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debian or ubuntu best for server solution in production

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digitalghost
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debian or ubuntu best for server solution in production

#1 Post by digitalghost »

Folks,
I am sort of new to running Linux in production; however, I have been put on a team that advocating the use of Ubuntu Server for a production build. Due to the latter, what does Ubuntu offer over Debian Stable? I am under the impression that Ubuntu Server LTS is built upon Debian Testing. If that is true, why would someone select Testing for production build?

I use both Debian and Ubuntu; however, I lean towards Debian more. However, that is not to say that I am open for new concepts and different methods and ways of thinking. Yet - I want to have a logical conversation with system administrators about the Pros and Cons of deploying both Ubuntu and Debian in a production state, since the only individuals around me are programmers and dev-ops.

Thank you
DG

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Ardouos
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Re: debian or ubuntu best for server solution in production

#2 Post by Ardouos »

Asking that question on a Debian forum would surely lead to bias, even then both systems have their advantages and disadvantages. Both systems have been proven to work as production servers, pick your poison.
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digitalghost
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Re: debian or ubuntu best for server solution in production

#3 Post by digitalghost »

Ardouos wrote:Asking that question on a Debian forum would surely lead to bias, even then both systems have their advantages and disadvantages. Both systems have been proven to work as production servers, pick your poison.
OK understand, but are the two systems similar for system administration point-of-view?

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Re: debian or ubuntu best for server solution in production

#4 Post by reinob »

digitalghost wrote:I am under the impression that Ubuntu Server LTS is built upon Debian Testing. If that is true, why would someone select Testing for production build?
Ubuntu may be loosely based on debian testing packages (I wouldn't say that though..), but in any case they provide what they have tested, so it's by no means equivalent to debian testing, which is definitely NOT suitable for anything stable or facing internet. Ubuntu (stable, whatever version) should be, just like (i.e. more or less equivalent to) Debian stable.

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Re: debian or ubuntu best for server solution in production

#5 Post by reinob »

digitalghost wrote:
Ardouos wrote:Asking that question on a Debian forum would surely lead to bias, even then both systems have their advantages and disadvantages. Both systems have been proven to work as production servers, pick your poison.
OK understand, but are the two systems similar for system administration point-of-view?
If you need to ask, my answer would be yes.

digitalghost
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Re: debian or ubuntu best for server solution in production

#6 Post by digitalghost »

reinob wrote:
digitalghost wrote:
Ardouos wrote:Asking that question on a Debian forum would surely lead to bias, even then both systems have their advantages and disadvantages. Both systems have been proven to work as production servers, pick your poison.
OK understand, but are the two systems similar for system administration point-of-view?
If you need to ask, my answer would be yes.
Thank you... I am coming from the RH ecosystem, but Debian and the connected ecosystem is new to me. Thank you for you help.
Last edited by digitalghost on 2018-11-14 18:17, edited 1 time in total.

digitalghost
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Re: debian or ubuntu best for server solution in production

#7 Post by digitalghost »

reinob wrote:
digitalghost wrote:I am under the impression that Ubuntu Server LTS is built upon Debian Testing. If that is true, why would someone select Testing for production build?
Ubuntu may be loosely based on debian testing packages (I wouldn't say that though..), but in any case they provide what they have tested, so it's by no means equivalent to debian testing, which is definitely NOT suitable for anything stable or facing internet. Ubuntu (stable, whatever version) should be, just like (i.e. more or less equivalent to) Debian stable.
You have me baffled as to how you worded this statement. So - are you saying that Ubuntu is not built upon Debian Testing? I was under the impression that is how newer packages are found in Ubuntu's repo, yet I am uncertain.

Thank you

milomak
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Re: debian or ubuntu best for server solution in production

#8 Post by milomak »

digitalghost wrote:
reinob wrote:
digitalghost wrote:I am under the impression that Ubuntu Server LTS is built upon Debian Testing. If that is true, why would someone select Testing for production build?
Ubuntu may be loosely based on debian testing packages (I wouldn't say that though..), but in any case they provide what they have tested, so it's by no means equivalent to debian testing, which is definitely NOT suitable for anything stable or facing internet. Ubuntu (stable, whatever version) should be, just like (i.e. more or less equivalent to) Debian stable.
You have me baffled as to how you worded this statement. So - are you saying that Ubuntu is not built upon Debian Testing? I was under the impression that is how newer packages are found in Ubuntu's repo, yet I am uncertain.

