I am going for a dedicated hosted server for a rails app I am working
on, and have a choice from several different operating systems. I
excluded windows 2003 from the list because it has been giving RMagick
fits for me.
The app is Ruby 1.8.4, Rails 1.1.2, mySQL 5.0
The contestants are:
Red Hat Enterprise 3.0
Red Hat Enterprise 4.0
Debian
CentOS
FreeBSD
I’m leaning towards Debian, but I’m not sure about how well RoR plays
with it. Is any one better than the others? Or should I just go with
personal preference?
I’m mainly looking to avoid setup/configuration hassles.
Joe C. wrote:
I am going for a dedicated hosted server for a rails app I am working
on, and have a choice from several different operating systems. I
excluded windows 2003 from the list because it has been giving RMagick
fits for me.
The app is Ruby 1.8.4, Rails 1.1.2, mySQL 5.0
The contestants are:
Red Hat Enterprise 3.0
Red Hat Enterprise 4.0
Debian
CentOS
FreeBSD
I’m leaning towards Debian, but I’m not sure about how well RoR plays
with it. Is any one better than the others? Or should I just go with
personal preference?
I’ve run RoR on Debian 3.1 (Sarge) using the stable packages (apt-get)
for Ruby. Now, Ruby is at 1.82 (stable) so if you need 1.84 you need to
go into the unstable branch. For the most part it was pretty good. At
the time I was running Lighty and FastCGI. I did notice a memory leak
though but never pinned it down where it was coming from.
I ended up going to Litespeed + Mongrel and haven’t looked back.
To be honest, my next server is might be going to be at:
(I know, I know, Mac Minis aren’t real servers, but my clients demands
are not at the enterprise level and a mini running the RoR apps will be
just fine.)
→ Steve
On 6/23/06, Joe C. [email protected] wrote:
Debian
CentOS
FreeBSD
FWIW, I use GeekISP where RoR is hosted on the following:
OpenBSD 3.9 GENERIC#617 i386
ruby 1.8.4 (2005-12-24) [i386-openbsd3.9]
Rails 1.1.2
MySQL - 4.1.15
Not MySQL 5.0, granted.
My 2 cents: you should just go with personal preference so that you
can spend your time on your app and not on messing with a new
environment.
Joe C. wrote:
I am going for a dedicated hosted server for a rails app I am working
on, and have a choice from several different operating systems. I
excluded windows 2003 from the list because it has been giving RMagick
fits for me.
The app is Ruby 1.8.4, Rails 1.1.2, mySQL 5.0
The contestants are:
Red Hat Enterprise 3.0
Red Hat Enterprise 4.0
Debian
CentOS
FreeBSD
I’m leaning towards Debian, but I’m not sure about how well RoR plays
with it. Is any one better than the others? Or should I just go with
personal preference?
I’m mainly looking to avoid setup/configuration hassles.
I developed a number of rails/ruby apps on Debian a while back. It’s
good. I think the only major hassle I had with it occurred when I went
to install Ruby 1.8.4 (so I could make use of Mongrel). The package was
a little difficult to obtain and install.
I really like FreeBSD. I’ve got a few production rails apps hosted on
a FreeBSD box now. Nice to use and easy to configure and maintain.
Joe C. wrote:
Debian
CentOS
FreeBSD
If you’re going to look at Debian, than look at Ubuntu, since they just
came out
with a stable 6.06 release last month which has pretty current packages.
I’m leaning towards Debian, but I’m not sure about how well RoR plays
with it. Is any one better than the others? Or should I just go with
personal preference?
I use RoR on Ubuntu myself.
I’m mainly looking to avoid setup/configuration hassles.
Regards,
Blair
–
Blair Z., Ph.D.
