[TriLUG] Debian vs Mandrake vs Redhat vs . . .

[Joshua Bedick]

Ok,

I may be opening a can of worms, but here goes.  What distro do people
recommend?

Here are the requirements:
Easy updating for security and other fixes.
Stable!!!
Good support for software.
2.4 kernel
trivial to maintain

Now here is what's going to be on it:
qmail
SpamAssassin
Some A/V
PHProjekt
Samba
MyDMS
MySQL
Arkia (sp?)
Webmin
iptables
freeswan (sp?)
apache
php
imp
DNS (cr.yp.to or latest bind)


I've looked at Debian and Redhat so far.  I love dpkg, but there are more up
to date RPMs for the software I'm looking at, i.e. Webmin in dpkg is .94,
not the latest with security fixes.  I did look at Mandrake, but the 2
machines I've tested it on so far where less reliable then the Debian and
redhat ones.  I'm still open, but a bit cautious.  Haven't played with SuSe
or a number of others.  Like SME (e-smith) which is based on redhat, but due
to some odd config items doesn't do everything I'd like.

Please let me know what you all think.  This server is going to do way too
many things (I generally like to keep my internal and external services
separate), but I only have one and won't be able to segment just yet.

Joshua


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Joshua Bedick
Integrated Technology, Inc.
919-630-3303
joshua at gratedtech.com