Thank you
i haven't followed the ubuntu and debian dependency in a long while

back in the day, the ubuntu developers started with a debian testing base. and then built their own os from there. so they may build a stable distro from that point. which is totally different from any of debian stable, testing or unstable.

it is why you can get lucky with installing an ubuntu package. but it is actually a bad idea as what will happen is that ubuntu will move further away from debian stable (and even testing) and then you are left with a big job trying to get your system back to debian.

so to the original question - each distro that releases a server solution probably releases one that is production strong. with debian and ubuntu it then probably becomes do you want:
i) the reputation of a long testing method that debian uses to release a distro albeit with older app versions, or
ii) the newer ubuntu versions which will have also been tested but possibly without the long lead time of debian
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Re: debian or ubuntu best for server solution in production

#9 Post by pcalvert »

I researched this earlier in the year and decided on Debian. Debian is closer to Red Hat/CentOS in the sense of being a rock-solid OS.

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Re: debian or ubuntu best for server solution in production

#10 Post by reinob »

digitalghost wrote:
reinob wrote:
digitalghost wrote:I am under the impression that Ubuntu Server LTS is built upon Debian Testing. If that is true, why would someone select Testing for production build?
Ubuntu may be loosely based on debian testing packages (I wouldn't say that though..), but in any case they provide what they have tested, so it's by no means equivalent to debian testing, which is definitely NOT suitable for anything stable or facing internet. Ubuntu (stable, whatever version) should be, just like (i.e. more or less equivalent to) Debian stable.
You have me baffled as to how you worded this statement. So - are you saying that Ubuntu is not built upon Debian Testing? I was under the impression that is how newer packages are found in Ubuntu's repo, yet I am uncertain.

Thank you
Here is a more detailed explanation: https://askubuntu.com/questions/701345/ ... or-testing

A distribution may be derived from debian (stable, testing, sid, or any combination thereof), but that doesn't mean they blindly take the packages. They may be -- in the form of a snapshot at a given time -- used as a basis for creating something "stable" (in the sense of "debian stable").

I don't think I can word it more clearly than that :(

themagicm
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Re: debian or ubuntu best for server solution in production

#11 Post by themagicm »

between those two, I'd run CentOS. LOL.

MagicPoulp
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Re: debian or ubuntu best for server solution in production

#12 Post by MagicPoulp »

If you must ask this question, then you'd better stick to Ubuntu. There are 100 times the answer in an internet search.

Debian is more stable. Automatic updates of packages is only supported on Debian stable in the debian doc.
https://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/debi ... te.en.html
quote:
Note: Automatic upgrade of packages is NOT recommended in testing or unstable systems as this might bring unexpected behavior and remove packages without notice.
Since Ubuntu is derived from debian unstable, the updates on Ubuntu are often dangerous by definition and obviously.

People that recommend CentOS don't understand the problem of installing everything from tar ball, and to have super old packages. But in terms of market share CentOS and Debian are equivalent, and are the most popular.

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Re: debian or ubuntu best for server solution in production

#13 Post by llivv »

From my perspective,
Debian works within a model of free software and open sources
Ubuntu works within a model of proprietary ideals. It's a bit darker inside there.

To get an idea of where I'm coming from and how I arrive at these notions
take a quick look in the repos under nuget, libnuget-*, libnunit-* and *-cil

Than question yourself asking "which does it look more like, Debian or Ubuntu?

And don't forget to

reboot

so systemd and manage the machine.
In memory of Ian Ashley Murdock (1973 - 2015) founder of the Debian project.

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Re: debian or ubuntu best for server solution in production

#14 Post by pendrachken »

MagicPoulp wrote:If you must ask this question, then you'd better stick to Ubuntu. There are 100 times the answer in an internet search.

