Ask List wrote: > Ask List <askthelist <at> gmail.com> writes: > >> We can not seem to come to an agreement on the best operating system to run > spam assassin. So we have decided to post this question to the mailing list so > we can have other opinions. I realize everyone will have a different opinion > on > the subject and some will have none at all, linux is linux and unix is unix. > So > I would like to hear users experiences using different operating systems. > Pros/Cons/Problems/Headaches/etc. The operating systems I'm most interested in > are Debian, Ubuntu, Gentoo, Slackware, FreeBSDs, and OpenSolaris. > > I see RedhatEL,Fedora,CentOS is a common theme. Anyone not running a RedHat > based distribution > >
I'm mostly RH/Fed/Cent and OpenBSD. That said, I can give some subjective commentary on the non-redhat's your looking at. Note that anything I comment on that I've never used, or haven't used recently is purely subjective opinion based on watching the communities. Take them with a huge grain of salt. Overall the most important thing about a distro is that it fit your personal style of administration. Some folks prefer source patching compiling, some abhor it and want a binary-package auto-updater. Some want a nice minimal text-only headless server and prefer text-editing config files. Others want the latest gnome/kde desktop and want GUI config tools. Keep this all in mind and realize my opinions may vary greatly from yours due to MY preferences being different from yours. Debian - Never used it. Debian seems to make a pretty reasonable server product. They have a highly conservative patch release process for stable releases. This is perhaps a bit too conservative for my own tastes, but it is valuable in a server environment at times. Debian is more strict about the openness of licenses for packages they distribute than most other distros. In some cases this strictness takes out some "whiz-bang" tools, but it also keeps you relatively free from licensing land mines. If you need a whiz-bang, you can always add it from source. Ubuntu - Never used it. However, being Debian based, SOME of the above applies. I get the impression that Ubuntu tries to be more "full featured" than standard Debian, compared with Debians more minimalist approach. Gentoo - I find this distro makes a GREAT developer/test box. However, its lengthy setup and "build as you go" model doesn't make well suited for server environments. If your choice of compiler options doesn't work with a particular package then your run of emerge can get to be a painful mess. However, this same model gives you ultimate flexibility, which is great on a devel box. Slackware - haven't used this since the early 90's. However, I get the impression slackware today is a stable but highly minimalist distro. Again, I could see this being valuable to some server environments, but I've not played with slackware of late. FreeBSD - Never used it. Seems quite server ready, although I'm not sure if they do binary package updates, or only source-patches (like OpenBSD does). OpenSolaris - Never used it. Strikes me as "like Solaris, only without being as good as Solaris". I am a distinct non-fan of regular Solaris so I've not taken OpenSolaris seriously.
