Re: [GENERAL] what Linux to run
Thanks to all Sent from Samsung mobile Chris Angelico ros...@gmail.com wrote: On Wed, Feb 29, 2012 at 3:58 PM, Scott Marlowe scott.marl...@gmail.com wrote: Note that Ubuntu also comes in a GUI free server edition as well. I can definitely state that Ubuntu 10.04 LTS Server edition is rock solid stable for the hardware I've run it on (48 core AMD and 40 core Intel machines with LSI, Arecam and 3Ware cards) Ubuntu 9.10 isn't LTS, but it's served me just fine. I have a server that's not been rebooted since July 2010 (including a database-using application process that has been running since boot, and is in constant use), and I don't feel like bringing it down to bring it up to date! Really, any of the main-stream Linuxes should be fine. Chris Angelico -- Sent via pgsql-general mailing list (pgsql-general@postgresql.org) To make changes to your subscription: http://www.postgresql.org/mailpref/pgsql-general -- Sent via pgsql-general mailing list (pgsql-general@postgresql.org) To make changes to your subscription: http://www.postgresql.org/mailpref/pgsql-general
Re: [GENERAL] what Linux to run
Hmm... I also use 64 bit Fedora 16, on an AMD quad core at home, and on a dual Xeon quad cores at work. For a desktop environment, I would recommend xfce for serious work over GNOME 3. However, GNOME 3 is fine if you prefer fashion over functionality. I have 25 virtual desktops, and make full use of not only multiple tabs on Firefox, but also on the nautilus directory and GNOME terminal windows -- I also have useful applets on panels that auto hide, etc., GNOME 2 could support that, but not GNOME 3! What are the problems of Java 7 on FC16? I am curious, as I am building a system using Java 7 on FC16 using JBoss 7.1 backed by PostgreSQL 9.1. If anyone is interested, I have a bash script that installs JBoss 7.1 and converts it to use PostgreSQL. Cheers, Gavin On 06/03/12 01:25, r d wrote: If we move to Linux, what is the preferred Linux for running Postgres on. This machine would be dedicated to the database only.=20 I'd like a recommendation for both a GUI hosted version and a non-GUI version. I haven't used Linux in the past but did spend several year s in a mixed Unix and IBM mainframe environment at the console level. I run PostgreSQL on Fedora Core 16 64bit and have never had problems, now or before. From that point of view I can recommend FC, but I don't know how it compares performance-wise to other distros. I have been using the FC series since they split from the RedHat Linux distribs at about RedHat 9, perhaps 10 years ago and have never missed anything, and seldom noticed troublesome behavior. My main criticism of FC is that the distro updates to a new version quite often, 1-2 times per year, and upgrades are seldom as smooth as they are supposed/advertised to be, but they have become much better. Beyond that, the FC series have about everything you need for development or anything else, like running PG You can use FC both with GUI and without. It comes by default with GNOME. It also has KDE, which looks (and works) similar to Windows. Both Gnome and KDE run atop X. FC has the usual Unix shells like bash (default), sh, ksh, csh, tcsh ... and if you need to connect to your host, there are several 3270 emulator available, for X and also text-mode. Two components which do not mix well with FC are Java 7 (1.7.0x) and Oracle RDBMS 11g. For Java, stay with the 1.6 series until the problems of 1.7 are fixed. If you need to use the RDBMS besides PG then FC is not your OS. Instead, look at what systems they (Oracle) support. I hope this helps you with your decision.
Re: [GENERAL] what Linux to run
If we move to Linux, what is the preferred Linux for running Postgres on. This machine would be dedicated to the database only.=20 I'd like a recommendation for both a GUI hosted version and a non-GUI version. I haven't used Linux in the past but did spend several year s in a mixed Unix and IBM mainframe environment at the console level. I run PostgreSQL on Fedora Core 16 64bit and have never had problems, now or before. From that point of view I can recommend FC, but I don't know how it compares performance-wise to other distros. I have been using the FC series since they split from the RedHat Linux distribs at about RedHat 9, perhaps 10 years ago and have never missed anything, and seldom noticed troublesome behavior. My main criticism of FC is that the distro updates to a new version quite often, 1-2 times per year, and upgrades are seldom as smooth as they are supposed/advertised to be, but they have become much better. Beyond that, the FC series have about everything you need for development or anything else, like running PG You can use FC both with GUI and without. It comes by default with GNOME. It also has KDE, which looks (and works) similar to Windows. Both Gnome and KDE run atop X. FC has the usual Unix shells like bash (default), sh, ksh, csh, tcsh ... and if you need to connect to your host, there are several 3270 emulator available, for X and also text-mode. Two components which do not mix well with FC are Java 7 (1.7.0x) and Oracle RDBMS 11g. For Java, stay with the 1.6 series until the problems of 1.7 are fixed. If you need to use the RDBMS besides PG then FC is not your OS. Instead, look at what systems they (Oracle) support. I hope this helps you with your decision.
