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Non-Red Hat Linux Hosting?

Posted by Cliff on from the for-those-who-prefer-spirals dept.

An anonymous reader asks: "Well, my web host is down again, so I thought I'd ask the Slashdot faithful if they can recommend any GNU/Linux based hosting sites (preferably virtual servers) running distributions besides Red Hat. I know this has been covered in the past, but it seems everyone uses Red Hat, and I'm a Debian type person. Anyone out there have a host they can recommend?"

24 of 64 comments (clear)

  1. Does it really matter? by OutRigged · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I know there are differences between the two distros, but are there any differences that warrant a preference over one or the other? Is Debian faster performance wise, compared to Redhat?

    Or is this a whole matter of personal preference?

    --
    RaGe
    We're all just noise on the wires..
    1. Re:Does it really matter? by dev0n · · Score: 2, Informative

      I was going to ask the same thing. From a shared hosting point of view, it doesn't really matter too much. IMHO, of course. :) You won't have root access to a shared hosting server, so all you really need the space for is for storing content and parsing scripts. And either distribution will do those things.

      Unless of course he's referring to dedicated hosting, in which case he should be able to choose his own distribution.

    2. Re:Does it really matter? by irc.goatse.cx+troll · · Score: 2, Informative

      Its just shalowness. He dosnt want to be associated with redhat users, because its not 'cool' enough for him. In reality, nothing a user hosts would notice a difference between distros. Thats why POSIX standards were made -- So all applications can follow them and not worry about enviroment. The only major relevant difference would be apache configs, but I strongly doubt a professional hosting company would be using a default apache install.
      Instead, he should look at more important things like price and speed. BSDLink.net (main page currently down) offers unlmited bandwidth plans for as low as $3 a month, and thats on a 100mbit line. I dont think anyones HTML cares if its being served off a FreeBSD box, a RedHat box, or a Debian box.

      --
      Pain lasts, kid. Its how you know you're alive. Sometimes I think this growing up thing is just pain management-TheMaxx
    3. Re:Does it really matter? by m0rph3us0 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Of course it matters, OS determines what kind of things you can do on your page. The distribution and testing that goes into the distribution determines how stable it will be, as far as I can see Debian has lot more stringent guidelines for stability then Red Hat, compare version numbers in Debian 3.0 to Red Hat 7.3, Red Hat contains alot newer code, which means generally more unstable.Personally, I provide my clients with OpenBSD when they do not have a preference.

    4. Re:Does it really matter? by m0rph3us0 · · Score: 4, Informative

      Heh, shared hosting servers are a cess pool of insecurity generally, infact most admins fail to recognize that in a shared hosting environment local exploits become remote exploits because lots of users put plainly dumb scripts on a server. Thus, admins fail to patch local security problems, and voila people have root.

  2. If you want dedicated server by krishnaD · · Score: 2, Informative

    Most of all the web hosting guys will install and give you whatever OS you want on a dedicated server. You can get one from http://www.rackspace.com

  3. nfsn by Taral · · Score: 2, Informative

    www.nearlyfreespeech.net is always a good choice -- but I'm not sure whether or not they run Red Hat.

    --
    Taral

    WARN_(accel)("msg null; should hang here to be win compatible\n");
    -- WINE source code

  4. Not the distro by mnordstr · · Score: 5, Insightful

    "Well, my web host is down again"

    It's not the distro that's failing, it's either the sysadmin or the network. (or perhaps the hardware)

    1. Re:Not the distro by inkfox · · Score: 2
      It's not the distro that's failing, it's either the sysadmin or the network. (or perhaps the hardware)

      If he's purely talking about web hosting, the question doesn't seem to make much sense.

      For a dedicated server, I know that I'd prefer Debian, however. Because it's better? No.

      I've got several years wrapped up in Debian and FreeBSD. They're what I know, and what I trust myself most to secure and, more importantly, to administer remotely without botching and needing to go back to a tape or a CD reinstaller and a load of rsyncing. I think in this context, the question is quite valid.

      --
      Says the RIAA: When you EQ, you're stealing bass!
    2. Re:Not the distro by Suppafly · · Score: 2

      "Well, my web host is down again"

      It's not the distro that's failing, it's either the sysadmin or the network. (or perhaps the hardware)

      Yes, but he's obviously in the market for a new host since his other one sucks, so he's trying to find one that is configured more to his liking.. I don't see anything that suggests that he thinks redhat is the reason it is down.. but the fact that it is down is the reason he is looking for a new one..

    3. Re:Not the distro by mnordstr · · Score: 2

      Non-Red Hat Linux Hosting?

      The topic says it all...

