Best Distro for Server?

[embj]

I was wondering which Linux distro is best for a server...I am going to be running a webserver and an FTP server.

Thanks.

EDIT: Also, where is a good place for tutorials about Linux?

[Scott Tiger]

This is going to be a bit like the age old Ford vs. Chevy debate but here's my take:

RedHat's going to be the easiest to set up for server. It's their strong point and it shows.

Debian Woody would be my choice if I were to set one up for full time use. Stable, secure and easy to keep up to date. Not the easiest to configure though.

[Telexen]

If you don't know much about linux then for a server Redhat is probalby an excellent place to start.

[embj]

Well, I intend to install 3 Linux distros. I just got me a 160gb Maxtor hard drive and want to multi-boot. I am going to install 3 operating systems. I should have said this in the first post. So what are the top three that you reccomend for servers?

EDIT: Decided I would add this seeing I saw Rob's post when we posted at the same time. I am running an XP 2600 w/ Geil 512mb PC3200 on an 8RDA+.

Really depends upon the hardware configuration. Most any top level distro will work great for a light server environment. If you want something rather generic and easy to manage, then take a look at Red Hat.

If you are using standard off-the-shelve hardware, then I can also highly recommend any BSD flavor of Unix. FreeBSD is a great choice for a uniprocessor system, especially in regards to security. BSD can be slightly more difficult to configure, but the reward is a stable OS that can thrive for extended periods of uptime with near 100% reliability on quality hardware.

Robert Richmond

[SpookyEddy]

If you are relatively new to linux then I would suggest that you can't go far wrong with RedHat. I would probably opt for debians stable branch as I am more familiar with it, but it does require more manual configuration in many cases. My home server runs NetBSD and generally behaves itself.

Regards

ed

[Germ]

red hat, slack, debian......................in no particular order.

If you really like GUI tools, mandrake can also be a good server distro.

[Praetorian]

Something conservative.

In this order:
FreeBSD 4.8, Debian Woody 3.0, Slackware 9.0.

[nukes]

Debian woody.
Stable, reliable, standard and you can automatically fetch security updates.
Redhat apparently has good GUI tools if you want to go that way.
If you don't want Linux or want to try a BSD go with NetBSD or OpenBSD.

[storm2k]

as usual, my vote is for redhat 9... it's very obvious that redhat's focus is on server based linux. they include all the server tools you'd ever need, and most of their configuration applets (the gui ones) are well written and easy to understand and configure. furthermore, if you have a paid subscription to rhn (and for 60 bucks a year it's a good call for a server), the up2date applet will now download and install all the important security errata for you. redhat is also very timely with errata emails and warnings about software bugs.

[edit] another reason you might want redhat for a server is that redhat publishes all their books and guides on the web. this includes their guide on how to set up a server, how to think about security concepts and impliment them, and how to best manage a server. might be useful if you're just starting out with a linux based server.