Intro + Server-Grade Linux

[adam820]

Hello all, first time poster, little-while Linux liker... anyways.

My company is considering getting a new server to host a web server for the internal company website, plus forum software and a CMS (Moodle). We are a corporate buyer from Dell Premier, and in looking at their servers, I see that they offer both SUSE and RHEL distros available for use. I have tinkered with openSUSE a tad but never really used RHEL or CentOS.

My question is thus: as far as anybody has used, which of the two is better for a business environment. How is their customer service and support? Does one have an advantage over the other in package maintenance? Can they be joined to Active Directory? I've heard some pros and cons to each, but I'm looking for a little more input from the Linux community.

We COULD always opt to run this stuff on a Windows 2K3 server, but I feel that Linux is definitely more suited to the web environment, and it would be a great opportunity to pick up on and learn some Linux-based Net Administration.

Thanks in advance for your input,

AdamD.

[oz]

Welcome to the forums!

Here's a recent poll that was taken regarding "Favorite Server Distro":

http://www.linuxforums.org/forum/cof...ver-users.html

I think you'd be fine with any of those distros you mentioned. If you want Red Hat, you can go with CentOS and basically have Red Hat but without the support channel and Red Hat logos.

Let us know how it goes.

[ValiantJakk]

I've had SuSe 9 personal and also pro on my computer before. So my experiance with SuSe isn't a pleasurable one. I am now running CentOS 5 which I think is the easiest linux to start with. Everything seems straight forward with Cent so I would have to suggest Cent 5. I haven't experienced any quirks, bugs, or hiccups with Cent. The company that I work for uses Cent 5 exclusively for all linux machine intalls; whether server or workstation. Good luck deciding!