: »
    At the moment I'm using Arch Linux. Works very well, but I'd prefer a fixed-release distro which can be auto-updated (not recommended in Arch) for this thing, preferably one which is as secure, stable and simple as Arch Linux.

    I've tried an OpenSuse 11.4 server installation but it's suffering from a huge ammount of bugs (the clean install is) and there is basically no documentation at all about managing OpenSuse without Yast so I'm not too keen on diggin around blindly trying to fix stuff.

    I'm not going to try Ubuntu 'cause it's not stable enough for my needs (I've seen a very simple ubuntu fileserver get completely bugged up by some stupid security update, don't want that to happen).

    debian? Though wth 6.0 not a bunch of documentation yet?

    took me 16 hours work to get 6.0 too beoot from uisb,

    Hope you can undertsna this, quit drunk at this poiint.
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  • AmieAmie Regular
    edited March 2011
    buddha wrote: »
    debian? Though wth 6.0 not a bunch of documentation yet?

    took me 16 hours work to get 6.0 too beoot from uisb,

    Hope you can undertsna this, quit drunk at this poiint.

    Yeah, Debian is the other option I was considering. Lots of applications, but often out of date. Meh, I might give it a try. Gonna try Oracle Linux first though.

    Have fun being drunk.
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  • SlartibartfastSlartibartfast Global Moderator -__-
    edited March 2011
    I just remembered SUSE Enterprise.
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  • AmieAmie Regular
    edited March 2011
    Slartibartfast wrote: »
    I just remembered SUSE Enterprise.

    Not free.

    Oracle did not exactly give me a good first impression. It failed to detect the ethernet card on the machine I installed it on. Granted, it's not exactly server hardware, but its driver is included in the Linux kernel. I might try compiling a kernel with a proper driver when I find the time (quite busy with more important things ATM), I might just choose a different OS.
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  • buddhabuddha Regular
    edited March 2011
    Amie wrote: »
    Yeah, Debian is the other option I was considering. Lots of applications, but often out of date. Meh, I might give it a try. Gonna try Oracle Linux first though.

    Have fun being drunk.

    I would go with Deb., yeah not always super up to date, but as someone said in IRC the current stable is TOO stable. Let me know how it goes with Oracle.
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  • AmieAmie Regular
    edited March 2011
    Well, it's for my home server. At the moment it's mainly supposed to act as a file server and a download server (so that requires samba, a torrenting app - like aria2c - and a filesharing site downloading app - like slimrat).

    I also want to run a VPN and a pingtunnel, and later on I plan on adding a webpage server and a mailserver.

    Not the kind of use that NEEDS an enterprise-class OS, but I want to use the best tool for the job. Also, if I use a distro which is actually used a lot in business, it will provide me with a more useful skill than when I learn a super exotic OS which may work very well but is only used by its developers.
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