# Just how stable is it?

## DrunkGod

Qot a question I hope to get an honest answer for.

I am getting ready to begin the conversion of our RedHat server to something else.  I've looked at a few distrubutions as well as Gentoo and wanted to know if Gento is stable.

My requirements are simple, I need a server that can serve up Samba, HTTP, mial, some database server and be reasonably stable and relatively easy to maintain.

Perhaps I should mention I am not a Linux wizard and have worked with windows for more than a few years (insert boo's and catcalls here).  However, I am learning fast as the Red Hat server is not behaving as I would hope.

Thanks.

----------

## UberLord

My home server has been running Gentoo ~ 7 months now. I think it crashed once with a 2.6.0-testxx kernel with reiserfs. Since then, after changing to XFS I've only rebooted it after installing each kernel and have had zero crashes.

Compiled from a Stage1 tarball on a VIA-C3-2 chipset with fairly aggressive CFLAGS using GCC 3.3.x and glibc patched with NPTL.

Kernel 2.6.2 (vanilla), MySQL, Apache, PHP, ProFTPD, Prelude-NIDS and a few other bits and pieces.

So, stable and easy to maintain.

----------

## Oopsz

my remote server has been running gentoo with no problems since november.  It's located in new jersey (allegiance datacenter, if anyone cares), whereas I'm in montreal.  I haven't had any problems that couldn't be solved remotely (except for on initial install, but I just had to have a technician ctrl+D the startup so I could emerge reiserfsprogs  :Wink: )

----------

## KingTaco

Been running gentoo for about a year now in a 2 node cluster.  Have had one crash on one node after trying to fdisk a faulty IDE disc.  Running apache, postfix, courier, nfs, samba, iptables(firewall), ftp, and KDE.  Gentoo is the best of the 6 or 7 distros I have worked with!!

----------

## ka0ttic

I first installed Gentoo on my desktop machine about 6 or 7 months ago and have never looked back.  It is not possible for me to truly express how I feel about Gentoo through this keyboard   :Very Happy: 

It's VERY stable (even with unstable/testing packages), but the best thing is the ease of maintaining Gentoo.  

Since the first install, I've also installed Gentoo on an old Celeron 533 (2.6.3 kernel w/NPTL) to act as a smtp/imap/www server for my network, as well as an old P233 (2.4.24-grsec-1.9.13 kernel)  that acts as my gateway/firewall.  

I have to say that messing around with Gentoo is the first time I've had REAL fun using linux (emerge sync makes me tingle) since I first started linux (back in the Debian 0.99 days..).

In short, move to Gentoo and you won't regret it.

HTH,

Aaron

----------

## Lucho[FLCL]

 *Quote:*   

> However, I am learning fast as the Red Hat server is not behaving as I would hope. 
> 
> 

 

What do you dislike about RH?

I dislike RPM, performance and that it doesn't exist anymore   :Laughing: 

But what you don't like mat not be something to do with RH...Who knows...

----------

## DrunkGod

Thanks for all of the reply's

Sounds like there are only Gentoo fans here.

I can't say that I either like or dis-like RH.  I do know that it is going away and that Fedora seems to be using the free efforts of many programmers and testers to sell the software.  I may be wrong on that point, that's just how it seems to me.

As it turns out, the RH box that I've been attempting to restore to full functionality has me stumped and the boss says "cut bait."  So I am now in the process of building the new server in a hurry.  I will then move services over to the new box asap.  And RH is a known quantity so that is what I'll go with.

I guess I can only say I have been spoiled by the ease of use and ability to repair windows software.   

Thanks for the comments.

-Mac

----------

## Sir_Chancealot

 *DrunkGod wrote:*   

> Qot a question I hope to get an honest answer for.
> 
> I am getting ready to begin the conversion of our RedHat server to something else.  I've looked at a few distrubutions as well as Gentoo and wanted to know if Gento is stable.
> 
> My requirements are simple, I need a server that can serve up Samba, HTTP, mial, some database server and be reasonably stable and relatively easy to maintain.
> ...