  5. Red Hat versus Debian? by Henry+V+.009 · · Score: 4, Funny

    I always make sure to choose my web hosts based on hair or eye color of the sys admin. I don't like people with the letter 'D' in their name. Also, the shirt style is a big deal to me.

    I can tell that you are a discerning person, just like me.

  6. My recommendation by Panoramix · · Score: 2, Informative

    I can recommend "Dreamhost". I had a couple of websites with them for almost 3 years, until very recently (moved the sites to my own servers). They are not the cheapest, I think, but they have fast pipes and very stable servers. In all that time I only remember one long downtime, of some hours, because of a hardware failure (when they fixed it and reported/apologized for it, they included a picture of the faulty component --just geeky enough). They also have a decent account administration web system, and the support guys actually have blood flowing through their brains. And yes, they're a Debian shop.

    Having said that, the distro probably doesn't matter if you're not the admin. Yes, choosing Debian over RH may speak well about their skill and knowledge... but to be completely honest, I didn't notice it was Debian until a year or so.

    Hope this helps.

    1. Re:My recommendation by baldass_newbie · · Score: 2

      Another vote for dreamhost. The guys have been awesome.

      --
      The opposite of progress is congress
  7. It's all about the apt-get MAN! by Vodak · · Score: 3, Insightful

    It could very well be your web hosting company's system administrators not doing their job. It could be some little script kiddie playing bad games on your hosting company. It could even be your ISP that won't let you connect to your host. All of these things have nothing to do with it being Redhat or not.

    Why choose Debian over Redhat? does it give you some nifty little feature? Hell yeah. apt-get r0x. Should your hosting company install Debian over Redhat simply because it has apt-get? HELL NO

  8. Recommendation by headshrinker · · Score: 2, Informative

    A lot of friends use Rhydio which is a UK-based company and only have good things to say about them. They run Slackware.

  9. i hate to say this, but... by kevin+lyda · · Score: 2

    did you chack google? a little ways down searching on debian hosting i see a link to tummy.com and their debian hosting. add in the word "web" and the search seems to have even more on offer.

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    US Citizen living abroad? Register to vote!
  10. Yes it does. by oli_freyr · · Score: 2, Insightful

    We got bit in the behind a few weeks ago. Red Hat decided that it was a good idea to close a recent security hole in PHP by upgrading the PHP packages in 7.2 from 4.0.6 -> 4.1.2.
    The only problem was that some of our customers were using custom modules for PHP. For them the upgrade was time consuming (costly) and happened later than necessary.

    Right now there is a memory leak in the PHP 4.1.2 packages from RH due to shared memory not being released, and the QA people have been letting it sit there for a whole month!!
    The result will probably be that they introduce PHP 4.2.2 as a fix...

    I've been using Debian at home for 4 years now, and I think their security team does an excellent job! Especially wrt not upgrading a package version unless it is absolutely necessary. (Then they dropped the ball with SSH a few weeks ago. ;)

    The net result is that we are considering a move from RH to Debian so we will get better bugfix handling as well as better overall quality of the packages. If we need bleeding edge software we can in most cases fetch the source package from unstable and compile it for woody... (that's what i've done on my home workstation).

    <plug severity="shameless">
    You can visit our website at http://www.rackserv.com.
    (Sorry, danish only since our target is the danish hosting market :-/)
    </plug>

  11. No difference by 0x0d0a · · Score: 2

    ...unless you're an admin, especially if you're are poking at the package system.

    He probably just wants to have Debian to "have Debian".

    --
    May we never see th
    1. Re:No difference by Suppafly · · Score: 2

      He probably just wants to have Debian to "have Debian".

      Well from that standpoint, most of the people who want linux servers in general just want linux to have linux.. for just displaying html and running basic scripts, windows would work just as well.. if you are gonna pay for something, might as well find what you want..

  12. Check the debian.org site.. by krs-one · · Score: 2

    Check http://www.debian.org/partners/.

    Chances are, one of the sponsors there (specifically Brainfood, which provides machines and hosting) uses Debian on their servers.

    Might be worth sending them an email and seeing what they say.

    -Vic

  13. iexposure.com by austad · · Score: 2

    iexposure.com is debian based. They aren't super cheap $10/month place though. But they don't throw 3000 sites on a single box either. I use them for a couple of sites, and haven't had any problems.

    --
    Need Free Juniper/NetScreen Support? JuniperForum
  14. apt-get is a moot point by Nailer · · Score: 2

    You can run apt get on distros which use standard Linux (RPM) packages too. And you can use up2date to do the same thing - download apps and any dependencies necessary to install them on your system. And redhat-config-packages in RH 8.0 provides a cute interface for it all :).

  15. Hosting by Sturm · · Score: 2

    Check out Mikro Data