Debian is more stable. Automatic updates of packages is only supported on Debian stable in the debian doc.
https://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/debi ... te.en.html
quote:
Note: Automatic upgrade of packages is NOT recommended in testing or unstable systems as this might bring unexpected behavior and remove packages without notice.
Since Ubuntu is derived from debian unstable, the updates on Ubuntu are often dangerous by definition and obviously.

People that recommend CentOS don't understand the problem of installing everything from tar ball, and to have super old packages. But in terms of market share CentOS and Debian are equivalent, and are the most popular.

Damn, and here I've been using 'yum install foo' on my CentOS workstation VM when I was supposed to be manually installing from tarballs? Silly me..... I should have realized it was worse than RedHat 5, that even way back then had RPM, even if it didn't do automatic dependency installation.
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Re: debian or ubuntu best for server solution in production

#15 Post by shep »

I would lay out your requirements and use that to guide your decision.

Do you need newer server software to provide a feature?
Do you plan to customize/lockdown your servers or will you take the installers defaults?
Does security take precedence over speed?
How does your group feel about Meltdown/Spectre and does it push you to the newer Ryzen CPU's You will need a newer kernel for full Ryzen support

In terms of newer software:
Ubuntu >Debian+Backports > UbuntuLTS/Debian > RHEL 7

RHEL does backport some drivers into the 3.18 kernel but not always without breaking something like wireless drivers.

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Re: debian or ubuntu best for server solution in production

#16 Post by NorthEast »

Damn, and here I've been using 'yum install foo' on my CentOS workstation VM when I was supposed to be manually installing from tarballs? Silly me..... I should have realized it was worse than RedHat 5, that even way back then had RPM, even if it didn't do automatic dependency installation.
Me too ... couldn't help smiling when thinking about all that Red Hat history since the last century.

MagicPoulp
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Re: debian or ubuntu best for server solution in production

#17 Post by MagicPoulp »

NorthEast wrote:
Damn, and here I've been using 'yum install foo' on my CentOS workstation VM when I was supposed to be manually installing from tarballs? Silly me..... I should have realized it was worse than RedHat 5, that even way back then had RPM, even if it didn't do automatic dependency installation.
Me too ... couldn't help smiling when thinking about all that Red Hat history since the last century.
CentOS is often said very stable and secure because RedHat freezes the packages during many years. In practice, it means that many packages will have to be installed manually.

Try to install ruby 2.5. And see how far you go with yum, even with the Fedora EPEL repo.

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Re: debian or ubuntu best for server solution in production

#18 Post by pendrachken »

MagicPoulp wrote:
NorthEast wrote:
Damn, and here I've been using 'yum install foo' on my CentOS workstation VM when I was supposed to be manually installing from tarballs? Silly me..... I should have realized it was worse than RedHat 5, that even way back then had RPM, even if it didn't do automatic dependency installation.
Me too ... couldn't help smiling when thinking about all that Red Hat history since the last century.
CentOS is often said very stable and secure because RedHat freezes the packages during many years. In practice, it means that many packages will have to be installed manually.

Try to install ruby 2.5. And see how far you go with yum, even with the Fedora EPEL repo.

Code: Select all

 yum --enablerepo=centos-sclo-rh -y install rh-ruby25 && scl enable rh-ruby25 bash

ruby -v 
ruby 2.5.0p0 (2017-12-25 revision 61468) [x86_64-linux]




Or use RVM: https://tecadmin.net/install-ruby-latest-stable-centos/

Seems just as easy as using backports. And no worse than using newer software that isn't available in backports on Debian to me.
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Re: debian or ubuntu best for server solution in production

#19 Post by NorthEast »

MagicPoulp wrote:
Try to install ruby 2.5. And see how far you go with yum, even with the Fedora EPEL repo.
Actually, fedora repos are for fedora, and EPEL for centos and RedHatEnterprise. It can be very troublesome to mix them up.

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Re: debian or ubuntu best for server solution in production

#20 Post by MagicPoulp »

Yes I was wrong to call it the "Fedora EPEL repository". It should be called the EPEL repository.

And the EPEL repository does not have that many packages. So you cannot install ruby 2.5 with yum.

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