For a home server mdadm works FINE. Make sure to set it up to send email alerts if a drive fails.
4) Stay away from soft-raid. PERIOD. If you want RAID, get a "cheap" LSI/Intel/HighPoint hardware RAID card and do a RAID 5. RAID 5 with 3 disks is a distributed parity with a 1-disk failure tolerance. It's space efficient (compared to RAID 1/10) and it has decent fault tolerance.
VinDSL said:Is this what you mean by "deal[ing] with Solaris"? LoL
Maybe we're talking about two different distros.No, I mean the pain of actually having to install, setup and maintain it.
If you are setting up a multiboot environment in such a way that you install Linux on one partition first and the OpenSolaris software on another partition afterwards, you will need to follow special instructions to ensure that the GRUB menu information from the new installation does not erase the GRUB menu information of a previous installation.
Maybe we're talking about two different distros.
I see some disagreement over logs going to ramdisk. What would be so bad about that in my situation? I've read a few articles on various sites about commands used to move /tmp /var/tmp and /var/logs to ramdisk but none of them mentioned ill-considered consequences
If you read about the device that I posted then you would have changed your mind. Of course you have to use a battery or alternative power source to keep the data. The device does include a way to back up the data to a compact flash. The device I listed has unlimited writes. Flash based SSD have limited writes and logs will wear the drive more than you think.Where do I begin?
1) DRAM based disks are as bad as a RAM disk. They require battery backup for any power failure or moving of the server. Use a flash based drive or use a hard drive. Stay away from RAM-based solutions unless you want to rebuild your root every few weeks.
I hate the word Ubuntu because it is the only distribution that fails to properly install on my setups. How it detects my PATA drives is different compared to what my BIOS sees it upon boot up. Other distributions works fine, but Ubuntu is pathetic. I can not recommend it. Gentoo will be my choice next to OpenSolaris for a server. I do not like Redhat and I do not like the proprietary compile and install methods of Debian.2) Many distros don't install many side-packages if you use their alternate install disk or net-install disk. Ubuntu server is very light-weight and you can select an even lighter install using the standard install media. Debian is very decent. Gentoo, for a beginner, is a good learn experience but for a server I would say stick to a pre-defined packaged server distro.
It is not a pain. Debian and Ubuntu is a pain.3) OpenSolaris is a pain. It is. For a home server, there are plenty of better options. ZFS is not the end-all-be-all filesystem. And it's not worth trying to get all the packages you want onto it. Debian and Ubuntu have some of the best repositories when it comes to having packages.
I agree partially because all those brands are software RAID types. The brands that I list are true hardware RAID and works in Linux as well as OpenSolaris. Also Marvell storage controllers are not matured enough in Linux, so I do not recommend the brands that you suggested.4) Stay away from soft-raid. PERIOD. If you want RAID, get a "cheap" LSI/Intel/HighPoint hardware RAID card and do a RAID 5. RAID 5 with 3 disks is a distributed parity with a 1-disk failure tolerance. It's space efficient (compared to RAID 1/10) and it has decent fault tolerance.
During configuring any system, there will be a lot of logs to make sure the server is doing what it is designed to do. A home server is not any different than the corporate level. During configure the level of logs will be high and then the logging level will be low when they are done configuring. Being surprise that logs are as huge as +2 GB in size is non-sense. Sending out a status of the log size to your email for a home server will not be reliable because you usually have to use SMTP server from the ISP to send the email. I do not like this idea of status.5) Where do you get 2GB of logs in a few minutes? Logs are PLAIN TEXT. In an enterprise web server, I have logs from September 2009 until today, and the logs are only 9GB. I don't know how you could get 2GB of plain text that quickly. My dev server, for it's entire lifetime of a few years, only has 500MB of logs. My network gateway may have a few GB but that's only because it stores network bandwidth usage for every second for as long as I run it. Logs are not an issue for a HOME SERVER.
Gentoo has the ability to compile into a binary file. Then you get consistency. Also to double check the consistency, there is revdep-rebuild. You can remove the compile from the server running Gentoo if you want. There is documentation out there to do that.Gentoo is terrible for servers because there's no consistency. Sure, if you're only dealing with 1 or 2 it's no big deal but as soon as you've got to worry about a half dozen or more you don't want to have to think about what hacks you've done on each individual system. And binary packages are much better for patching. I know 100% that every package on my system is exactly the same as the one that was put together and tested by the Debian developers. There's no chance that my local compiler flags, installed packages, etc affected it.
And from a security standpoint it's practically idiotic to have a compiler on a system you want to consider even remotely secure. On my workstations they have to be there things like the nVidia driver, but for a server it makes no sense.
I'll try to be more rudimentary... :awe:VinDSL, I do not know your knowledge of GRUB, but have no problems with GRUB. I know how to use GRUB's command line to boot up Linux or any operating system. Also I can list the contents of a file within GRUB's command line. [..]