Re: [GENERAL] what Linux to run
Thanks for all of the help. I will be doing some testing in VM's this week before loading on my other server. Michael Gould Intermodal Software Solutions, LLC 904-226-0978 Original Message Subject: Re: [GENERAL] what Linux to run From: r d rd0...@gmail.com Date: Mon, March 05, 2012 5:25 am To: pgsql-general@postgresql.org pgsql-general@postgresql.org If we move to Linux, what is the preferred Linux for running Postgres on. This machine would be dedicated to the database only.=20 I'd like a recommendation for both a GUI hosted version and a non-GUI version. I haven't used Linux in the past but did spend several year s in a mixed Unix and IBM mainframe environment at the console level. I run PostgreSQL on Fedora Core 16 64bit and have never had problems, now or before. From that point of view I can recommend FC, but I don't know how it compares performance-wise to other distros. I have been using the FC series since they split from the RedHat Linux distribs at about RedHat 9, perhaps 10 years ago and have never missed anything, and seldom noticed troublesome behavior. My main criticism of FC is that the distro updates to a new version quite often, 1-2 times per year, and upgrades are seldom as smooth as they are supposed/advertised to be, but they have become much better. Beyond that, the FC series have about everything you need for development or anything else, like running PG You can use FC both with GUI and without. It comes by default with GNOME. It also has KDE, which looks (and works) similar to Windows. Both Gnome and KDE run atop X. FC has the usual Unix shells like bash (default), sh, ksh, csh, tcsh ... and if you need to connect to your host, there are several 3270 emulator available, for X and also text-mode. Two components which do not mix well with FC are Java 7 (1.7.0x) and Oracle RDBMS 11g. For Java, stay with the 1.6 series until the problems of 1.7 are fixed. If you need to use the RDBMS besides PG then FC is not your OS. Instead, look at what systems they (Oracle) support. I hope this helps you with your decision. -- Sent via pgsql-general mailing list (pgsql-general@postgresql.org) To make changes to your subscription: http://www.postgresql.org/mailpref/pgsql-general
Re: [GENERAL] what Linux to run
On Sat, 2012-03-03 at 14:15 -0700, David Boreham wrote: We use CentOS 5 and 6 and install PG from the yum repository detailed on the postgresql.org web site. Those RPMs will probably be a part of CentOS Testing repository soon. I and Karanbir had a chat about it at FOSDEM this year. -- Devrim GÜNDÜZ Principal Systems Engineer @ EnterpriseDB: http://www.enterprisedb.com PostgreSQL Danışmanı/Consultant, Red Hat Certified Engineer Community: devrim~PostgreSQL.org, devrim.gunduz~linux.org.tr http://www.gunduz.org Twitter: http://twitter.com/devrimgunduz signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part
Re: [GENERAL] what Linux to run
On 04/03/12 09:49, John R Pierce wrote: On 03/03/12 2:55 AM, Gavin Flower wrote: My knowledge of Debian is via friend's (an extremely competent and experienced Unix guy who got me into Linux who still runs Debian) comments and what I've noticed on the web. For a Desktop development machine, I currently prefer Fedora, but for a server I need to be more conservative. One place I worked used Ubuntu, but I quickly switched my machine to Fedora, when I found Ubuntu lacked the desktop things I relied on! So I would interested in the answers, also I would need to be able to install JDK7. the server equivalent to Fedora is, of course, RHEL or CentOS. CentOS 6.2 is working very well for us for a range of stuff. JDK7, I dunno, we're still using JDK 6 and trying very hard to stay away from bleeding edge proprietary features. I sure don't see anything here we need for our work: http://openjdk.java.net/projects/jdk7/features/ but, any version of java can be installed on most anything... JDK's just need to be untarred somewhere (we'll put unpackaged ones in /opt/something) Yes, I'd probably lean towards Centos (RHE if there is the budget). Not only for the reasons you mentioned, but that the site seems to like Centos for some servers -- even though the standard Linux desktop is Ubuntu. Though I'm trying to keep a relatively open mind about the choice of server O/S (so long as it is Linux, of course!). By the time my project is in wide use, JDK7 will no longer be bleeding edge. However, hopefully way short of EOL! :-) The project is in fairly early stages so I have a wide latitude of what software I use. I may go for pg9.2, as the covering indexes and other performance improvements may well prove very useful (possibly nearly essential, for one possible sub project). I expect that once (about) mid year has passed, I will have to switch to a much more conservative approach to new versions. The project is for training and to aid research, so there is more tolerance of errors and other problems, than systems that deal with financial processing. Though obviously I am aiming for a perfect system that is totally reliable! Though in practice: 'good enough', does the 'required job', and is 'sufficiently responsive' are closer to the mark.
