I've been looking around for a while, and need to talk specifically with YOU! The Moodle community.
I've been running a Moodle 2.3 Ubuntu development site, and it's been really awesome. Even my WAMP install performs well.
The company uses CentOS, but I can't figure out why. Is the only benefit stability and security? Ubuntu is too new, and can't be trusted.
What are YOUR thoughts on this?
I have tried several linux varieties, CentOS, OpenSuse, Ubuntu and others that I can't remember or not worth mentioning. By far my favorite is Ubuntu. All of my servers run Ubuntu. I find it overall easier to use, it has more packages available and is as stable as the others. Of course, I only work with LTS versions of Ubuntu. This is only my opinion and I know this can be debated, however, I believe that it comes down to the system you are more comfortable with. Whenyou need to resolve issues, if you choose a system in which you are not familiar, you will spend more time fixing and hence longer down time. Is it worth it?
I agree with Patrick: use Linux system you are comfortable with. Both Ubuntu Server and CentOS will run Moodle just fine.
cheers,
Tomek
Personal opinion: company may have choosen CentOS over Ubuntu because it's based upon Red Hat Enterprise (company techs might be more familiar with supporting RHE and thus comfortable with CentOS).
Red Hat has a 'tradition' to be more conservative (not so quick to provide the 'latest and greatest') thus CentOS is also 'conservative'. Found that, for the most part, 'conservative' is related to 'stability'.
CentOS is already LTS.
Only one thing that is somewhat an annoyance ... when apps like Moodle have higher PHP requirements, CentOS users might have to use 3rd party repo or aquire rpm packages directly from the source initially ... MySQL is an example.
Bottom line ... either CentOS or Ubuntu can do. They are very similar and after one becomes familiar/comfortable with one, the other isn't that difficult (just have to remember where things are located).
'spirit of sharing', Ken
Thanks for the feedback, I agree with ALL of you.
Personally, I'd like to see Ubuntu, even LTS. I'm experiencing trouble installing CentOS MySQL packages. I'll have to spend time trouble shooting it.
I know that I could simply tasksel in Ubuntu, and have my LAMP stack done in minutes.
We are deploying 'server images' to new clients, all using their own dedicated server. I have to develop a script to install LAMP stacks on CentOS, and daaaamn that's going to take a while to figure out.
'server images' means what? VMWare or VirtualBox?
AMP stack apps on CentOS (a bare install) could be as simple as 3 yum commands + a wget & install from .rpms acquired from MySQL source.
If you've many customers, consider running your own repo excluding those you maintain in the base/3rd party .repo files.
'spirit of sharing', Ken
Thanks Ken
I love using Ubuntu, and just apt-get install tasksel, and let tasksel configure my server environment.
But now that I'm the IT guy for an enterprise company, we need something STABLE and proven, so, CentOS.
I can't use yum to install ANYTHING, unless I can select versions of software. So, I'm learning how to build my own AMP stack, and will likely host the repo myself.
TLDR - Going to wget .rpms!
If you are used to Ubuntu, but don't feel comfortable using it because it isn't old enough (IMHO, Ubuntu is old enough -- just use the LTS version), you can look into Debian. Ubuntu is based on Debian, so a lot of things should seem familiar, and it has been around longer than Red Hat. It is very stable (some would say too stable), and proven.
But don't use tasksel. Just use apt-get install.
> I can't use yum to install ANYTHING, unless I can select versions of software.
You CAN yum install a selected version:
yum install httpd-2.2.15 mysql-5.1.66
> So, I'm learning how to build my own AMP stack, and will likely host the repo myself.
That's probably better than hardcoding a specific version - install the lastest version that's in your repo.
THANK YOU.