I hate the word Ubuntu because it is the only distribution that fails to properly install on my setups. How it detects my PATA drives is different compared to what my BIOS sees it upon boot up.
I do not like Redhat and I do not like the proprietary compile and install methods of Debian.
It is not a pain. Debian and Ubuntu is a pain.
During configuring any system, there will be a lot of logs to make sure the server is doing what it is designed to do. A home server is not any different than the corporate level. During configure the level of logs will be high and then the logging level will be low when they are done configuring. Being surprise that logs are as huge as +2 GB in size is non-sense. Sending out a status of the log size to your email for a home server will not be reliable because you usually have to use SMTP server from the ISP to send the email. I do not like this idea of status.
I have not seen any operating system being consistent in any way[./QUOTE]
Then you're not looking very hard.
Gentoo is not all about its performance. It is its flexibility of choosing features to include for each program or to leave them out.
And that flexibility makes your installation different from everyone else in the world which can be a problem when debugging something like an odd crash. The fact that every other Debian sid user in the world has the exact same binaries as me gives me a sort of baseline and the DD can easily debug the issue on his PC because he's got the same software that I do.
Linux & OpenSolaris both seem to understand Fat and Ext2, but who the hell wants to boot from a Fat16 or Ext2 partition (even if it is possible)?!?!? LoL! That seems soooo ghetto!
A FAT16 partition is a requirement for booting from EFI, unless that's changed with more recent revisions of EFI.
Heh! I *knew* that was going to cause me grief.A FAT16 partition is a requirement for booting from EFI, unless that's changed with more recent revisions of EFI.
Supposed to be? udev does not detect the hardware. It is just a GIGO or garbage in, garbage out. udev is a user space daemon that fills in the blanks for the kernel. The kernel is what detects the hardware. How the kernel used in Ubuntu is different than other distributions. Ubuntu developers used options that breaks the compatibility. The usage of UUID does not work all the time. What works all the time and what I used is labels. Labels works for just about any file system.All distributions should be very similar if not the same in that regard because they all use udev for the hardware detection and module loading. Kernel hardware detection has always been dependent on module load order, it's just that in the last few years it's become more and more asynchronous in order to speed up booting so device ordering isn't guaranteed in any distribution. That's why things like LVM and the symlinks in /dev/disks/ are supposed to be used to ensure you've referencing the proper device regardless of what device node the kernel gives it.
If it is not, why do I have to use separate steps just for Debian. I do not have to that for other distributions like Fedora, Redhat, Slackware, and Gentoo. This specialty causes more headaches. SUSE is another proprietary distribution.There's nothing proprietary about Debian.
My world seems true to me compared to others that like to follow. It makes me have a brain compared to zombies.Your world seems to be inverse compared to the rest of us.
I did look hard for 20 years. There is no way to be completely consistent. Though using distributions like Debian will put in patches that changes how consistent is from the main developers point of view. Gentoo does not. Gentoo gets its source code directly from who is the main developer of the desire program user wants to install. It compiles with the same rules that main developer recommends to compile. I can take the config file from any setup and it work in Gentoo. I have done that and it came out the same.Then you're not looking very hard.
That is not true. There will be consistency with the use utilities like revdep-rebuild and the ability to output to a binary format. Any problems you have with Debian, I will have the same problems on my end using Gentoo. To make everybody have a one to one on consistency, there is always to use of virtual machines. You could provide a VMware or Virtualbox image of your server. I understand Debian's consistency, but it seems you do not know Gentoo.And that flexibility makes your installation different from everyone else in the world which can be a problem when debugging something like an odd crash. The fact that every other Debian sid user in the world has the exact same binaries as me gives me a sort of baseline and the DD can easily debug the issue on his PC because he's got the same software that I do.
You already have an answer to your problem. I create partition for /boot, so it makes booting to Linux easier and minimizes problems like during a power failure. For me /boot is not mounted upon boot up. The file system that I use EXT3 or in your case it is EXT2 for /boot. This is not ghetto in anyway. It is about what file systems GRUB understands.Linux & OpenSolaris both seem to understand Fat and Ext2, but who the hell wants to boot from a Fat16 or Ext2 partition (even if it is possible)?!?!? LoL! That seems soooo ghetto!
Supposed to be? udev does not detect the hardware. It is just a GIGO or garbage in, garbage out. udev is a user space daemon that fills in the blanks for the kernel. The kernel is what detects the hardware.
How the kernel used in Ubuntu is different than other distributions. Ubuntu developers used options that breaks the compatibility. The usage of UUID does not work all the time. What works all the time and what I used is labels. Labels works for just about any file system.
Using LVM complicates the issue, so it does not fix the issue. LVM is just a layer that you add to your setup. Adding layers cause problems.
