Aditya Ivaturi wrote:
> We have been using Redhat 8.0 on 4 of our internal servers for a while now.
> With the recent move by Redhat to stop support for 9.0 after spring seems to
> be a little troublesome. Fedora might be an option but since we have only
> production servers, we are not inclined to experiment. I have heard a lot
> about Gentoo. Does any body recommend it for servers? If not Gentoo what
> other flavor of Linux should we consider keeping in mind that a service like
> up2date would be a life saver. Any suggestions are welcome.

Gentoo is an awesome distribution. The portage system allows you to
update packages very quickly with package dependencies taken care of,
while still allowing you to choose your own compile flags. Installation
is not as easy as others, or really you just need to pay attention to
the instructions more because it really isn't hard, just specific. You
can set up a cron script to update your portage tree (the part that
tells where packages are and versions) and can update individual
packages or the whole "world". For the x86 architecture there are
several options including a base system and a "hardened" setup.

I recently had to switch from Slackware because I got an amd64 and am
very happy with my selection of Gentoo. I believe it would be a
wonderful server system requiring very little in the way of maintenence.
What is really impressive is the way it allows a completely customized
system while still preserving a relatively easy to use interface.

My recent experience with RedHat Enterprize and past experiences with
RedHat would make it a cold day in hell before I voluntarily use the
sysem and even then I would never, ever, ever, pay them the enormous
price they are asking. As far as I can tell it is not a good system, I
have had several problems with it just in the few hours I have spent at
work simply trying to test a procedure - which I haven't even gotten to
the testing part yet because I can't get the damn system to work right
in the first place!

So, my opinion is thus: Fuck RedHat! Gentoo is probably a very good
choice for your needs but there are of course others. Debian has a good
package system, but its install leaves much to be desired. I have had
nice experiences with SuSE, and I have seen Mandrake installed and used
by someone relatively illiterate; Gentoo does require some amount of
familiarity with low level commands.

BTW, did I mention that support in Gentoo is quite good? I am on the
Gentoo-amd64 mailing list and most questions are answered directly by
the man in charge within minutes or at most hours. This is of course an
experimental copy I have, so support may be a little better, but I am
still very impressed by that alone.

YMMV and all that...
NR