Which Linux for Professional Admins?

LazloToth asks: "Short and sweet: with so many distributions of Linux to choose from, and so many of them good to excellent, which Linux delivers the best balance of stability, high-level support options, security, rapid updates, and ease of administration? If an admin wants to standardize on one Linux distribution and have the best of all worlds on everything from file-and-print servers to database boxes, what, in the experience of the Slashdot pros, is that Holy Grail of Linuxes - - the one that does it all while also making upper management feel warm and fuzzy?"

Gentoo

[Anonymous Coward]

This answer was specifically optimized for your question.

Linux? Bah.

[Anonymous Coward]

Hurd. Master of OS's.

Management

[wombatmobile]

what, in the experience of the Slashdot pros, is that Holy Grail of Linuxes - - the one that does it all while also making upper management feel warm and fuzzy?"

I don't know. My management just feels fuzzy.

Re:First troll post!

[delire]

i'm sure compiling X.org for 4 days would impress the manager..

Define professional

[pronobozo]

If you are a professional admin, shouldn't you already know what's best?

Obvious

[pjf(at)gna.org]

> which Linux delivers the best balance of
> stability, high-level support options, security,
> rapid updates, and ease of administration

2.4

Re:Debian of course

[gcain]

You mean there are *other* distros?
I thought that was just an myth...

Please, flame away

[Raunch]

Read no further. Without having to read the reast of these posts; you can get a sense of what is to come here, and hopefully avoid some painful reading:
"I like A".
"I like B".
"A sucks and so does your mom".

PS. Apt-get rules.

Corel' Linux

[Anonymous Coward]

Corel GNU/Linux.

First thing I ask of interviewees "do you have Corel GNU/Linux on your bookshelf"

If they don't, they won't get the job. That simple. Its like the Code Complete of the GNU/Linux world.

Re:White Box, a clone of RHE3

[easter1916]

Running with Linux for over 7 years!

You must be fucking knackered man. At least put down the CDs, at best just stand still for a while.

Re:To put it short

[DeckardJK]

I beg to differ... the best distribution is clearly the one with the cutest logo at any given time.

Re:To put it short

[eln]

Wrong! My distribution of choice is superior in every way to your pathetic distribution of choice. You are the lowest form of loser to think that your worthless distribution could hold a candle to the God-like superiority of my distribution.

My distribution's superiority is clearly demonstrated by it's magnificent out-of-the box handling of my obscure feature of choice. Your pathetic distribution doesn't even support my obscure feature of choice without a course of action so complex that it's madness to even contemplate it.

Clearly, my distribution of choice will utterly destroy your distribution of choice. This is so certain it is pointless for you to resist it.

Re:Management

[winkydink]

Tell your boss to shave his butt. :)

Best for the Enterprise?

[FortranDragon]

Why, Nipples, the Vulcan distro. It's logically intuitive.

;-)

Re:To put it short

[gbjbaanb]

Your pathetic distribution doesn't even support my obscure feature of choice without a course of action so complex that it's madness to even contemplate it.

*sigh*. OK, WindowsXP it is then.

I have a couple other questions to add...

[Lendrick]

Should I use vi or Emacs?

Which is better... Gnome or KDE?

Should I get a PC or a Macintosh?

Should I have voted for Bush or Kerry?

Who's cooler: pirate or ninja?

OS X

[simpl3x]

And, why does not our glisteny little OS-that-could not enter into the conversation here? BSD based, command-line tools, rapid fixes, missing large holes, and able to run just all of the necessary open-source applications, if they aren't already included...

I'm about ready to just move my server in-house using a Mac Mini with OS X Server. It's not like it gets huge amounts of traffic, and less than a grand isn't bad at all. Last time I ran the servers inside, they were Cobalt boxen, which illustrates my level of capability...

Distribution Zealots

[Pitr]

If there's one thing I hate more than distribution zealots... it's people who don't use Slackware! ;P

(Yes, that's a joke! ...well sorta.)

Next week on Ask Slashdot

[demi]

With so many text editors to choose from, I'd like to know which offers the combination of high-powered text editing features, syntax highlighting and extensibility required of today's demanding editor, while keeping the suits happy. Please include extensive discussions of how much vi beeps and how long it takes Emacs to load.

With so many software licenses available, I'd like to know which offers the high-powered legal mumbo-jumbo and strong ambiguities that are the hallmark of the professionally produced amateur computing project. Please phrase your BSD advocacy in the form of an insult to RMS, and include "Response to a question aksed by demi" in any replies and advertising materials.

Nintendo DS vs PSP, anyone? Anyone?

Re:I have a couple other questions to add...

[starvo]

Ninja.
Sheesh, you shouldn't even have to ask such a question. Ninjas are cooler, for at least the next 18 years.

Word Count... Winer is Debian and... Linux!!!!

[homerito]

After running a word count on all the threads with faithful python:
Total word count: 42159
sco : 4
xandros : 4
ubuntulinux : 5
openbsd : 9
mepis : 10
solaris : 10
unix : 12
knoppix : 12
microsoft : 13
xp : 15
slack : 20
oracle : 21
novell : 33
freebsd : 37
fedora : 39
mandrake : 41
hat : 53
slackware : 53
red : 58
bsd : 61
ubuntu : 97
redhat : 117
suse : 157
gentoo : 178

(wow, debian even has more counts than words like: your : 186, are : 202, be : 225)...

debian : 228

And the total winer;) :

linux : 283

I was going to paste some other statistics but slashdot did not let me: "Your comment has too few characters per line (currently 8.3)."

Bunch of cowards...

anonymous : 120
coward : 120
Draw your own conclusions"

Bottom Line

[Anonymous Coward]

I can be done, and if you have the know-how, it can be done well.

Is that a pick-up line?

The answer is plain simple, Can't you see?

[mhu]

42. That's the answer.

Re:Gentoo

[Mintee]

slack?