People told that about Slackware. But Slackware was my first linux
distro and actually I liked the way it worked (later tried red hat and
suse and didn’t like both at all). I was a windows power user with no
experience in unix at all. I managed to install slackware and
configured it to do everything i needed. So, to me, it’s all about
character, not distro. Today i would start from gentoo (more docs,
more community, than slackware). I don’t think you need to be an
expert to install and configure gentoo, because there are very good
install docs availabe, that’s why i recommend gentoo 
You would suggest Gentoo to a newbie???
I ran Gentoo for a long time on servers and my workstation. It is a
great
distro, don’t get me wrong, but for someone comming from windows? I
don’t
think they would get past formatting the hard drive. Gentoo is
fantastic,
but it is an experts distro.
matt
Is this thread an indication that what would be really cool is a
Linux bootable CD distro built specifically for Ruby on Rails?
Would be great to have something that would boot to KDE/Gnome with
Firefox, several Ruby editors and a few nice icons that said things
like ‘Start Rails Test Server’ and several cool Rails apps for demo
purposes. Of course Ruby and Rails would come pre-configured with all
the bells and whistles so that newbies and demos could run without
hassle.
That way if you give a talk about Rails you can hand out test CD’s
afterwards or if you needed to do a remote demo you take the CD and a
flash key with your Rails app and boot from a client’s desktop onsite.
David
Building a customized liveCD with ubuntu is pretty trivial- check out:
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/LiveCDCustomizationHowTo
Luis
Once again, very nice Ezra. I find myself looking through the list
traffic and always reading the threads with a post from “Ezra” whether
the
title is interesting or not. I am rarely disappointed.
Thanks,
Barry
I highly recommend debian as a good linux distro for rails work. The
package manager is IMHO the best there is and it makes running rails
a snap. I have written a detailed tutorial for setting up a debian
box from scratch with everything you wilol need including a secure
m,ail server here:
http://brainspl.at/rails_stack.html
And ubuntu is a nice debian spin off if you want to have a desktop.
But I prefer debian over ubuntu fror its stability as a server. The
quality control is excellent.
Cheers-
-Ezra
On Jan 19, 2006, at 11:23 PM, Leon wrote:
On 1/20/06, matthew clark [email protected] wrote:
matt
On 1/16/06, Jason C.
distribute it to non-hosted customers. So I’ve said all that to say
-Ezra Z.
WebMaster
Yakima Herald-Republic Newspaper
[email protected]
509-577-7732
+1 for “grep” of Ezra - I do the same - keep up good work/posts/etc.
btw I especially like that debian VPS write-up - a continuation owith
subversion+ssl would be awesome!
Thanks,
Zack
On Jan 20, 2006, at 1:07 PM, Barry W. wrote:
Once again, very nice Ezra. I find myself looking through thelist traffic and always reading the threads with a post from “Ezra”
whether the title is interesting or not. I am rarely disappointed.Thanks,
Barry
Thank you for the kind words Barry.
Cheers-
-Ezra
And ubuntu is a nice debian spin off if you want to have a[email protected]
http://lists.rubyonrails.org/mailman/listinfo/rails
-Ezra Z.
WebMaster
Yakima Herald-Republic Newspaper
[email protected]
509-577-7732
The fastest way to a working linux box is Ubuntu. Download the iso’s,
burn
them, plug them into your target box, answer a few questions, and in 15
minutes you have a full on Ubuntu/Debian system.
My development environment is an Ubuntu box. I wouldn’t do a production
system in it, but for playing around, getting comfortable you get lots
of
helpful tools + the well known file structure of Debian.
Welcome to the light.
matt
I hear good things about CentOS, and Fedora. The Yum package manager is
supposed to make package management a cinch.
csn
I’d recommend Ubuntu if your coming from a MS background. I did the
same
thing a few years back (came over from the dark side) and bit the bullet
and
went to Gentoo and used that for a few years. Tried Suse and have now
settled on Ubuntu.
Gentoo is great but I got tired of all the configuration and hours of
compilation (although it certainly taught my a lot about linux).
Rails is working very well and was quite easy to setup in Ubuntu, so I’d
recommend you give it a whirl.
If you have any specific questions about Ubuntu/Rails setup leave a
message
on the list and I’ll help you out.
Cheers
Tim
I highly recommend Ubuntu as well. I do java/hibernate/struts/sitemesh
development normally. Installing and learning and using the RoR
framework on Ubuntu has been extremely straightforward.
(http://www.ubuntu.com)
Mat, just curious … is there a particular technical reason you would
not deploy on Ubuntu? (I ask this since I have been toying with the idea
of deploying a small RoR app on it).
Thanks,
Well,
Mostly the right tool for the job argument. Ubuntu is designed to be a
workstation distro. Ease of use often goes hand-in-hand with lax
security
measures. RedHat is a good choice for home rolled production servers.
