Does anyone have experience with Fedora Server on a (semi) production setting? If yes, care to share your opinions? Thank you!
Kind regards, Alberto Abrao 204-202-1778 204-558-6886
On 2020-03-24 Alberto Abrao wrote:
Does anyone have experience with Fedora Server on a (semi) production setting? If yes, care to share your opinions? Thank you!
I've used Fedora in a server setting on dozens of computers since Fedora 1. I still use it exclusively (well, except 1 box I'm forced to use RHEL on). All production settings!
Pros: - Always near the latest kernel for all the latest h/w support and bug fixes and new features; Linus uses it for this reason - Bleeding edge of nearly everything, never sitting there wishing for the newest features in this or that or compiling things yourself or having to fudge new-on-old with containers, etc - Very professional distro: Fedora today is RHEL in 2-4 years - Upgrading to next Fedora version is easy and very reliable, many of my boxes are upgrades from 1 to 2 to 3 to ... 30. Yes, really: Same installs going for 16+ years.
Cons: - Must upgrade every 12ish months (if you skip a release) to keep getting updates - You'll see the bugs first before the other distros do; mitigate slightly by staying on the next-to-latest Fedora
There will be a lot of Sayers of Nay, but don't listen to them if you have the smarts and fortitude to live a bit more on the edge. You also get to be a bigger part of the development, guidance and bug-fixing process by using Fedora. Also, there's always CentOS if you want the RHEL world without the for-pay aspect, or if one box needs to be a little less edgy. And RHEL if your box is being used for a money-no-object purpose. And if you know one of those 3 distros, you know them all.
Thanks for your input Trevor.
A little of background:
I am a big Fedora fan for my desktop machines.
My use case is a server for my things+wife's and family's small business back home. It's Nextcloud and, after the latest redeployment, e-mail. It runs right here at my house, and is nothing more than consumer hardware on a regular case.
It started with CentOS 7 from May/2018 up to Jan/2020, and, along with Nextcloud and sans e-mail, it had extra duties such as being an router and Samba server for my internal network. Other than a few updates coughing up a hairball because of the extra repos I added for Nextcloud, it didn't give me a lot of trouble. For the few times it did, a few minutes of searching and/or raw bravery were enough to get it back up. I even switched it from one machine to another out of boredom... a few times. In retrospect, I was kind of trying to break it, but never managed to. It was never down for more than a few minutes other than regular hardware upkeep and, of course, moving it to different hardware. Manitoba Hydro, however, did fry its PSU at one point, and that was its longest downtime because I was 300kms away, so kudos to them! =D
At that point, I was playing - and learning - a lot on it, the whole thing was rough around the edges. Not to mention that I was finally able to have my local network duties on another piece of equipment. It was time for a refresh.
Moved to Debian on Jan/2020 soon after I moved to Winnipeg, and it's running great. That's when I decided to try Debian on everything - including workstations. But something about Debian irks me. Maybe the package management system? I don't know for sure.
So today I was moving my laptop back to Fedora and I realized... why not run that on a server just for fun? Going by what you are telling me, well, I have no issues with troubleshooting the odd thing at random times, I find it fun to be honest. So I might as well run it. Keeps me sharp.
Once again, thanks for your input!
Alberto Abrao 204-202-1778 204-558-6886
On 2020-03-24 11:25 p.m., Trevor Cordes wrote:
On 2020-03-24 Alberto Abrao wrote:
Does anyone have experience with Fedora Server on a (semi) production setting? If yes, care to share your opinions? Thank you!
I've used Fedora in a server setting on dozens of computers since Fedora 1. I still use it exclusively (well, except 1 box I'm forced to use RHEL on). All production settings!
Pros:
- Always near the latest kernel for all the latest h/w support and bug fixes and new features; Linus uses it for this reason
- Bleeding edge of nearly everything, never sitting there wishing for the newest features in this or that or compiling things yourself or having to fudge new-on-old with containers, etc
- Very professional distro: Fedora today is RHEL in 2-4 years
- Upgrading to next Fedora version is easy and very reliable, many of my boxes are upgrades from 1 to 2 to 3 to ... 30. Yes, really: Same installs going for 16+ years.
Cons:
- Must upgrade every 12ish months (if you skip a release) to keep getting updates
- You'll see the bugs first before the other distros do; mitigate slightly by staying on the next-to-latest Fedora
There will be a lot of Sayers of Nay, but don't listen to them if you have the smarts and fortitude to live a bit more on the edge. You also get to be a bigger part of the development, guidance and bug-fixing process by using Fedora. Also, there's always CentOS if you want the RHEL world without the for-pay aspect, or if one box needs to be a little less edgy. And RHEL if your box is being used for a money-no-object purpose. And if you know one of those 3 distros, you know them all.