If it is not, why do I have to use separate steps just for Debian. I do not have to that for other distributions like Fedora, Redhat, Slackware, and Gentoo. This specialty causes more headaches. SUSE is another proprietary distribution.
Using Debian is not the right way to use Linux. Compile programs or installing programs from source code is the right way. Gentoo and Arch makes this look easy while others have a long tedious process.
I did look hard for 20 years. There is no way to be completely consistent. Though using distributions like Debian will put in patches that changes how consistent is from the main developers point of view. Gentoo does not. Gentoo gets its source code directly from who is the main developer of the desire program user wants to install. It compiles with the same rules that main developer recommends to compile. I can take the config file from any setup and it work in Gentoo. I have done that and it came out the same.
That is not true. There will be consistency with the use utilities like revdep-rebuild and the ability to output to a binary format. Any problems you have with Debian, I will have the same problems on my end using Gentoo. To make everybody have a one to one on consistency, there is always to use of virtual machines. You could provide a VMware or Virtualbox image of your server. I understand Debian's consistency, but it seems you do not know Gentoo.
Will Rogers once said...Why is it there is always an argument of why something is better than the next?
I would suggest, the same applies to Linux! ()"A difference of opinion is what makes horse racing and missionaries."
Why is it there is always an argument of why something is better than the next?
Can't we all just get along?
In a perfect world:Because different people have different opinions on things?
In a perfect world:
Sounds rather boring to me!
- Everyone would have the same opinion.
- All games would end in a tie.
- All sports teams would be in 1st place.
- Everyone would "get along."
I'll take one-upmanship, any day... :awe:
That is not true. udev is the following and it is taken directly from udev's site.Technically they both do, udev is what scans for devices and loads the modules, but the modules have to do their own bit of detection to figure out exactly where the device is, what resources it has/controls and initializes it.
Sure I can, but try telling a novice user to do that during the installation process and the user say huh. The Ubuntu installer or any distributions designed for novice Linux user should be require to include an option select either labels or UUID. I can not recommend Ubuntu to novice users because of this problem. Sabayon is better at this although their installation requires a DVD disc.So use labels, Ubuntu doesn't force UUIDs on you. But I can't remember seeing anyone complaining about UUIDs randomly stopping working for them.
Gentoo includes aids to do the steps of compiling. It still gives you what the developer provides for the desire program that you are installing. In Debian the steps to compile are proprietary. It requires additional attention to compile the program. Gentoo does not because it complies to BSD rules of compiling which are ./configure && make && make install. Debian requires make depend before make. That is proprietary.Because every distribution has it's own installer, i.e. separate steps are required for each.
If by proprietary you mean they have their own way of doing certain things, then yes. But all of it is completely open. Just because you don't understand or like it doesn't make it proprietary. The fact that dozens of Debian and Ubuntu derivatives use those same methods pretty much proves there's nothing proprietary about them.
And frankly Gentoo and Slackware are the most different of all of them that you listed so if anything they're the proprietary ones.
USE flags does not change the compilation rules. They enforce what is require or in your cast to be consistent. Sure I can use LFS, but it takes more work because I have to figure out what library to install first and what will come second and so forth before a desire program to be installed. Then I have to list the capable features for each program by doing ./configure --help. Not all programs uses the names for each version they include in the program. Gentoo does all these checks, but they do checks on all dependencies and reverse dependencies then creates a list in chronological order based on what has the fewest dependencies and what has the longest dependencies.That whole paragraph contradicts itself. Hell, USE flags change the compilation rules so right there you can't say that it's identical to upstream. But if Gentoo does nothing but compile the software exactly as it comes from upstream why don't you just use LFS and compile directly from upstream yourself?
Yes they are called ebuilds. ebuilds are recipes or scripts to do the installation process. To install a program, emerge is used. To output a binary, you include -k on the same line to create a binary as you are installing. revdep-rebuild is used to double check the linking of libraries to the main program. If a library is re-installed or upgraded with different features, the program that relies on it will not load or will crash.So you've got to take the Gentoo ebuilds (are they still called that?) and use revdev-rebuild to build a binary package in order to get consistency? Why not just let someone who understands the package better build the package for you like everyone else in the world does with RHEL, Fedora, Debian, Ubuntu, etc?
And I guarantee that your binary won't be exactly the same as mine because you'll likely have a different compiler version, library versions, USE flags, etc.
My sid machine here has an AMD64 build of coreutils 8.5-1 here and my /bin/ls sha1sum is c99d778f632f472335cc8ebfb2c2b009174674f3, what's yours?
Don't take it personally! This ain't the Oprah Winfrey blog...BTW, I suggested something that could be used for a server, but everybody here went on their high horse and bitched. It seems in this forum that everybody does this to every new comer. It shows how congested and cruel the computer industry is, so this one of the reason why I am not in it.