is Fedora designed for server?
dear gurus,
I want to choose a Linux distribution for some of my servers. Is Fedora designed for server or for desktop client?
thank you in advance.
Bogi Aditya
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7 Answers
The short answer is maybe. Depending on your need for the server will greatly depend on what tool will be best for it.
If you're looking to build a webserver, then I would agree with other posts and try something with a little more enterprise and long term support like CentOS or RHEL or Scientific.
For other things, Fedora would be great at having the latest and greatest, cutting edge software.
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With the upcoming Fedora 21 release, this question won't be ambiguous anymore, as we will have a top level Fedora Server Product . See http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Server for more information, including design goals and target users. Of course, it won't be for everyone, but we plan for it to be the best choice for many of you.
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I won't recommend Fedora for server, mostly because of limited support & update time. You may want to use RHEL or its free alternatives (CentOS, Scientific Linux) if you want stable server redhat OS.
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The main reason we don't suggest fedora as a server OS is because of the short life cycle.
I'm using fedora on my corporative webserver. On other webserver I'm using CentOS. And I should say that Fedora is much better. For example Fedora now use MariaDB instead of MySQL, and the first is much faster. Fedora use latest Apache (2.4) and nginx - which is more stable. It use latest vsftpd - which is more secure. It offer latest PHP (5.4,5.5) and CentOs offer php 5.2 which is strong outdated.
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I used Fedora Core from version 7. I've never reinstalled it. I just upgraded it via yum to next version (yum distro-sync). So if you would like to get newer php/mysql/apache packages - you should upgrade your CentOS/RHEL to next release too. But packages there are always old. (Sorry my bad english). P.S. If you want just upgrade PHP - you could use REMI reposytory for old versions of fedora. But i don't know if it is for centos.
Fedora is absolutely designed to be used as a server, especially since it serves as the upstream for Red Hat Enterprise Linux. I use it extensively for server purposes, but any Fedora machine can have a life of only about six months between upgrades or about 13 months between complete migrations (from an old installation to a brand-new installation).
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I don't know if I would call it torture - or at least, no more so than when I was setting up a new system on another CentOS 6.5 server (I say another because I have 3 @ work and 15 up on RackSpace's O-Stack) and 3 or 4 packages I needed would NOT run on the 2.6 kernel. I could either browse through previous versions of each bit of software until I find one that works (and hope I don't need the newest one..), go with Ubuntu or something eslse Debian-esque, or Fedora. This project line FTW. If you think a reinstall every 6-12 months is "torture", L2 chef or puppet and win!
Like the others I would recommend either RHEL or it's free clones Centos or Scientific Linux. Alternatively you could look at other distributions such as Debian Squeeze (choose the server install) or Ubuntu 12.04 LTS server install.
In short, no. However, as @mattdm said, try http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Server . In Fedora 21, they are planning to make a version of Fedora meant to be a server. However, I personally do not recommend this as Fedora is a relatively fast moving distro, and stability is the key to a server. If you prefer Debian-like distros, go for:
- Debian Squeeze
- Ubuntu 14.04 LTS
- Linux Mint 17
If you like Red Hat-like systems, go for:
- PCLinuxOS 2014
- Centos 6.5/7
- Fedora Server Edition 21
- Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.5/7
Debian Squeeze
Pros:
Amazing Stability, Good Community support, Long life
Cons:
No recent packages, Some packages have unsatisfied deps (Skype), Old kernel
Ubuntu 14.04 LTS
Pros:
Relatively stable, new packages, easy to use, good support
Cons:
Not as stable as Debian, resource-hog (little bit)
Linux Mint 17
Pros:
Relatively stable, new packages, easy to use, good support
Cons:
Not as stable as Debian
PCLinuxOS 2014, Centos 6.5/7
Pros:
Amazingly stable, meant to be a server, almost same as RHEL
Cons:
old software, unsatisfied deps (skype)
F21 Server
Not released yet
RHEL 6.5/7
Pros: Amazing Support, Amazing stability, amazing security, amazing updates
Cons: Outdated Software, costs money
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Asked: 2012-03-25 03:01:10 -0600
Seen: 20,242 times
Last updated: Jul 19 '14