On 2020-03-25 Alberto Abrao wrote:
Moved to Debian on Jan/2020 soon after I moved to Winnipeg, and it's running great. That's when I decided to try Debian on everything - including workstations. But something about Debian irks me. Maybe the package management system? I don't know for sure.
Join the club! Debian is a weird beast. Things are all in the wrong places, and apt is bizarre. (But that's because I'm a RH guy since 1999, so RH stuff is all second nature. "YMMV".)
So today I was moving my laptop back to Fedora and I realized... why not run that on a server just for fun? Going by what you are telling me, well, I have no issues with troubleshooting the odd thing at random times, I find it fun to be honest. So I might as well run it. Keeps me sharp.
Yes, from all you said Fedora will do just fine for your internal server. If it fields no external requests (isn't your router, not an MTA, web server, etc; and no net client s/w like web browser, MUA) then you even mitigate one of the cons -- the must-update-every-year thing -- because if hackers can't easily reach the box you don't have to be as strict about rapid upgrades... you can probably let it slip an extra release version.
Once again, thanks for your input!
No problem. I'm sure others will be able to provide opinions as well.
these were in my spam box
On Wed, Mar 25, 2020 at 12:45 AM Alberto Abrao alberto@abrao.net wrote:
Thanks for your input Trevor.
A little of background:
I am a big Fedora fan for my desktop machines.
My use case is a server for my things+wife's and family's small business back home. It's Nextcloud and, after the latest redeployment, e-mail. It runs right here at my house, and is nothing more than consumer hardware on a regular case.
It started with CentOS 7 from May/2018 up to Jan/2020, and, along with Nextcloud and sans e-mail, it had extra duties such as being an router and Samba server for my internal network. Other than a few updates coughing up a hairball because of the extra repos I added for Nextcloud, it didn't give me a lot of trouble. For the few times it did, a few minutes of searching and/or raw bravery were enough to get it back up. I even switched it from one machine to another out of boredom... a few times. In retrospect, I was kind of trying to break it, but never managed to. It was never down for more than a few minutes other than regular hardware upkeep and, of course, moving it to different hardware. Manitoba Hydro, however, did fry its PSU at one point, and that was its longest downtime because I was 300kms away, so kudos to them! =D
At that point, I was playing - and learning - a lot on it, the whole thing was rough around the edges. Not to mention that I was finally able to have my local network duties on another piece of equipment. It was time for a refresh.
Moved to Debian on Jan/2020 soon after I moved to Winnipeg, and it's running great. That's when I decided to try Debian on everything - including workstations. But something about Debian irks me. Maybe the package management system? I don't know for sure.
So today I was moving my laptop back to Fedora and I realized... why not run that on a server just for fun? Going by what you are telling me, well, I have no issues with troubleshooting the odd thing at random times, I find it fun to be honest. So I might as well run it. Keeps me sharp.
Once again, thanks for your input!
Alberto Abrao 204-202-1778 204-558-6886
On 2020-03-24 11:25 p.m., Trevor Cordes wrote:
On 2020-03-24 Alberto Abrao wrote:
Does anyone have experience with Fedora Server on a (semi) production setting? If yes, care to share your opinions? Thank you!
I've used Fedora in a server setting on dozens of computers since Fedora 1. I still use it exclusively (well, except 1 box I'm forced to use RHEL on). All production settings!
Pros:
- Always near the latest kernel for all the latest h/w support and bug fixes and new features; Linus uses it for this reason
- Bleeding edge of nearly everything, never sitting there wishing for the newest features in this or that or compiling things yourself or having to fudge new-on-old with containers, etc
- Very professional distro: Fedora today is RHEL in 2-4 years
- Upgrading to next Fedora version is easy and very reliable, many of my boxes are upgrades from 1 to 2 to 3 to ... 30. Yes, really: Same installs going for 16+ years.
Cons:
- Must upgrade every 12ish months (if you skip a release) to keep getting updates
- You'll see the bugs first before the other distros do; mitigate slightly by staying on the next-to-latest Fedora
There will be a lot of Sayers of Nay, but don't listen to them if you have the smarts and fortitude to live a bit more on the edge. You also get to be a bigger part of the development, guidance and bug-fixing process by using Fedora. Also, there's always CentOS if you want the RHEL world without the for-pay aspect, or if one box needs to be a little less edgy. And RHEL if your box is being used for a money-no-object purpose. And if you know one of those 3 distros, you know them all.
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