 

I have had a Mandrake 8.2 server up and running in a production environment running Samba and Cups for about 1 1/2 years now (at a client site).  It used to lock up about every 30 days.  That was before I taught them to shut down KDE!   I think it was up 6 months before I rebooted the other day.   :Laughing: 

Very easy to set up and maintain.

I am in the process of replacing it with a gentoo box for a short time.  (They're going to Windows 2003 Server, God help them!) 

I put it on an old k2-300, 192 mb of memory.  It seems really stable right now, and pretty fast.  Getting ready to migrate over next week.  

The really great thing about Gentoo is that it lets you install what you need AND ONLY WHAT YOU NEED.  ***YOU*** decide what goes on your box.  

I've tried redhat, SuSE, Mandrake, and a few other flavors of Linux.  Gentoo is, without a doubt, the best version I have ever tried.  It seems to "make sense" in how it does things, if you know what I mean.  It is also the first flavor of Linux where I have gotten REALLY used to the command line.  (Mind you, I'm totally comfortable with the command line in dos/windows/NT/xp/Novell.)

It really is just quicker to use the command line.  "Nano -w" is your friend!    :Laughing: 

----------

## pherris

 *DrunkGod wrote:*   

> Qot a question I hope to get an honest answer for.
> 
> I am getting ready to begin the conversion of our RedHat server to something else.  I've looked at a few distrubutions as well as Gentoo and wanted to know if Gento is stable.
> 
> 

 

Very stable. I switched to gentoo from RH9 after they EOL'd it. I've been very happy with it. I'm run three boxs, one as my main desktop machine, one for http/smtp/pop3/smb and one for http alone (test machine). Once it's setup they've been great. The only thing I miss is RHN with that reminder on the desktop. I doubt I would've tried Gentoo if RH hadn't killed of RHx but, knowing what I know now, I should've switched earlier.

 *DrunkGod wrote:*   

> 
> 
> My requirements are simple, I need a server that can serve up Samba, HTTP, mial, some database server and be reasonably stable and relatively easy to maintain.
> 
> 

 

Gentoo takes a little extra to setup samba, the same for apache and qmail. One machine is ~500 miles away  from me and I doubt I'll see it physically again this year. Zero issues with maintance.

 *DrunkGod wrote:*   

> 
> 
> Perhaps I should mention I am not a Linux wizard and have worked with windows for more than a few years (insert boo's and catcalls here).  However, I am learning fast as the Red Hat server is not behaving as I would hope.
> 
> 

 

Having worked with RH will help quite a bit but you'll end up learning more after your first install. A solid weekend or two of messing around should be all you need. The gentoo docs are excellent, the best I've seen so fare. 

What will make the install go much faster is to install from the correct stage 3 cd for your cpu and have atleast a dsl/cable connection to the net. If you don't there are simple work arounds but it will increase the install time. IMO the best way to install is to have two machines, one to install gentoo and one to control the install via a ssh session with a dsl/cable connection to the net. 

Of course posting questions here will help too. All in all, gentoo is great.  I remember the hassle I had installing mplayer on RH. It never ran quite right. On gentoo you just need to type emerge mplayer, watch the compile show and when finished mplayer runs perfectly. The portage system is so much better than RPM.

Any questions? Just ask here. Answer come pretty quickly.

Bonne Chance,

pherris

----------

## sig

Most of the answers were about running some "less important" server at for example home etc, which then again has nothing to do with production level servers. I was wondering how many of you have really used Gentoo for production level servers?

At least I would maybe consider running something like Debian on such servers, since compiling everything again just for an upgrade seems like a waste of valuable resources. It's also as easy to maintain and the packages have been thoroughly tested, which isn't the case considering Gentoo.

----------

## UberLord

I'll be putting a Gentoo production server place of our aging NT4 box next week. Admittedly it's only going to be used by 3 full timers inlcuding me, but we're a small company now that the 2 sales people have a new office elsewhere.

