free bsd vs centOS vs other?
 

what do most use for their server OS? and are there any real advantages of one over another?

We recommend CentOS.

I love freeBSD and have ran it for years. But some will say mysql runs better on a linux box. I feel freebsd is more of a complete os, not just a kernel. I guess it's what I'm used to. I do run RH on some boxes so I can say centos, aint that bad.

centos is a much easier install than fbsd at least in their latest iterations, after that its really what you prefer

ive always ran bsd, although they both have there pro's and con's

Linux for compatibility. FBSD for performance/stability.

solaris is pretty neat :thumbsup

The community of freebsd is getting too SNOBBISH, and hurting them as their management in regards to third party utilities/tools/drivers/ etc is not being managed properly and when you whine they actually tell you to go to linux...

So after 12 years of being a little Red Devil, I took their advice and am now a penguin.


Seriously a true story about the guy telling me to go to linux, and he was responsible for some of the ports and they continually had installation bugs
some of them the same bugs that returned from 10 years ago...

Cent OS, a free version of Red Hat Enterprise. In my honest opinion Red Hat has sucked ever since the end of Red Hat 9 and I will never go back. Further more if you are looking for an easy server to manage and has a lot of 3rd party support then go with Debian for your server needs, and or Ubuntu though very close Ubuntu may be easier for a guy less experienced with linux to play with.

Overall if you do not mind putting in extra time and doing things right FreeBSD is the way to go. As said earlier it is not just a kernel, the Operating System is more complete and honestly I think you have a lot more in depth control.

Just my :2 cents:

If you're not admin'ing the server yourself and you're not planning to push out 500Mbps from a single box then it's probably irrelevant, most high level applications will work just fine on either OS and the lower level differences won't matter at that load.

That's like me working at AT&T taking phone calls and me telling you to go to sprint.. lol, they really need to axe half their contributors and audit who is supporting their cause..

If you're asking the question than it doesn't really matter and you should let the people managing your machine make the decision.

as Rowan 1 post above me said, it really makes no difference. you won't really see a increase in performance in any of the O/S. Anyone who tells you otherwise is just exaggerating things. real world it doesn't matter. whats more important is making sure everything is secure, updated and optimized (which most relies on apache/mysql/php being optimized which has nothing to do with the OS).

if you want a performance increase that is noticable switch from Apache to Lighttpd.

Why's this baddog?

You must be smoking crack. I am not even going to bother getting into it with you.

This can be (and has been) argued to death.

Each BSD variant and GNU/Linux distro has their strengths and weaknesses. Some are faster (source based distros with kernels and apps compiled on / for that machine such as Gentoo). Some are more secure by default (say OpenBSD), others still are (arguably) easier to maintain and administer.

Use what you are comfortable / familiar with. If you don't know what you are doing, let your host run with what they support and are comfortable with.

With today's cheaper hardware costs, speed though measurable, is almost a non-issue. So while most Linuces may handle loads of MySQL calls better than FreeBSD (though initial benchmarks in the upcoming version 7 release look to bring a change to this) it shouldn't be the sole determining factor. Likewise, security - arguably better on a stock FreeBSD box than a stock Linux box, is also a non-issue if (and they sure as hell better) your techs / admins know what they are doing.

Like has been said, there are many other variables - apache, php and mysql configs for starters, that come in to play with regards to both performance and security.

I like minimalism and stability, so I'm personally more comfortable on say a FreeBSD or Slackware box than I am on a Fedora or Debian based box. Others feel the opposite.

Hosts also have to consider the end user - bloated and pre-compiled fancy schmanzy control panels are not always available for all distros.

Whatever one chooses is not necessarily right nor wrong, just right (or wrong :P ) for them. The fact that there are choices is the beautiful thing.

Nothing wrong with CentOS, but FreeBSD is definately a better choice for some hardcore traffic / cpu intensive server

As stated above... yes there are truly pros and cons to all O/S choices and there's no real 'winning' of that argument.

I will say that our choice of O/S is CentOS and that we are pleased enough with it to have it installed on over 600 servers. When installed and configured properly it is very capable of hosting demanding sites and applications.

Cheers,

Brad

Well Said, but not everyone has pimpin hardware like you guys have. Saw your video and was highly impressed.

FreeBSD is generally promoted by the oldschool hardcore geeks who've been through the 90's. They're used to it, and why change now?

However the newschool generally goes with Linux for it's compatibility.

I'd recommend whatever the person who will be administrating your box recommends, as they'll be the one doing the work, and the person who has to be comfortable in the environment. That's what it really comes down to.

We use both on different servers.