OpenBSD or Fedora?

mosfet

mosfet

mosfet

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I've just picked myself up a 1U Xeon server on OCUK MM to stick in the rack at work to play around with.

I'm looking to learn a bit more about local DNS and LDAP serving and maybe WWW to potentially host the company site in-house.

I'm comfortable with Fedora on the desktop but have found a load of good resources on OpenBSD, which I'd love to learn.

Is there much difference between the two? Would I notice a difference? :)
 
Lol, urm OpenBSD is crazy different as its more like actual unix (when fredora is very much a done for you style distro of linux). Im not saying there arnt lots of similarites in the end product (though all BSD's generally claim to be more secure and if you remember die hard 4 the hacker main guy uses open bsd on his pc :D)

Anyway, iv heard good things about ports (being similar to portage from gentoo which is the shiz of package management in my view) and you would learn a lot more from OpenBSD (or gentoo if you want a linux instead of a bds unix clone) than doing it in freedora. Aside from those benifits the whole thing should be a bit faster by actually tayloring it to your needs from the ground up, therefore spend a lot more time a go for OpenBSD (or gentoo....)
 
Heh, OpenBSD is totally different from fedora. Totally different target audience really. I mean there are similaries (GNU tools, shell etc) but apart from that most things are different. If your going to run a production server OpenBSD is a dam good choice really. BSD Ports is cool and a good package management system. OpenBSD is hard as a nail stability wise and security wise. Fedora would be one of my last choices for a server distribution of linux actually. Driver support is different from Linux, some areas are better others worse. Depends on your hardware. Main downside of OpenBSD is the steep learning curve. The documentation and irc support is good if you know what your looking to do.
 
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My personal uses for BSD do not stretch beyond, routing/firewalling.

I'd listen to Billy and use Debian for server uses.
 
I wouldn't touch fedora for server use. Debian is a little better, it may be ok for home use but if your putting this server into a work environment go with either openBSD (its going to be quiet the learning curve) or stick with linux and go for something like centos which is RHEL without the purty picture of a certain hat of a certain colour.

portage came from ports...:D
 
Hehe yeah i knew portage came from ports (just wondering if anyone noticed the slight error...)

Either way they are both the shiz! :D (and once hes past the lurning curve will deffinatly be the best solutions)
 
Nothing wrong with Fedora as a server as long as you take all the junk off it that you dont need, we use it quite happily for various bits and bobs albeit not in a production environment.
 
Not really. Fedora has two short a lifespan between releases to be useful in a production enviroment. running major upgrades every time rh release a new version of fedora isnt a good idea. I know that linux is linux but why bother stripping stuff out of a fedora release when centos or another enterprise targeted distro is out there.

I would agree with you if you were using fedora etc for a home server.
 
Re-reading my post I realise the surprise at my question; I'm talking about working from the command line and writing a network-based app for my final year BEng project.

I'm attracted to OpenBSD for the security and stability (especially since I plan on developing a commercially viable product).

What advantages, for instance, would Debian present over OpenBSD?
 
mosfet said:
Re-reading my post I realise the surprise at my question; I'm talking about working from the command line and writing a network-based app for my final year BEng project.

I'm attracted to OpenBSD for the security and stability (especially since I plan on developing a commercially viable product).

What advantages, for instance, would Debian present over OpenBSD?
Click to expand...

Well put it this way - OpenBSD has only had two remote root exploits ever. Linux on the other hand has had a ton. So security wise it is pretty renowned. However, as I mentioned above I would rate the usability less than Linux and the driver support is different as well. This is mainly down to Theo (OpenBSD's maintainer) being a security fanatic and forcing strict code review on everything which goes into it..

I can't really think of any big advantages of debian - just I suppose there is more software available for linux than BSD. However due to similarities between linux and bsd it is very easy to port userland software across between the two, if your doing non system specific stuff. I have ran BSD servers in the past but technically im more familiar with linux so tend to stick to that unless requirements dictate otherwise.

Might be easier if you say what your network app is going to do.
 
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