----------

## qal21

I suggest gentoo with the 2.6 -mm kernel. It's perfectly stable, and gentoo's portage system allows for easy updating on samba, etc.

----------

## ChopChopMasterOnion

My server's been running Gentoo for a year now and the only time it's come down was for: -electrical storms

-powerouts

-hardware modifications (added a NIC and a tape drive, pulled the cdrom since once it's installed the server didn't need it)

-physically moving it from one room to another

I've only had a Gentoo box die on me once, and that was due to a hard drive failure.  I don't even have a monitor or keyboard on my server anymore.  I just use ssh to administrate it, which is a minimal task at best.  I highly recommend it.

Kernels i've used: (all have been stable)

gentoo-sources

gentoo-dev-sources

vanilla-sources

mm-sources (current kernel)

----------

## trINItr0n_

Of course asking this in a gentoo forum you will only have pro-gentoo responses.

But i'd like to add that taking a look at Debian definitly wouldnt hurt.

It's much more known for its stability and the package system (apt-get) is also excellent.  A simple "apt-get upgrade & update" in a daily cronjob will do, without all the recompiling you'll have with gentoo.

Don't get me wrong i love gentoo on my desktop and having all the latest of the latest, but for a server where stability and security is more important i choose debian.

----------

## ChopChopMasterOnion

not to erupt a holy war, but it is important to note that many people, especialy people new to linux, have had more luck in Gentoo's community getting help than in Debian's.

That said, Debian is a fairly good distro, and reasonably solid.  I personally find Gentoo's portage system to be less cryptic than apt, though I think apt's packages are probably less prone to failing their installs due to usually being binary rather than source.  Also, Debian's insistence on defaulting to a 2.2 kernel can be a pain for anyone who needs drivers or functions from newer kernels (they do provide an option for a 2.4 kernel, but my experience with that feature was a rocky road.  ymmv).

----------

## trINItr0n_

I just recently switched from Suse to Gentoo cause i wanted to mess with kde 3.2, kernel 2.6 etc, 

and i must say i was impressed by simple and good documented install, the portage system, startup speed and ... the nice community.  :Smile: 

But for someone asking for the most secure distro for a server i woudnt reccommend it.

I havnt researched this but i dont think you will find much large companies running their servers on gentoo (correct me if im wrong).

For debian you will, its know for its stability and security, its unstable branch is know to be more stable than most distro's stable branch .. so go figure  :Smile: 

Also i didnt have any problems installing with 2.4 kernel, you just have to select it during install....

Dont want to erupt a holy war, just giving my humble opinion  :Wink: 

----------

## Akhouk

I manage about 20 Gentoo servers that are mainly doing web, email or firewalling. They are all stable and I have only had one problem to date that cause instability for a while. That was some problem after a glibc/gcc upgrade and for some reason I had to re-emerge them twice. Apart from that, my Gentoo servers are happily still going and are regularly updated to the most recent stable software releases. 

Most of the Gentoo servers I maintain have been migrated from Redhat Linux. I still manage about 5 Redhat servers but prefer looking after the Gentoo ones.

The advantages for me are:

* The great support from the Gentoo forums

* Being able to decide exactly what I want to install and which options to enable at compile time

* Not having to go on site to do a half yearly version upgrade but I can just keep the updates rolling

* The speed - Gentoo is noticeably faster but is really the least important to me of Gentoo's advantages

Having said all that, I think in the end it really depends what you feel comfortable with. Gentoo takes a lot of learning and may not be the ideal solution for many server enviornments. There is no doubt that an RPM based system is easier to install updates and the infinite possible combinations of how Gentoo can be installed always means that there are some combinations that might cause trouble. If you have the experience, I would say go for Gentoo, otherwise Fedora or Debian are best. IMHO.

----------

## DrunkGod

 *ChopChopMasterOnion wrote:*   

> There are 10 types of people in this world;
> 
> those who understand binary and those who don't.

