linux for servers and training courses

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2 questions really.

Im getting a server to run moodle on and going to run it of linux, as its more stable and to stop other people playing with it and breaking it.
So what flavoir of linux do i need?

Then the other question, where can i get linux training?

TIA
 
If you've no real experience with Linux I'd suggest either Red Hat or SuSE Linux Enterprise Server. Both of those are more GUI focussed and have good interfaces for the various bits you'll be running.

If you're prepared to actually look at config files and get a little more dirty, Ubuntu Server Edition install CD actually has a LAMP install option (Linux Apache MySQL PHP , just in case you're not aware what LAMP is) which should pretty much get you a server all ready and working pretty much from install. However, it won't give you a GUI so you'll need to know command line stuff to be able to do anything to the server after that.

If you do go down that route there is a nice guide here: http://www.ubuntugeek.com/ubuntu-804-hardy-heron-lamp-server-setup.html
You'll also find the ubuntu forums tend to be good for help, as does http://www.linuxquestions.org/

edit: Training is a bit of an odd one. There are various places that will give you introduction to Unix courses and the like. If you can spare 5 days, something like : http://training.gbdirect.co.uk/courses/linux/fundamentals.html would be quite good as you could also get some qualifications at the end of it.
 
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Is SuSE 10 different to SuSe linux enterprise Server 10?

thanks

There are three types of Suse out there, two SuSE Linux Enterprise ones and one called openSuSE:

SUSE Linux Enterprise: This is Novell's open-source solution for major enterprise. It is made up of two packages, these are:
* SUSE Linux Enterprise Server: SLES is the Enterprise Server Operating System component of SLE.
* SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop: SLED is the Enterprise Desktop Operating System component of SLE.

* openSUSE: This is a free, Novell supported distribution, designed for home users.


If you're not prepared to shell out some money, openSuSE would do the trick. As you're running out Moodle I'd guess you're an educational establishment.. if you're one that still uses Novell you might have a licence that covers SLES (Suse Linux Enterprise Server), and with the added benefit of seamless integration with Netware / Open Enterprise.
 
Hargi,

We run the latest Moodle at our place. Our server is running Fedora Core (again, the latest) and does the job wonderfully (not my choice of distribution, but our IT Consultant's).

However, openSUSE would work and is a very easy distribution of Linux to use. I have very little experience of linux and have installed web servers on both openSUSE, and Fedora. I am yet to try a server distribution.

If you don't want to pay for RedHat then you could look at CentOS, I hear it is meant to have whatever RedHat has.
 
centos is an open source version of redhat (minus the commercial stuff)
Fedora is a community project... but made by redhat

Ubuntu is becoming immensely popular as a desktop OS (and it's pretty good), but the last time I was looking, Fedora had far more driver support than any other flavour of Linux. If that is a consideration consider Fedora, else centOS is great
 
If you've no real experience with Linux I'd suggest either Red Hat or SuSE Linux Enterprise Server. Both of those are more GUI focussed and have good interfaces for the various bits you'll be running.

If you're prepared to actually look at config files and get a little more dirty, Ubuntu Server Edition install CD actually has a LAMP install option (Linux Apache MySQL PHP , just in case you're not aware what LAMP is) which should pretty much get you a server all ready and working pretty much from install. However, it won't give you a GUI so you'll need to know command line stuff to be able to do anything to the server after that.

If you do go down that route there is a nice guide here: http://www.ubuntugeek.com/ubuntu-804-hardy-heron-lamp-server-setup.html
You'll also find the ubuntu forums tend to be good for help, as does http://www.linuxquestions.org/

edit: Training is a bit of an odd one. There are various places that will give you introduction to Unix courses and the like. If you can spare 5 days, something like : http://training.gbdirect.co.uk/courses/linux/fundamentals.html would be quite good as you could also get some qualifications at the end of it.

If you're using RHEL or SLES you'd be mad to install a GUI on top, no point on a server at all, if you can't admin it from the command line then you're better off with something else. RHEL is great but expensive, thats the bottom line, it also has the advantage of driver support, stuff like the HP proliant support pack works straight off on it (it can be made to work on Centos or Fedora but it involves editing files and isn't supported...)
 
If you're using RHEL or SLES you'd be mad to install a GUI on top, no point on a server at all, if you can't admin it from the command line then you're better off with something else.

Why?

Even with a GUI a Linux server is more often more resource friendly, and a darned sight more stable than a Windows server.

In an ideal world, sure, admin the Linux server from the command line, but the inability to do so should not be seen as a barrier to using it.
 
Why?

Even with a GUI a Linux server is more often more resource friendly, and a darned sight more stable than a Windows server.

In an ideal world, sure, admin the Linux server from the command line, but the inability to do so should not be seen as a barrier to using it.

It's a huge resource hog (compared to stripped down install like you should use on a production server) which isn't necessary and often serves no purpose. The GUI tools can't do very much (or sometimes any) moderately advanced config so you're back to the CLI for that, it just doesn't offer a moderately experienced admin anything (and if you're not at least moderately experienced then you probably aren't going to like paying RHEL support costs).

If you aren't comfortable with the command line you shouldn't run linux for business critical apps, because if it breaks you won't be troubleshooting and fixing it with the GUI. If you're comfortable with the command line then there's no point in running a GUI on a server (which will likely not have a monitor attached anyway so you're looking at VNC or some other such kludge).