Debian and Slack if you have a bit more experience. (Debian is pretty
darn
easy, especially coming from Ubuntu)
The best reason I know of, is when you run into problems on your server,
you
want active forums of experts who can help you. RH, Debian, and
Slackware
all have admins with gobs of experience who will help you. The Ubuntu
server crowd is not going to be as robust.
Now, all of that being said, I do all of my development (rails included)
on
a VMWare virtual machine. Most of them are running Ubuntu in server
mode.
The reason I do this is because it is dead simple to set up, and file
structure is exactly the same as my base machine. It makes things
easier.
Bottom line, you can certainly use Ubuntu for a production server, but
you’ll be mostly on your own fighting an uphill battle to get the
machine
secure. You can do it, but it will take research.
Last word, I’ve only ever had one machine compromised, and it was a
Fedora
box. So take all the nice things I said about RedHat with that grain of
salt.
matt
On 18/01/06, Matthew P. [email protected] wrote:
holes in Ubuntu will also be present in Debian.
Yup. And ubuntu are a lot speedier with their security updates
(however painful that might be). Sarge has really disappointed me in
that respect.
–
Rasputin :: Jack of All Trades - Master of Nuns
http://number9.hellooperator.net/
What I have decided to do, based on all the great suggestions and links,
is to
install VMWare on my WinXP box and just have a go at several distros as
time
permits. I’ve started with Unbuntu and I’ll take a look at gentoo,
debian and
others.
Again, this has been a very helpful dicussion and I appreciate the
positive and
constructive posts. Obviously everyone has personal preferences and I’ll
just
have to see what works for me. I’m glad there are so many willing to be
helpful
in the list! I wouldn’t have known where to start otherwise.
:%s/MySQL/PostgreSQL/g
You will be happier in the long run. It is a much more important
choice than what color of *nix you put it on.
On 1/16/06, Jason C. [email protected] wrote:
Rails mailing list
[email protected]
http://lists.rubyonrails.org/mailman/listinfo/rails
–
"Her faults were those of her race and sex; her virtues were her own.
Farewell, and if for ever - "
– “Travels with a Donkey in the Cevennes” by Robert Louis Stevenson
On Tue, Jan 17, 2006 at 03:50:27PM -0800, matthew clark wrote:
Mostly the right tool for the job argument. Ubuntu is designed to be a
workstation distro. Ease of use often goes hand-in-hand with lax security
measures. RedHat is a good choice for home rolled production servers.
Debian and Slack if you have a bit more experience. (Debian is pretty darn
easy, especially coming from Ubuntu)
cough Ubuntu, for a server, at this time, is just Debian with a
predictable release cycle. Not many server-oriented packages in Ubuntu
are
signficicantly different from the Debian version, so (almost certainly)
any
holes in Ubuntu will also be present in Debian.
The best reason I know of, is when you run into problems on your server, you
want active forums of experts who can help you. RH, Debian, and Slackware
all have admins with gobs of experience who will help you. The Ubuntu
server crowd is not going to be as robust.
Unlike the RedHat-derived distributions, Debian and Ubuntu have a very
limited functional delta (and it’s typically in their focus area – the
desktop – rather than the server packages), so any answers you’ll get
from
Debian admins will almost universally apply fine to an Ubuntu system.
Bottom line, you can certainly use Ubuntu for a production server, but
you’ll be mostly on your own fighting an uphill battle to get the machine
secure. You can do it, but it will take research.
No more so than Debian.
Last word, I’ve only ever had one machine compromised, and it was a Fedora
box. So take all the nice things I said about RedHat with that grain of
salt.
I’ve seen all sorts of machines compromised – unfortunately, SSH brute
force attacks are distribution agnostic, and the kernel is usually the
one
piece of software that people are loathe to security-update on a regular
basis (because it ruins their uptime figures).
- Matt
Debian Developer and Ubuntu user
Ian H. wrote:
:%s/MySQL/PostgreSQL/g
You will be happier in the long run. It is a much more important
choice than what color of *nix you put it on.
Amen.
Yeah, more kudos for Ezra. I followed his tutorial and got a VPS running
with rimuhosting.com. (Xen-based). The tutorial was easy to follow, and
I
got it up and running without any problems. The only thing I really had
to
figure out on my own was svnserve for remote access/switchtower
deployment.
Sarge has been super stable, and it’s just awesome that I can do
whatever I
want with root access. And you can’t beat the price.
Ian H. wrote:
distribute it to non-hosted customers. So I’ve said all that to say this… I
want to learn how to setup linux and lighttpd along with MySQL and Ruby on
Rails. What do I need to know? What version of linux works best for this? What
kind of hardware do I need? What resources are available to me?Thanks!
I am using kubuntu/lighttpd/rails/postgresql.