Joey S. Eisma wrote: > ive been wondering, what makes a distro a server? sometimes i overheard > people saying, "pang desktop lang yang distro na yan".. isnt it like i > can simply pick up that "pang desktop.. " and then install server > components (squid, q-mail, apache, what have you...) then it's already a > server? it's all the same kernel right?
Wrong, it is not all the same kernel. I'm using Gentoo and their stock kernel (as such) is patched heavily and when you're given the option to build it there are many options that you're asked to set, including the ability to preempt the kernel lock (useful for desktops, not quite so useful for servers), the internal clock rate (it is suggested to set to 100 Hz for servers, 1000 Hz for desktops so that interactive response is better), and are given a choice of schedulers, some of which are optimized for servers, others more geared to desktops. I imagine the kernel options for "server-grade" distros such as RHEL or SLES have similar options set which desktop GNU/Linux distros have totally different parameters to. It is important to remember that there are very few GNU/Linux distros that make use of the stock kernel from Linus Torvalds without adding any patches (Slackware is the only one I know of that does this), most will incorporate patches that they feel are useful for the flavor of distro they're trying to create. Another thing that most so-called "server-grade" distros have that "desktop" distros generally do not is enterprise support. That's why RHEL and SLES are so expensive: you don't pay for the software, but rather a support contract with Red Hat or SuSE. They also pay to have their software certified by finicky proprietary software companies like Oracle so that they can be officially supported. While in theory it should be possible to run something like Oracle 11g on a "desktop" distro like Ubuntu, you would be insane to run it as a production server as you have absolutely no chance of getting any support from Oracle for such an unsupported configuration. -- Après moi, le deluge http://stormwyrm.blogspot.com/ _________________________________________________ Philippine Linux Users' Group (PLUG) Mailing List [email protected] (#PLUG @ irc.free.net.ph) Read the Guidelines: http://linux.org.ph/lists Searchable Archives: http://archives.free.net.ph