 

Pardon my nit-pick. but shouldn't that be there are 1 types of ....

Otherwise, what is the third?

Now that I got that out of the way ...

I tried Debian, and my experiance (remember I'm fairly new to linux) was that stable was not stable (mine crashed within 24 hours, with stable distro), plus their recommended installation system was broken with apparently no intrest to fix it.  ( I used dselect as the documentation sugjested, but leaned on the forum apt-get was prefered.)  I also discovered they don't really like newbies nor did they desire to do much documentation.  The emphasis was on the massive amount of apps that were available, to which I reply, If I can't use it easily then 7,000 apps is useless to me.

I used to be a finish carpenter, some of my buddies would laugh at my desire to use an air nailer.  They claimed using a hammer was more pure.  But whan I use the air nailer, I can concentrate on where the wood will end up, instead of the nail.

-mac

----------

## ChopChopMasterOnion

 *DrunkGod wrote:*   

>  *ChopChopMasterOnion wrote:*   There are 10 types of people in this world;
> 
> those who understand binary and those who don't. 
> 
> Pardon my nit-pick. but shouldn't that be there are 1 types of ....
> ...

 

but it says (in decimal) 2 types. 0 would still be an absence of people...

but ontopic, I also have heard good things about freebsd for servers.

----------

## neonik

FreeBSD as well as NetBSD and OpenBSD are all three aimed at servers. They have their own differences and you gotta be able to distringuish between what you need and what they provide you with. FreeBSD is perfect overall, it's got O(1) scheduling and performs just close to Linux kernel 2.6 but it is not Linux. OpenBSD is more of a security distribution. NetBSD is the oldest BSD and they've made quite a huge step toward high performance scheduling lately (yet partially, might have been changed already).

As for Linux, there are many distribution, and as you know, most of them are nearly the same, some slightly different, and some are innovative, independent and shortly become base distributions. Example are Red hat (widely spread RPM), Debian (you're not the only one who dislikes it, everyone got his own reasons though) and, certainly, Gentoo (with its innovative Portage system and incredible scalability).

If you want an easy-to-use (that's only if you're not into keeping it up-to-date) but not always stable and are ready to have lots of fun with "dependecy hell", you can try out Red Hat and its derivatives, which you obviously have already done. If you want a stable distribution (they claim so at least), and are ready to accept the fact your hardware is not always supported and also aren't into keeping the system up-to-date, try Debian, which you as well have already tried to do/have done. And well, there's also Gentoo on the list. To get things straight right ahead, there is no personal bias. But I do agree on Gentoo being a meta-distribution. Its scalability and independence, also ability to be configured and automated (you can customize it manually and do everything manually just as well as automated - from keeping the system up-to-date to compiling the kernel - extend it if you like). I've talked, however, to people claiming Gentoo be not a meta distribution, I don't want to run a personal rant here, let's keep it clear from it, but Gentoo is yet it (I've been using it for quite some time now... since October last year). I've surely come across different issues and problems mostly caused by my lack of knowledge and experience, but in that short period of time I've learned more about Linux and programming than in all my past attempts. Thanks a lot, Gentoo developers!

Looks quite biased, but I'm expressing just my experience with different flavors of Linux. I've also used Red Hat, SuSE, Mandrake, Debian... got close to Slackware... got a CD with Arch Linux here too... You know, to be honest, Gentoo is a universal distribution. You can't just say here it's a preference case because it is different from all other Linux distributions. Earlier, before installing Gentoo, I was switching distributions pretty often, such a long period of time as I've been using Gentoo for until now was not a case before.