If you're not happy with command line, and need a LAMP setup for some reason then a jumpbox type system (http://www.jumpbox.com/) or similar sounds like the best way.
 
We run live core business servers on RH AS, with the GUI installed, and honestly it doesn't cause us even the remotest inkling of a problem.

Admitedly most admin is done in command line (neigh 100% of it, by me) but there are times when the GUI is helpful, and the GUI helps more people (otherwise highly technical/capable) to do some of the admin work and not just lump it all on me :)
 
Well each to their own I guess, our policy is very much if you're not good enough to work from the command line then there's no way on earth you're getting a login at all. I also don't think you can apply the granular sudo permissions so well in the GUI as yet another reason. My experience is ISP and FTSE100 companies and I'd never have even suggested installing a GUI on any of the servers.
 
Well I'm not talking about pc novices, but people such as our IT manager... 20 years of programming, extensive Novel and Windows server admin/support, he just didn't happen to know the precise command line words to use in Linux.

Anyway on a resource level, as I said, it's neglible. Hardly even noticable.
 
Well I'm not talking about pc novices, but people such as our IT manager... 20 years of programming, extensive Novel and Windows server admin/support, he just didn't happen to know the precise command line words to use in Linux.

Anyway on a resource level, as I said, it's neglible. Hardly even noticable.

It's twice the resource usage in our experience, we've tested default RHEL install with Gnome vs. a cut down server build with GUI only. It all depends how seriously you take server builds and your environment I guess.
 
Thanks all for the replies.
Hargi,

We run the latest Moodle at our place. Our server is running Fedora Core (again, the latest) and does the job wonderfully (not my choice of distribution, but our IT Consultant's).

However, openSUSE would work and is a very easy distribution of Linux to use. I have very little experience of linux and have installed web servers on both openSUSE, and Fedora. I am yet to try a server distribution.

If you don't want to pay for RedHat then you could look at CentOS, I hear it is meant to have whatever RedHat has.

Thanks our IT Guy reccommends openSUSE for this, though i will have a look at fedora core.
So your system is stable?
 
Can i ask what database your using, i want to go the mysql route where as bods incharge here want to run it on orical
 
My experience is ISP and FTSE100 companies and I'd never have even suggested installing a GUI on any of the servers.

My background is ISP and education, with Linux in both, and you're talking radically different worlds. For an ISP sector I'd agree, if you're not capable of handling the command line I don't want you near my servers, and even then it'll be grudgingly, but you do have to be aware that is an ideal world situation, one where no one should be employed or have a need to work with servers that are mission critical.

Education is a lot different. For starters Moodle requires a bog standard LAMP set-up, it really takes little by way of customisation, certainly should be nothing that can't be handled through the GUI interfaces. Secondly it's not a massive resource hog. We had a P4 2ghz server handling our moodle instance with about 1300 students using it, and never once even made the server bat an eyelid, and yes that was with a GUI running on an RHES server. I even had the inbuilt firewall running because I didn't know better. Education also has the advantage that if a server dies and something is unavailable, a server has died and something is unavailable. That's it. You're not costing the company money with every second, you don't have customers businesses that are impacted, you don't have anything like the stress that you get if, say, a RADIUS server dies :D It results in a lot more flexibility and a much nicer working environment!
Finally, Public sector doesn't tend to employ people with the skills, and rarely provides the same level of training and opportunities that private sector provides. I'd had Linux running on my box at home for a couple of years (Gentoo, stage 1 build), had been running it on some servers and a media workstation (DVB recording), and had been active on some linux forums, but it wasn't until I started in the ISP that I really had any proper grasp of server control, set-up, best practices and administration.

If you can get away from an elitist, ideal world view of things, what is so wrong with grabbing a copy of a mainstream distribution, and installing a LAMP solution with a GUI? Slightly less resources? So what, it's not like it's going to be hammered hard. Less optimal setup, like the GUI tools usually result in, again not really a big problem.

One of the main distributions is ideal for this work. However I wouldn't advise Fedora. It's way too bleeding edge. Great for workstations where the user is convinced they need the latest greatest technology, absolutely awful for servers unless you know to an absolute certainty that you need specific versions of a package that are on it.
Stick with a mainstream server distribution.

From the moodle site, the requirements are
  • PHP4 (version 4.3.0 or later) or PHP5 (version 5.1.0 or later)
  • MySQL (version 4.1.12 or later), PostgreSQL (8.0 or later) or Microsoft SQL Server 2005

That can even be handled by Debian if I'm not mistaken and that's now getting a bit long in the tooth in comparison to other server distros, but has the advantage of being very stable and reliable.
There is even a moodle package in the apt repository.

If you pick Ubuntu and do a LAMP installation with that, bring up the package manager and you'll be able to install Moodle nice and easily, as someone has put a copy of 1.6 into the repository, unless you specifically need / want 1.9 in which case you'll have to download and set it up yourself which shouldn't be hard anyway.
 
Can i ask what database your using, i want to go the mysql route where as bods incharge here want to run it on orical

Oracle is a fantastic database, but it's not for the faint hearted at all. If you don't know what you're doing stick with mysql. If you can get training though, oracle is something worth knowing...
 
from my experience most of the Moodle plug ins are writen for mysql, We had it running on Microsoft SQL and found that it none of the free plugins would work
 
Im now looking at running Ubuntu as the server for moodle, snce we found out that running it on windows causes a few problems.
does Ubuntu Server Edition come with a GUI?
 
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