Fedora *is* for servers! [was Re: Need advice]

[Russell Miller]

On Apr 19, 2014, at 11:52 AM, Robin Laing <MeSat at TelusPlanet.net> wrote:
> 
> Fedora will work for servers but the upgrade cycle does cause problems.  I have seen enough of them in my job.
> 
Well, yes.  Any linux distribution will work for servers as long as it will run the binaries required.  Even *shudder* Gentoo, whose upgrade cycle would,
without some kind of precompiled packages, make it a really, really poor choice, would make a decent server OS once it's configured.

(I use the Linux Rescue CD, though, which is based on Gentoo, and it's saved my posterior more than once, so even it has its place.)

I don't think the question is whether Fedora would make a decent server operating system.  Of course it would.  The question is maintenance, and any
system administrator who has been doing this for any amount of time knows that that's far more important than actual functionality in the long term, as
long as the functionality is a bare minimum (programs work and provide the needed services).

> It is cutting edge and there are issues with each upgrade that cause problems.  Some programs that don't work at the issue and even months later are still not working due to library changes causing problems for the developers and maintainers.
> 
And for a production server, this is a no-go.  Full stop.  I have to measure upgrades at work in terms of minutes, and services that were not working
for months due to a botched upgrade would probably get me fired.  They don't happen until we're reasonably confident they will go off without a hitch.
I would not have that confidence with Fedora.

> I would use Fedora for a home server in most cases.  My father wouldn't.  He used Centos.  So it is up to a persons own choices.  For services, I use Raspian on my Raspberry Pi but am looking at Pidora due to familiarity of configuration.  This is a time issue.
> 
As are many things...

Time is the only truly non-renewable resource.

--Russell