I guess this is a familiar problem for many people. What should my new server be?Desktop machines are one thing but for me a server should be built/set-up and thenrun for 2yrs+ (hopefully 3yrs) with only RAM/CPU upgrades and run without anyproblems at all. Below I give my ideas any feedback would be greatly appreciated.Server Use========The server is on 12+ hrs a day, compiling, offering telnet sessions, storage andsource code/docs, generating backups etc... All fairly standard stuff, but the pointis I want to get across is that 1) It used more intensively than a desktop machine and2) Stability of the machine and data security is a must.Hardware=======On the hardware side I am almost sold on the Socket 939 (i.e. latest Opteron socketwhich will become the standard for the AMD64 platform, with all the major AMD64platform features it will also support the dual core chips next Summer allowing a CPUupgrade path). OS==The OS is a different matter. Last time, for my server I tried out Solaris 8 vs RedHat 10, Iopted for RedHat 10. This time I guess the natural choice is between a Linux distro andSolaris 10. On Linux, I would lean towards RH distro since it is familiar and I've beenhappy in the past, however, with the new Solaris 10 supporting Linux natively it becomesa much stronger contender, anyone tried out Solaris 10?

On the hardware you should pay particular attention to mechanical parts more than anything else. A good server should have double power supply, multiple fans and RAID on it, CPU / Memory speed is the icing on the cake.Even for desktops RAID si cheap nowadays, a pair of SATA disks with a simple raid 0 controller can save hours of work.As for the OS if you are really into Linux you should go for Debian.

RAID is definately a good thing ideally 0 +1 (i.e. 2 for speed, and then 2 mirroring those), but having 4 drivesgets a bit expensive particularly since I like the look of SATA Raptors (with 5yrs warrenty and 5.2ms seektime). I also have another HD which once a day is mounted, files are backed up and then it is unmounted.Besides this I do backups to DVD monthly and the backup everything remotely every 3 months of remoteserver (I often find myself in locations where there is a high risk of earthquakes). I also always have a UPS.With fans, power supply, I always get a desent box but nothing special. Never used Debian, and links or suggestions on why you would choose this distro?

There are plenty of links which will tell you which or why this distro is better than this one, get a look at www.debian.org. There are two reasons why I would recommend Debian:1- it may not have all the bells and whistles as an RH but its the real plain vanilla Linux which won't surprise you and they have nothing to sell as it's free.2- I trust my administrator who has a long Linux experienceThe two reasons why I would not recommend it to someone:1- this distro requires good notions of Linux2- it mignt be difficult to find the driver for the latest graphic card

QuoteOriginally posted by: filippibThere are plenty of links which will tell you which or why this distro is better than this one, get a look at www.debian.org. ....1- it may not have all the bells and whistles as an RH but its the real plain vanilla Linux which won't surprise you and they have nothing to sell as it's free......I actually prefer it when there is a commercial company behind an offering. Hopefully, one that listensto customer requests, supports them, tests there offerings and has good documentation. For me its aboutminimizing risk at a reasonable cost. Sure I love free who doesn't but I am also very happy to pay upparticularly when it's about the security of my source code.

If you're gonna pay for one of the enterprise contracts, go RH, otherwise, having a company stand behind the product with RedHat ends up being more like RedHat standing in the way of you using the product. If you aren't going to budget for the enterprise contract, I'd also recommend Debian or a Debian-based distribution like Ubuntu. Basically, RH seems disincentivized to make their software as easy as possible to use without buying their support service, since that's where they make there money. Debian, lacking a support contract arm, loses users by making things confusing, and as a result, ends up easier to manage, and more...'straightforward'. As far as one basic concrete difference goes, the Redhat Package Manager system of distributing software is a nightmare. Debian's apt system is almost good (but not as good as FreeBSD's Ports tree).The engineering in Solaris is insane. If you actually need to use Solaris's crazy features, like dtrace, then Solaris is great. If you are just building a basic fileserver, as it sounds like you are, Solaris is more trouble that it's worth, because it doesn't have the hardware support, vast user community, and same pool of experienced admins (especially Solaris/x86), etc.Also, if stability and security are priorities, don't use telnet. Use ssh.

your source code would be safe with Debian or FreeBSD as well, free does not mean unsecure or not robust. The question is more are you happy with what RH offers you in the basic 10 click installation? If the answer is yes, go RH. Otherwise it's your choice I only can give you some tips on what exists outside the RH world.esty is right, drop the telnet and don't allow root login directly as well.

This does not seem to be mentioned before.If the main load on the server is going to be C++ compilation, then having two or four processors is likely to improve performance almost proportionally to the number of processors. Such configuration may also pay back if the machine will run several numerical tasks simultaneously.