Your major question was "Is it stable?", I can say it is stable, and how... I guess somewhere it outperforms Debian in stability. Experimenting with highly aggressive CFLAGS to compile system applications with and using experimental compilators and libraries, I never had a system lockup or freezes. The only issue I had was a bug in the Kernel self, which within 1 day got a reply from gentoo-dev-sources including a patch for it. So the answer to "Is it stable?" is definitely a strong "Yes". Furthermore you can self define whether you want a stable or an unstable system by modifying the variable ACCEPT_KEYWORDS in /etc/make.conf (a value equal x86 would mean you want a stable x86 architecture based system, ~x86 would mean you want an unstable system); that said, my system that has never used x86 (stable) - was always "unstable" - has never had an issue with it.

One of  the greatest advantages apart from Portage (which you surely have already read of - if not, please take a look at the documentation section), is its unification. It is a universal distribution, and not a chaotic package manager with loads of unordered packages based on the Linux kernel. The forums you're reading now, the Bugzilla... even the Portage, everything united to an operating system with incredible scalability.

Gentoo Linux is very customizable and is the only operating system that could cover all my needs and fulfill my requests.

If I was to run a server, I surely would go for Gentoo Linux.

It is just an all-in-one distribution, you get what you want from it, perfectly modularized package management (fully automatical). It's the best choice for an administrator, as you're given everything to administer the system.

For some the above might sound as bias, but it is only my personal opinion and if you disagree with it, please let me know of it.

Edit:

1. spelling

----------

## Syntaxis

 *Akhouk wrote:*   

> Being able to decide exactly what I want to install and which options to enable at compile time

 

This is a valid argument, but I think it's also fair to mention the flip side of the coin: the need to install the headers of every piece of software, and to dedicate several gigs of space to use during compilation. Additionally, if you use KDE, for example, Debian currently allows you much greater choice over which components to install than Gentoo.

I point this out because some people appear to have the mistaken impression that using Gentoo rather than a binary distribution such as Debian will leave them with more free hard-drive space ("Look, ma - no bloat!") which is utterly bogus IMO.

----------

## neonik

You always got USE flags which let you determine what's gonna be installed. You need more space during the compilation, it can be set to autoclean. If you got the sources cleaned out, you'll get about the same space left depending on your CFLAGS). And I believe you have more options with Gentoo that Debian.

Sure a negative part of it is that you need to spend quite some time to compile the applications, can't argue on that, but you get a customized/personalized system that responds to your very own needs.

----------

## Syntaxis

 *neonik wrote:*   

> You need more space during the compilation, it can be set to autoclean. If you got the sources cleaned out, you'll get about the same space left depending on your CFLAGS).

 

I was referring to the headers that get installed under /usr/lib/<package name>/include, which binary distributions provide as separate, optional <package name>-dev packages. 

Autoclean doesn't do anything about these, AFAIK.

----------

## neonik

No, autoclean does not do this. I see now, what you mean. The *-dev packages.

----------

## Jaxom

I don't think it can get much better than this.....

I worked for this ISP for 4 years before I recently purchased it.  When I first came to work here I couldn't get the owner to understand that linux is much faster and more stable than windows.  About a year and a half ago our Windows based DNS server started to take a giant dump on its self so I managed to just stick in a Gentoo Linux server.  He of course was pleased and let it go at that.  I never could get him to let me put more on the network.  I did an extensive search with each and every distro out there to see which was going to fit my needs more accurately and....Gentoo fit them all.

Well, now I own the place and have almost switched everything over to gentoo.  I might also add that not once during the past 1.5 years has my ns1 gone down for more than a second while I was doing updates and/or restarting services.

Now....onto the bread and butter of this story.  I am now running almost an entire ISP/webhost on Gentoo.  I went from 12 Windows servers to 6 Gentoo boxes and doing almost twice the work than I was with the windows boxes. 

Granted the windows references doesn't help against Redhat, but I can tell you from my extensive searches and trials that Redhat couldn't do what I'm doing now with the equipment I'm using.  Gentoo might not be the easiest distro to use, but it's one of the most configurable out there.  If you decide to go the Gentoo route, expect to have to take the time to learn a little bit about what you're doing as you go along because you will need to.  But I can tell you that it's pretty damn solid  :Smile: 

With all that said

----------

