Best OS?
 

What is the most efficient operating system for a webhosting company? I am looking into purchasing or building my own - and there seems to be different types...red hat, centos, fedora...I'm curious as to which one you guys would personally recommend me, why, and which one you guys prefer yourselves.

Thanks!

I would use Centos, its a clone of Red Hat RHEL. And the best part its free. Centos 4.2 is going to be supported until 2012. Not only that there is a ton of community support for Centos. www.centos.org

Personally I use Centos 4.2 server on my server. Its rock solid and stable. I haven't had any trouble with it. I have been using Centos for over a year now. I will be using Centos on every server I build from now on. :)

I agree totally with Soulwatcher, the main thing you want as a webhost is stability. Many of the linux distros are constantly changing and being updated, but in general, you don't need the latest bleeding edge software.

The way redhat develop RHEL is that they keep the bleeding edge stuff in the free fedora core, so fedora is effectively beta software. Redhat are famous for relasing bug ridden code in that distribution, so if your a webhost, your clients are going to be raising far more tickets with various problems.

Once the code is considered stable, then it is merged into the next release version of RHEL and stability tested before release. So you are getting a well tested and stable OS. Redhat then have to release the majority of that code under the terms of the GPL, as most of it is actually free software.

The code they release to the public is freely downloadable, but is not quite a complete distribution, as some of the propriatory redhat code has been removed. This code is then repackaged into Centos by the Centos developers, and the few missing programs replaced with free alternatives. Most notably though, Centos also has yum avaialble for updates, which IMO works far better than the redhat alternative (up2date).

I have been running versions of Centos on servers for almost 2 years now, and have only ever had one problem when a bug in the bind update deleted my /etc/named.conf file (that was about a year ago, and happened to a lot of webhosts).

In comparison, I also used to run gentoo on servers at home. It worked well for a source distribution, but I would end up ineviatably having to fix some dependancy or build problem on at least a monthly basis.

At the hosting company I work for, they use CentOS too. They used Fedora, and according to them, Fedora made the system allowed more users per server but wasn't as stable as CentOS is.

If you're talking about creating a business, then it's probably easier to use an established name like RHE. End users probably want to stick to the name that they are most familiar with.

I have been real pleased with Redhat Linux Enterprise. We been using version 3, but started using version 4. So far everything runs well for us.

CentOS here

Two questions as a newbie, please comment on both:
1.) I have no kwonledge on linux yet (Managing windows servers and linux based hardware-firewall), and I was going to choose centos, but my ISP recommended me Debian, so we installed debian. Do I have any incompatiblity, securtiy or stability issues with anything when using it with DA for a hosting company? Is it good choose to start from scrath or do I still consider choosing Centos? I googled around and everybody says something different. But generally speaking Debian seems to be a better choise from the results that I read. Because this is my first linux server, my other servers also will be linux so first choise is important to me.

2.) Centos life is till 2012 but what will happen then to all those users especially web host companies? Will they have to switch to an other OS that has a longer life?

Thanks for the comments.

Well said I do prefer linux.

Debian is a free operating system (OS) for your computer. An operating system is the set of basic programs and utilities that make your computer run. Debian uses the Linux kernel (the core of an operating system), but most of the basic OS tools come from the GNU project; hence the name GNU/Linux.

Debian GNU/Linux provides more than a pure OS: it comes with over 18733 packages, p recompiled software bundled up in a nice format for easy installation on your machine.All the guides and tutorials regarding this operating system is available on the Internet .

Mac OS X is the best operating system on the market today by offering more features than Microsoft’s future Windows Vista already at its 10.4 Tiger version. 10.5 Leopard version is scheduled to ship next Spring and will offer tons of new features like Safari’s integration with Dashboard, Spaces, Time Machine, a new version of iChat and Boot Camp.

I use and Debian only, as a matter of fact i use debian testing in my testing server enviroment, Debian current stable for my live server, and debian unstable for one of my desktops.

I have never had a security issue with Debian and i have been on it for 5 years. I have tried others Cent, Slax, RedHat, SuSe, Mandrake > Mandrivia, i did not like any of the others (Obvious) and stuck with Debian.

I even use Debian as a dataserver for several people using MS Access to use the database, NFS Here where i am at and at several locations. I have even put a Doctor on a linux enviroment with some medical software solutions. All of this stuff is protected by Vyatta Router software on a old P4 computer.

Well, my friend who is working as Technical support, and also have his own webhosting, uses Suse Enterprise as operating system.

RedHat Linux is the best.
 

RedHat Linux is the best. Although I have never tried CentOS but I don’t feel the need of changing to any other OS since I find RedHat to be very user friendly, fast and reliable. SO far no critical problems so no need to change OS.

It all depends on the things you are planning to do with the computer imo.
If you are someone who wants to get anything to work without doing much/anything you should choose Windows, as most applications are (only) compatible with Windows-systems.

If you are someone who loves to experience you should choose Linux, it's fully/almost completely editable as it is open-source. And it is very fast, even if you haven't got the biggest RAM memory.

And last but not least, if you are a creative person, you should choose Macintosh as it supports many creative applications and provides the best support for such apps.

Re:
 

You should also look into your budget if your budget is enough then you can get window otherwise linux hosting best option.

Ubuntu ftw.. but i currently use linux mint 12 (lisa). Yet there's new from fedora and ubuntu its called Fuduntu but I have never tried it xD