Linux distributions

[Adron]

I'm looking into installing a linux machine. It should have ssh, c++ compiler, mail, news, ftp, www, samba.

Looking at Debian, there seems to be a 3 year old stable distribution and everything since then is just testing stuff that they don't recommend for a server. Is that really true? Seems like an awfully not-up-to-date distribution?

[Newby]

I think Slackware has all of what you need.

Take THAT iago! Beat you to it!

[K]

Yes, debian is based mostly around stability and security.  Slackware does seem like a good bet.

[hismajesty]

How about Debian-based Ubuntu.

[Zorm]

Ive used gentoo(http://www.gentoo.org). Its rather nice and can do bleeding edge or stable depending on your preference. If you install from source you start out with a very basic install and can add what you need with a simple emerge. Also, the installing really isn't that bad. It takes about a day  on a 500mhz or atleast it does for me because I start bootstrapping before bed and do emerge system before I leave for school.

[Joe[x86]]

Slack only took about 30 minutes on JoeMomma.

[iago]

Slackware and Gentoo are both good selections -- they're based around the same idea of not holding your hand and letting you look after yourself.  I can't say anything about Gentoo, but Slackware has a very good default install, there is very little software I need to install/update after installing Slackware.

[Adron]

I'd like to have a distribution that comes with binary packages for virtually everything (target computer is low-end and slow), and where security updates can be done ideally through a script scheduled to run once a day.

[iago]

If you want automated security updates, Slackware probably isn't your best bet.  They tend to leave it more up to the users to update themselves, they don't usually roll out incremental updates.

You might want to look into security-oriented Linuxes like Trustix -- I've never used it before, or tried it, but on mailing lists it appears to be kept up to date very quickly.

[Zorm]

Gentoo still sounds like a good choice. It has binary package mirrors but im not sure if they are decent or not as ive ever used them(Also as stated in my other post compiling from source isn't that bad unless you are trying to install on a 286 or some such). The other thing you can do is cross compile packages on a faster computer.

For the security updates gentoo has a tool that will look for new security related updates, im not sure if it installs them or not as I haven't messed around with it much. The other option is to do emerge world which will update everything if a new version is ready or downgrade a package if a new version has been declared unstable.

[po0f]

Nice to see another Gentoo user on the forum.

I don't think Gentoo would be a good choice in this situation unless you have ~2 days to install this machine.

[Intangir]

yea if your installing on a slow machine gentoo is a really bad choise

it builds everything locally, which is a huge pain, and slow ;(

debian is good, just because they call the 'testing' branch testing doesnt mean its not stable enough for servers
they just take their sweet time on rolling the names over.

i just upgraded from debian stable to debian testing this weekend, it was a bit of a pain but it works fine

also there is an unstable build which isnt nessisarily unstable, its just brand new stuff

i havent ever tried slackware but mandrake sucked

mandrake had 'pretty graphics' in the installer, and the boot loader, but it seems like it constantly corrupts itself and you gotta go thru some repair process everytime you upgrade anything, and right after installing

my recommendation = debian

[Maddox]

LFS

[iago]

LFS

That sounds like exactly what he DOESN'T want

[warz]

Linux from scratch?