Debian as a server.

[Chris Brown <CBROWN@seitz.com>]

     I have been using Debian for a while now as a work station for a 
little bit now and have been pleased with it.  I was originally 
quite surprised at the performance and reliability that I 
experienced.  VERY soon I will have to install a server here at work 
for FTP and WWW services.  I have been on the fence as to which way 
to go.  Several people have been trying to convince me to go with 
FreeBSD or OpenBSD for these servers.  One of these folks is my ISP 
who is running on Sun Spark systems with SunOS.  One message that I 
got said that this person was running a FTP server with average loads 
of 100 Megs a day 150 Megs peek and had no problems.  The machine 
never locked up or had to be reset which was not the case previously 
with Linux (Slackware I believe).

     The documentation that I have found on Linux has been Far 
superior to that of FreeBSD, at least for my applications.  This has 
so far lead me to gravitate twards Debian.  The support that I have 
received via this list has also been quite good to the most part.  It 
would not be too far a jump tward BSD at this point though.  


     I would like to hear from folks that are running medium to high 
volume servers related to their experiences.  My boss was talking to 
folks at Netcom and was convinced by them, to some extent, that BSD 
was far superior to any Linux.  That BSD was based on being a 
network oriented system and that Linux was designed as a general 
purpose system that was not really suited to being an effective and
stable server.  Stability is certainly a large concern of mine since 
I really don't want to have to baby sit the thing much once it is set 
up.  As long as other folks don't get in and screw with it,  I don't 
see that that is much to ask.  Part of the key to this may be in 
selecting proper hardware to enable us to utilize the most stable 
drivers etc.  This is one of the things that I often see people 
neglect in the concept of a high reliability system.  It is 
unbelevable the sacrifice in reliability I see in the name of 
minimal performance increases that is after unnecessary.



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