Hi,
For those of you with large scale sites, is there a particular linux
distro that seems to work best with rails. Or is there a distro i should
stay away from? For servers that I setup right now, I use CentOS and
gentoo. Thanks!
On Wed, Dec 13, 2006 at 04:31:53PM +0100, Justin M. wrote:
} For those of you with large scale sites, is there a particular linux
} distro that seems to work best with rails. Or is there a distro i
should
} stay away from? For servers that I setup right now, I use CentOS and
} gentoo. Thanks!
Distro doesn’t matter. Kernel might. Hardware does. If you like CentOS
and
gentoo, go ahead and use them. I much prefer Debian. Work uses Redhat.
Whatever.
The more interesting question is probably how you will deploy your app.
Part of that is stuff like lighttpd vs. mongrel vs. whatever. Part of it
is
whether you will want to use your distribution’s package management
system
to manage versioning of your app and such. Part of it is making sure
that
all the moving parts (web server, file server, memcached/Drb, database,
etc.) stay up and get bounced when necessary.
When it comes to large sites, the watchword should be “repeatability.”
If
you don’t have a repeatable process for bringing a new machine from zero
to
fully functioning member of your server farm (whether web server, load
balancer, DB server, rails server, etc.), you’re screwed.
–Greg
Justin M. wrote:
Hi,
For those of you with large scale sites, is there a particular linux
distro that seems to work best with rails. Or is there a distro i should
stay away from? For servers that I setup right now, I use CentOS and
gentoo. Thanks!
Without a doubt I’d choose the distribution you have the most experience
with. If there are multiple candidates I’d choose the one with a well
maintained up to date Ruby package in it’s main repository. I would
avoid using distribution packages for Rails and instead use Gems for all
third party ruby libraries. They simply move to fast for the Linux
distributions to keep up with them.
I’m currently using Ubuntu 6.06 server for my only small deployment and
am very happy with it. Ruby, PostgreSQL and Apache2(fcgid) from apt.
Gems installed from source and Rails and other libraries from gems.
It’s an all in one setup but it only needs to handle 5-7 constant users.
It’s been very stable and easy to maintain.
If I was doing a large deployment I’d stick with Ubuntu I think but
switch to an Apache2.2 proxy and Mongrel clusters because it seems to be
a viable option and it’s the least number of new things for me.
Which leads me back to the first thing I mentioned… I’d stick whith
the distribution and tools you know if you want a reliable maintainable
setup.
Well i’m using gentoo with ror and no problem till now 
I currently use Ubuntu server 6.06 LTS for all my servers, as described
here…
and I set them up (repeatably) with capistrano and deprec.
http://deprec.rubyforge.org/
I tend to use daemon tools to keep critical services up and running.
On Dec 13, 7:31 am, Justin M. [email protected]
On Dec 13, 2006, at 7:31 AM, Justin M. wrote:
Hi,
For those of you with large scale sites, is there a particular linux
distro that seems to work best with rails. Or is there a distro i
should
stay away from? For servers that I setup right now, I use CentOS and
gentoo. Thanks!
I have setup most major linux distros to run rails and without a
doubt my favorite is gentoo by a wide margin. I used to favor debian/
ubuntu but the way they mangle the ruby packages totally turned me
off. WHen i tell gentoo to emerge ruby , it does so without leaving
parts of the stdlib out.
Gentoo++
Cheers-
– Ezra Z.
– Lead Rails Evangelist
– [email protected]
– Engine Y., Serious Rails Hosting
– (866) 518-YARD (9273)
On 12/13/06, Ezra Z. [email protected] wrote:
I have setup most major linux distros to run rails and without adoubt my favorite is gentoo by a wide margin. I used to favor debian/
ubuntu but the way they mangle the ruby packages totally turned me
off. WHen i tell gentoo to emerge ruby , it does so without leaving
parts of the stdlib out.
What parts are being left out? When I do
apt-cache search ruby|grep stdlib
I get nothing.
