What Operating system to run for a web server

[Mandex]

Hi guys.

It's my first post on here, which will hopefully lead to my questions being answered and me possibly answering some of your questions.

Basically, I've made a site. I am going to build a custom server (budget about £1000) and hopefully run Linux on it. I've used a lot of Linux in the past: obviously 'Buntu, mint, OpenSUSE, Fedora, Redhat (don't ask), and a few others e.g. Puppy Linux and Slack.

However, these all had GUIs for my desktop, and I'm quite perplexed when it comes to Server OS's.

I have a few requirements:

1) Must be light
2) Must be free
3) Must be reliable
4) Must be able to sustain thousands of requests a day (although I realise this is more hardware related)

That's pretty much it. I've had Ubuntu Server installed on my rig for about a day just to play about with the commands etc. so I am swaying towards that but am open to suggestions.

Thank you for all your replies.

Mandex

[pane-free]

Since you like ubuntu, why not look into TurnKey and see if it is to your liking?

Otherwise, Slackware

[Mandex]

Thanks, I'll check the LAMP edition out tomorrow and write back.

[dale]

One vote for CentOS!

[Kerms]

More or less, any Linux distro is a server; rip off the gui layer, and lo and behold you have a linux server!
In my opinion, I like Debian for desktop and server.
Seriously though, take any distro that you're most comfortable with, disable Xorg (and optionally uninstall it and stuff that depends on it) from your run-time level.

[Rob]

You should be good with whatever you pick.. since you've used debian-based in the past, why not grab that for the server? I will use either CentOS or Debian, its important to know there are some differences between them however when it comes to finding the various conf files, etc..

Go for Debian.

[enhu]

I'm running bodhi linux for now and its an ubuntu base but much lighter which can run with just about 512RAM. I do have LAMP installed in it. I'm also trying to configure how I can make it live. maybe you should try bodhilinux.

[georgecyriac989]

I use ubuntu server, but the server is pretty decent one. You can also try lighter versions.