What's the best server distro?

[Remp]

I've always wondered about this... Every people says different distros. Someone says it's Debian, someone says it's gentoo or CentOS...etc I know that it doesn't really matter which distro you choose, you can run a server on any, but what's the best choice? What do you guys think? I'm not really into server's world, so I'd say Debian because that's the one I hear the most...

[flotwig]

You can put my vote on Debian. It's what I use on both of my servers and it runs fine. I agree that it doesn't really matter what distro you choose, because most software will run on just about any distro. A lot of people use CentOS because it's the only distro which cPanel supports (if memory serves) and it has really good LTS, but I've always found CentOS a bit too bloated for my tastes.

[Rob]

I'll use Centos 90% of the time.. the other 10% would be Debian. I view them equally as good, but just favor the Red hat based distros currently.

[Akendo]

I've always wondered about this... Every people says different distros. Someone says it's Debian, someone says it's gentoo or CentOS...etc I know that it doesn't really matter which distro you choose, you can run a server on any, but what's the best choice? What do you guys think? I'm not really into server's world, so I'd say Debian because that's the one I hear the most...

That always depends on the application you want to run with. But CentOS/Debian are the way to go.
I even would recommend use CentOS. I start to dislike Debians release cycles.

[encryptedbytes]

I used to work for a regional internet service provider where we ran Debian on all of our servers. Here's a couple interesting related articles:

• Debian is now the most popular Linux distribution on web servers
• Debian Linux Named Most Popular Distro for Web Servers

[grim76]

Where I work we use Oracle Enterprise Linux for our DB hosts, and Red Hat Enterprise for our application layer. Personally at home I am using OEL since they went with free errata and security updates to the general public.

[DaReaper]

Ever since i've started setting up my server i've been on CentOS, i find it reliable and i'm starting to feel comfortable using it and it's commands in terminal.

I've tried out debian for servers since i'm already using Debian on my Mobile tablet. I think both CentOS and Debian are pretty good for a server.

[paolochicha]

Personally, I wouldn't run Solaris on an x86 server. Redhat Enterprise is definately starting to shape up to a decent server OS. Debian is nice, but you won't find it on my server. Ubuntu is more for desktop end-user than it is for a server. If you can find a host that offers RHEL, there is no reason to stick with CentOS and Whitebox. If you can't, then I would use CentOS. CentOS is actually compiled from the SRPMS from the latest RHEL distrobution.

[miks]

I think this is too subjective a question. Most server Linux distributions may be used as web and/or file servers. It depends on your needs, perhaps you should elaborate more on those.

Personally I would use Debian or CentOS for both functions, but again - it's a matter of taste mostly. Use what you know best as you'll do a better job then, the objective differences are minimal in my opinion.

[kInOzAwA]

for me this kind of question is kinda subjective based on user preference. Everybody will stick to what their like most. For me either debian, centOS, or other unix based server is good to use. Ubuntu server also nice, i should call its another debian branch of server.