[email protected]
Subversion training, consulting and support
http://www.orcaware.com/svn/
carmen wrote:
or the mac approach:
buying overpriced hardware, (searching the web, clicking 3 sourceforge
links in a row , downloading a disk image, uncompressing the disk image,
copying stuff from the disk image, deleting the disk image and the
compressed disk image and hoping its compatible with 10.4.3.6 in
addition to the authors 10.4.5) * 12,
Whoa! Its one thing to bash Microsoft 
but TOTALLY different to
bash Apple. Hardware is not overpriced, that rumor has outlived it’s
lifespan - and frankly its getting a bit tired already…
I can have a Mac system up and running rails with a database in about 15
minutes at most. I have no issues with Linux, but there is no way a Mac
install is any slower than any other *nix.
–> Steve
I’m mainly looking to avoid setup/configuration hassles.
i’d recommend gentoo. you simply use the graphical installer (or boot
from a livecd, untar the base, edit the fstab and set a pass), make a
few definitions in a file /etc/make.conf, eg:
VIDEO_CARDS=nvidia
INPUT_DEVICES=“keyboard mouse wacom”
USE="-kde -qt ruby mysql -postgres"
and emerge rails, fluxbox emacs xorg-x11. 30-45 minutes later (on a
recent dualcore intel or amd), youre ready to rock…
the windows approach:
downloading stuff off emule or uh, paying for it?, clicking ‘next’ a
dozen times * a dozen times and running regedit tweaks and manually
installing vendor drivers that werent included on the install-cd
(usually an extra challenge with ethernet requiring another computer and
a blank CDR),
or the mac approach:
buying overpriced hardware, (searching the web, clicking 3 sourceforge
links in a row , downloading a disk image, uncompressing the disk image,
copying stuff from the disk image, deleting the disk image and the
compressed disk image and hoping its compatible with 10.4.3.6 in
addition to the authors 10.4.5) * 12,
feel positively obsolete in comparison… you should give this gentoo
thing a try 
I’m digging Debian boxes over @ rimuhosting.com.
Whoa! Its one thing to bash Microsoft but TOTALLY different to
bash Apple. Hardware is not overpriced
i dunno, i’m partial to MSI’s barebones. since they dont come with parts
besides a screen and keyboard and mainboard, by the time you add them,
it comes out to half the price of a macbook pro. and its still made of
metal. not some chintsy HP/Dell plastc or anything
I can have a Mac system up and running rails with a database in about 15
minutes at most. I have no issues with Linux, but there is no way a Mac
install is any slower than any other *nix.
its slower once its installed (which is usually taken care of). but
hopefully they fix their kernel soon, so people can use it for
deployment (and im encouraged to switch back. paying extra for worse
performance and no unified nice installer system and no ability to fix
any bugs, sucks in my view)
Gentoo seconded… I develop on mac and windows with production on linux
and
windows. Gentoo makes staying up to date very easy, and also creates a
very
lean system.
No matter what is chosen lots of RAM Helps 
I’m mainly looking to avoid setup/configuration hassles.
Debian will be fine. Even though I use Ubuntu on the desktop daily for
more than a year, I have found that using Debian stable/unstable more
stable than Ubuntu when it comes to servers.
I would avoid anything .rpm based especially Fedora Core (support leaves
too quickly)
I’d say freebsd. Theres lots of ruby ports that make things like
installing rmagick really really easy. I tried installing the stack on
redhat and it took 5 times longer and still has issues with paths etc.
Wow, thanks for all of the good advice!
I would love to use Ubuntu, which I use at home along with XP, but it’s
not in the list of available OS’s that my provider is offering (server
matrix over at the planet).
I’ve gone with Debian, and found a really nice article on setting the
whole thing up here:
http://brainspl.at/rails_stack.html
The only thing I changed from the setup is grabbing the latest versions
of everything. Everything seemed to go fairly smoothly so far.
I have the environment setup, tonight I upload my app and see if I can
get it running.
On Sun Jun 25, 2006 at 09:49:43PM +0200, Adam wrote:
I’d say freebsd. Theres lots of ruby ports that make things like
installing rmagick really really easy. I tried installing the stack on
redhat and it took 5 times longer and still has issues with paths etc.
of course thats a totally unfair contest. a more reasonabe comparison
would be between debian(sid),freebsd,gentoo
i seem to recall a special version of ruby was needed to deal with
freeBSD pthreads issues. is this still the case?