[geeks] This damn question again...

[Jonathan C. Patschke]

On Thu, 11 Jun 2009, Mark Benson wrote:

> Currently, I'm looking at a IBM x3500 M2 / 4 core 55x0 Xeon / 8GB RAM /
> 3x 147GB SAS / LTO Tape
>
> Services required are:
>
> Rails
> MySQL
> Apache/PHP
> Samba
> Possibly mail
>
> Any further input regards OS?

I run FreeBSD, and it treats me well--in fact, I run a stack like you've
mentioned above (only Perl instead of Rails and PHP, and PostgreSQL
instead of MySQL) on a first-generation IBM x3200.  I picked this platform
for a "bet my job" project overseas, and IBM is the only weak link[0] in
that chain.

If I have to touch Linux, I generally go with CentOS.  CentOS (like its
commercial parent RHEL) is severely bloated and brain-damaged in a few
ways.  However, the bloat is somewhat easy to trim, and the brain-damage
is established and well-documented brain damage--the devil you know, etc.


[0] The IBM channel partner originally sold us an incompatible
     configuration of disks/backplane, which IBM has since corrected.  It
     would work initially, but the disks would vibrate themselves loose
     enough to lose contact with the disk controller.  Then there's all the
     wonderful brokenness with serial console redirection on that platform,
     and the ease with which you can crash the RSA-II via SSH.
-- 
Jonathan Patschke < "There is great satisfaction in building good tools
Elgin, TX          > for other people to use."
USA               <                                     --Freeman Dyson