–
Greg D.
http://destiney.com/
On 12/13/06, Greg D. [email protected] wrote:
On 12/13/06, Ezra Z. [email protected] wrote:
I have setup most major linux distros to run rails and without adoubt my favorite is gentoo by a wide margin. I used to favor debian/
ubuntu but the way they mangle the ruby packages totally turned me
off. WHen i tell gentoo to emerge ruby , it does so without leaving
parts of the stdlib out.What parts are being left out?
Lots. I can’t remember the full list as it’s been a while, but
openssl was one. Worse, they even change the names. Like openssl is
shortened to ssl, etc… Debian/ubuntu are nice distro’s, but I hate
the way they break things up into so many packages. It no longer
makes sense in a world where disk space is so cheap, not that it ever
made that much sense IMO anyways. Not having such and such dev
library installed is the root of so many questions on list after list,
and it’s a huge time waster for the majority of end users.
And not to poke too much fun at Debian, but maybe all the time spent
breaking up things like ruby into 20 different pieces is why they
can’t get a release out to save their lives.
Chris
On 14/12/2006, at 2:31 AM, Justin M. wrote:
For those of you with large scale sites, is there a particular linux
distro that seems to work best with rails. Or is there a distro i
should
stay away from? For servers that I setup right now, I use CentOS and
gentoo. Thanks!
Go with Ubuntu, because then you can use the fabulous deprec (http://
blog.craigambrose.com/articles/tag/deprec).
Pete Y.
Lots. I can’t remember the full list as it’s been a while, but
openssl was one. Worse, they even change the names. Like openssl is
shortened to ssl, etc… Debian/ubuntu are nice distro’s, but I hate
the way they break things up into so many packages. It no longer
makes sense in a world where disk space is so cheap, not that it ever
made that much sense IMO anyways. Not having such and such dev
library installed is the root of so many questions on list after list,
and it’s a huge time waster for the majority of end users.And not to poke too much fun at Debian, but maybe all the time spent
breaking up things like ruby into 20 different pieces is why they
can’t get a release out to save their lives.Chris
I think the idea behind it is to get what you need and keep the binaries
from being bloated by using shared libraries.
Ezra Z. wrote:
I have setup most major linux distros to run rails and without a
doubt my favorite is gentoo by a wide margin. I used to favor debian/
ubuntu but the way they mangle the ruby packages totally turned me
off. WHen i tell gentoo to emerge ruby , it does so without leaving
parts of the stdlib out.Gentoo++
I’ll agree that it tends to be a high traffic issue for people not
familiar with managing Debian based system but I do prefer it. I prefer
that the optional components of the source package are bundled
separately. This keeps the optional parts optional. It leaves room to
make meta packages to bundle parts if you want.
There is a Rails package in both Debian testing and Ubuntu Universe for
those people who do not want to (or are not able to) manage it
themselves.
On 12/13/06, snacktime [email protected] wrote:
Lots. I can’t remember the full list as it’s been a while, but
openssl was one. Worse, they even change the names. Like openssl is
shortened to ssl, etc…
Seems named properly to me:
apt-cache search ruby|grep ssl
libopenssl-ruby - OpenSSL interface for Ruby
libopenssl-ruby1.9 - OpenSSL interface for Ruby 1.9
libopenssl-ruby1.8 - OpenSSL interface for Ruby 1.8
Debian/ubuntu are nice distro’s, but I hate
the way they break things up into so many packages.
How is this different from Gentoo’s 161 ‘ruby’ packages?
http://packages.gentoo.org/search/?sstring=ruby
It no longer
makes sense in a world where disk space is so cheap, not that it ever
made that much sense IMO anyways.
It makes perfect sense. If you don’t need it then you don’t have it
forced on you, just like USE flags in Gentoo.
Not having such and such dev
library installed is the root of so many questions on list after list,
and it’s a huge time waster for the majority of end users.
People who need help ask questions. If you don’t want to help them or
be bothered by their ‘huge time waster’ type of questions, then
unsubscribe from the list.
And not to poke too much fun at Debian, but maybe all the time spent
breaking up things like ruby into 20 different pieces is why they
can’t get a release out to save their lives.
There was a release just last month:
http://www.us.debian.org/News/2006/20061106
which was after Gentoo’s last release:
http://www.gentoo.org/news/20060830-release.xml
–
Greg D.
http://destiney.com/