VANITY -- Best version of Linux? Apache? Perl?

08/13/2002 | by Lazamataz

[Lazamataz]

I'm putting together a Linux box. Want to run Apache and maybe a perl interpreter. Does anyone have a suggestion as to the best version of Linux? Where do I go for that best version? How about Apache? What is the best perl development environment?

Keeping in mind, of course, that Free is Good.

[Lazamataz]

I'm going for a bit but I will be back in an hour. Please bump this thread and tell me what you know!

[PokeyJoe]

Have you tried the Free Republic Distribution? It's cool. Based on Red Hat - for rpm packaging, with Apache 2.0, Gnome 2.0, Xfree86 4.2, and other stuff....

[cmsgop]

I like the Atari 2600......,
Never Lets You Down.

[Vidalia]

Surely Shirley, you are joking?

[dheretic]

RedHat 7.3 is way easy to get used to. If you're feeling adventurous try Darwin for x86. It isn't Linux, but it's ubercool anyway.

[warped]

What is best depends a great deal on personal preference and your ultimate purpose - is this just something to mess around/learn with, or will it be a production environment? Are you doing development, or what? If you are new, I'd suggest the following:

- RedHat, becaused it's the most prevalent distribution. Any of the big ones would work (Debian, Suse). Install v 7.2 or 7.3 with ext3 filesystem - fast recovery from unexpected power outages.

- Apache 1.3.26, not Apache 2 because not everything works with v. 2 yet.

- mod_perl installed with apache.

- perl will install with a standard distribution by default. You can then update using the CPAN modules. You use a couple of perl command modifiers to enter a CPAN shell to update and add perl modules (ie. database connectors, etc), and can even update perl versions that way (for when perl 6 comes out).

- I recommend slapping php and a mysql database instance on the machine.

- If you are into learning, the latest jdk from java.sun.com is a good idea (1.4.0).

- Sun has a free download of Forte (their Java IDE), or you can get Netbeans, also from sun, also free.

- Gnome or KDE, as your preference dictates. I prefer Ximian-Gnome, because it's got some cool extras like evolution, a Microsoft Outlook clone for linux, except that it works and doesn't get every virus that comes by.

If you have questions, you can send me a direct message - I've been doing linux support for almost 5 years now (yes, I get paid fairly well for playing with neat toys). I'm currently working on a project migrating 200+ applications from MS Internet Information Server and ASP (VBScript and JScript) to linux on IA64 (64-bit) Itanium 2 processors and ultimately into a Java Application Server.

[xrp]

Linux is for script kiddies. FreeBSD is the MAN'S choice ;) It has a Linux compatibility module so you can run Linux applications.

[xrp]

[sigSEGV]

If you're new to Linux, get Redhat. 7.3 is the latest but 8.0 should be out any day now. I've tried Mandrake, but have found it to be buggy and cluttered. If you're really hardcore, make your own distribution - Linux from scratch. You'll learn a lot.

Apache and perl will come with any distro. Also, in order to avoid humiliating taunts when asking questions about Linux, make sure you understand that Linux is just the kernel (stable version at 2.4.19). :) If you're doing web development with Apache and perl, you'll probably want mod_perl, which is an Apache module specifically made to run perl CGI scripts from. You'll also want to download the latest Mozilla browser. The distros tend to be a little behind on it. In terms of a development environment, I myself prefer just a bunch of XTerms with nedit for coding.

[Lazamataz]

Yours was the most complete and best answer so far! Thanks!

[Lazamataz]

Have you tried the Free Republic Distribution? It's cool. Based on Red Hat - for rpm packaging, with Apache 2.0, Gnome 2.0, Xfree86 4.2, and other stuff....

What do you think, John?

[AdA$tra]

I stepped in a big pile of Linux once....yuck!

[Justa]

Distrowatch is a pretty handy reference site.

[The Duke]

I just built my own Linux "superserver" at the office based on the latest Mandrake Linux distro - and must say we've been more than pleased with it. I would echo the recommendation to avoid Apache 2 - this version is multi-threaded and many of the cool add-ons are not (besides, you really don't gain much from a multi-threaded web server in the Linux environment because the threads show up as regular Linux processes in the process list, and they aren't *that* much more responsive than the standard "preallocatd servers" approach).

We've also lately installed Tomcat, and the associated Apache web interface, so that we can seamlessly offer java server pages.

This is so much more fun than the old WIN2K server we had. Congrats on the nice move!

[Reweld]

So far I've bought and tried to use two different commercial Linux packages, and so far I still don't have a working Linux machine. What I ran into was serious compatibility problems with the several video cards I tried to use, as well as a motherboard with built-in video chips. Neither Linux package was capable of doing any kind of graphics with the four video systems I had to choose from. Each package came with video drivers for a fairly long list of video cards and chipsets, but none of mine were on the list. So, no X-Windows, just a command line interface. This really, really irked me. I've easily installed many different versions of Windows and OS/2 over the years without ever running into these kinds of problems. With Linux, I'm supposed to know exact which video chipset I have, exactly which video clock chip, exact what clock frequency it runs at, and exactly how long the dipstick is. The hackers that write all the Linux modules are extremely anal about bit twiddling on all those chip ports. If Windows, OS/2, and the Macintosh systems were this freaky and twitchy they would have died a well deserved death years ago. Somebody really needs to bitchslap the Linux propeller heads.

[Lazamataz]

Thanks for your excellent advice!

[Lazamataz]

Uh oh. Your answer scares me, because the monitor I will be running just happens to be a 29 inch SONY graphics monitor, and I imagine the video chipset might be equally 'offbeat'.

Oy. Will let you know.

[Lazamataz]

Thanks for the advice/encouragement! :o)

[Norman Conquest]

SuSE, SuSE, SuSE! If you knew SuSE like I know SuSE -- ooh, ooh, ooh what a distribution!

[Norman Conquest]

SuSE, SuSE, SuSE! If you knew SuSE like I know SuSE -- ooh, ooh, ooh what a distribution!