It’s a keeper!by Jim

Tue
30 Sep 2008
6:09 pm
2

Linux Server Uptime

The long search is over.  I’ve finally decided on my official Linux server distro: ArchLinux.  I’ve spent the last few weeks (and many, many hours) trying out a few different distros and have found the one I want to stick with.  Recently, I installed a trial copy of Windows Home Server after hearing a few recommendations.  This meant that my Linux server (where this blog is hosted, among other sites) would have to make room for another OS.  I don’t think I could survive without a Linux server, though, so I chose to take the virtualization route.  I tried out a few different virtual server programs and found Microsoft’s Virtual Server the most useful.  I wanted to use Sun’s VirtualBox, but Microsoft’s product has a web interface for configuring and controlling your servers: very cool.  Besides, it also automatically starts up as a service, just like it should.

Anyway, I would have used the same distro I had on the machine before installing Windows Home Server, but my version of Ubuntu didn’t seem to like being virtualized and it would freeze nearly every morning.  I got tired of reseting it, so I started looking for more distros.  I tried Fedora: too bloated — especially for a virtual server.  I tried Debian, but it didn’t like living in a virtual environment either; it couldn’t get anything from the repositories.  Then I found Arch (thanks to Antony).  It was just what I wanted: robust, but simple.  Simple meaning complexity, not ease of use.  Arch is not for the faint-hearted.  I consider myself a fairly experienced Linux user, so I gave it a whirl.  As you can see, Arch doesn’t have the freezing problems Ubuntu had.  I’m glad I finally found something that works well.  Arch is here to stay.

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  1. Chris McQueen
    5:34 AM on October 1st, 2008

    Jim:

    I’ve been following a couple blogs of people in high school since I had my ten year HS reunion; came across yours and have enjoyed Angie’s posts (she tells great stories).

    Anyway, this is the geekest post of anyone I’ve seen in highschool. Congrats.

    Windows Hyper-V is pretty cool stuff. I don’t manage my own server (goDaddy and AmazonWS), but I’ve been running virtual machines on my desktop for a number of years to test projects and get around language issues (I localize a lot of my material).

    Feel free to post more about tech stuff. Love this post. I’m going to go check out ArchLinux right now.

  2. Jim
    11:09 AM on October 1st, 2008

    Thanks for your comment. What can I say? I work for a national laboratory working on the world’s biggest laser? I’ve added a new tag “geeky” in light of your comment. Now you can browse my geek-posts even easier.

    I haven’t tried Hyper-V yet, but I’m a big fan of virtualization. Have you tried VirtualBox yet? It has some neat features. The coolest has to be the “seamless-mode”. They’ve got libraries to install in a Linux guest that allows you to display windows right on your host’s desktop. That’s cool.

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