Most used distro for ISP's?

Ok i know i might be walking into a flame war here but here goes.

What is the most used linux distrobution for servers and so forth in ISP's.

I'm not wanting the best or anything. I'm just looking into getting into network/server administration using linux as a job in a couple of years, and was wanting to be pointed upon the right track in terms of which linux distro to concentrate on learning...

This is becasue i'm getting the gist that although they're all linux, there are things that make every distro very different.

So just thought i should concentrate on one for now...


Thanks for all you help and i hope this doesnt trun nasty :)

The best thing to do is probably to learn a couple of distros. Not only because you'll learn the peculiarities of each distro in that way, but mostly because you'll learn what stays the same in mostly any version of Linux and what differs between them. I'd recommend learning at least Fedora, Debian and Gentoo. Fedora and Debian because they are the most "standard" ones, in that most other distros are based on them in one way or another, and Gentoo because it differs much more from the rest of them, so it's a good way to see what stays the same between different distros.

If I were to make a guess, I'd say that most ISPs run either RedHat (so try Fedora) or Debian. Can't say I know, though.

Well, Isn't *BSD also used in compagnies ? My friend is a network manager and often need to work on *BSD machines.

Its usally debian or any of the bsd variants (my own uses open bsd for some of the servers)

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Originally Posted by geforce

Well, Isn't *BSD also used in compagnies ? My friend is a network manager and often need to work on *BSD machines.

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Well, I'm sure BSD is used very often, especially considering how it's occupying almost the entire uptime toplist at Netcraft.

However, I thought we were only covering Linux here (that's what he asked about, at least...). I'm sure ISPs are using Solaris and Windows as well...

A lot of the ISPs here in Ireland run RedHat (Admirably because it was installed years ago and never needed to be changed from all accounts) or some genuine Unix like Solaris or HP-UX. If you do learn any linux or BSD at a low level you should have the skills to use any *nix. It's usually the distro specific tools that lead to dependencies on a particular one, if you focus on doing things by command line, and configuring actual config files etc you hould be fine.

from what I see out in the real world web servers oftne use Redhat (enterprise edition) production servers will use Solaris/HPUX type operating system's (normally for the support they can get)

for example a PA-RISC server running HP-UX can have a 24x7 4H contract meaning if something like a disk drive fails within 4 hours no matter when a tech is onsite fixing it.

all depends on the company more than anything.

Luma

I would suggest FreeBSD above all.

I have seen RedHat or one of its varients to be the most common but I personally have never taken to the distro. I use SuSE for both workstations and servers and it works brilliantly. If I want true performance from my older servers then I just run it at runlevel 3, I know that it is kept up-to-date and is well supported and the system is not being drained by the GUI. It is better practice to administrate via command line anyway.

The most used distributions for business use are the ones with good certification programs and commercial support. RedHat is probably the most used distro in business, but Novell/SuSE makes sense as well. There are more options but most businesses are looking for commercial support to ensure continuity.