Re: [GENERAL] what Linux to run
Hmm... I tend to _mostly_ run workstations rather than servers, pick my distro to suit my application needs. My workplace is a SLES site, I use Open Suse. Given most of my Postgres databases are in fact PostGIS databases, and need to work with a variety of other spatial data GIS related apps, then I have a set of dependencies to work with for every install. Postgres, Postgis, GEOS, Proj, GDAL, mapserver, Java, python. QGIS, GMT, etc. I have liased with the package maintainers who look after the Suse GEO repository, and they are generally able to build any required package, for both server * workstation distros (SLED, SLES, OpenSuse). Having robust packages built by people who know more than I do about this area is core to my selection of distro. While I'm aware that Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora also have GIS related repositories, the OPenSuse ones have, for me at least, the best mix of currency stability, fantastic support. If your goal is to run a robust Postgres server, find the mainstream distro which provides what you want out of the box, so you can run the database, not wrestle with compiling it every time something changes. Only consider compiling your own applications if there is no such distro, or you really want to have that level of control ownership of the system. Also, if you are running a VM as your server, then under Xen commercial tools, for example, SLES is fully supported by the hypervisor. Ubuntu isn't. Makes choosing easy... YMMV :-) Brent Wood GIS/DBA consultant NIWA +64 (4) 4 386-0300 From: pgsql-general-ow...@postgresql.org [pgsql-general-ow...@postgresql.org] on behalf of David Boreham [david_l...@boreham.org] Sent: Sunday, March 04, 2012 3:23 PM To: pgsql-general@postgresql.org Subject: Re: [GENERAL] what Linux to run On 3/3/2012 7:05 PM, Tom Lane wrote: [ raised eyebrow... ] As the person responsible for the packaging you're dissing, I'd be interested to know exactly why you feel that the Red Hat/CentOS PG packages can never be trusted. Certainly they tend to be from older release branches as a result of Red Hat's desire to not break applications after a RHEL branch is released, but they're not generally broken AFAIK. No dissing intended. I didn't say or mean that OS-delivered PG builds were generally broken (although I wouldn't be entirely surprised to see that happen in some distributions, present company excluded). I'm concerned about things like : a) Picking a sufficiently recent version to get the benefit of performance optimizations, new features and bug fixes. b) Picking a sufficiently old version to reduce the risk of instability. c) Picking a version that is compatible with the on-disk data I already have on some set of existing production machines. d) Deciding which point releases contain fixes that are relevant to our deployment. Respectfully, I don't trust you to come to the correct choice on these issues for me every time, or even once. I stick by my opinion that anyone who goes with the OS-bundled version of a database server, for any sort of serious production use, is making a mistake. -- Sent via pgsql-general mailing list (pgsql-general@postgresql.org) To make changes to your subscription: http://www.postgresql.org/mailpref/pgsql-general -- Please consider the environment before printing this email. NIWA is the trading name of the National Institute of Water Atmospheric Research Ltd. -- Sent via pgsql-general mailing list (pgsql-general@postgresql.org) To make changes to your subscription: http://www.postgresql.org/mailpref/pgsql-general
Re: [GENERAL] what Linux to run
On 02/03/12 01:25, Ivan Voras wrote: On 28/02/2012 18:17, Rich Shepard wrote: On Tue, 28 Feb 2012, mgo...@isstrucksoftware.net wrote: If we move to Linux, what is the preferred Linux for running Postgres on. This machine would be dedicated to the database only. Michael, There is no 'preferred' linux distribution; the flame wars on this topic died out a decade or so ago. From what you write, I would suggest that you look at one of the Ubunutus http://www.ubuntu.org/. Either the KDE or Gnome versions will appear Microsoft-like; the Xfce version appears more like CDE. Download a bootable .iso (a.k.a. 'live disk) and burn it to a cdrom and you can try it without .installing it. If you do like it, install it from the same disk. The Ubuntus boot directly into the GUI and that tends to be more comfortable for newly defenestrated users. If you like that, but want the more open and readily-available equivalent, install Debian. The ubuntus are derivatives of debian. One interesting thing I've discovered recently is that there is a HUGE difference in performance between CentOS 6.0 and Ubuntu Server 10.04 (LTS) in at least the memory allocator and possibly also multithreading libraries (in favour of CentOS). PostgreSQL shouldn't be particularly sensitive to either of these, but it makes me wonder what else is suboptimal in Ubuntu. I think if you are going to select a member of the Debian family, I would strongly recommend Debian itself. I have the impression that the Debian community is more serious about quality than Canonical (the company behind Ubuntu). Given a choice between RHEL, Centos, and Ubuntu. I would recommend either of RHE or, Centos - the former if you have the budget for the support piece of mind. Red Hat has won awards for its quality of User Service - and Red Hat contributes vastly more effort towards maintaining the Linux kernel than Canonical. In a about a year I will be setting up a server for a JBoss/PostgreSQL based application. Currently I'm thinking of using either Centos (RHEL if we get sufficient budget) or Debian, but I will defer the actual decision to nearer the time. I use Fedora for my development box, and my current test server runs Ubuntu (not my choice, but I see no significant reasons for changing it at the moment, though I'm tempted). Cheers, Gavin
Re: [GENERAL] what Linux to run
Lørdag 3. mars 2012 01.43.29 skrev Gavin Flower : I think if you are going to select a member of the Debian family, I would strongly recommend Debian itself. I have the impression that the Debian community is more serious about quality than Canonical (the company behind Ubuntu). I haven't run Debian for ten years, when I had a headless old PC running with a LAMP stack. Since I discovered Gentoo, that has been my preferred distro. However, I'm currently in the process of setting up a dedicated Web server with Debian as it may one day be another person's responsibility to admin this box, and I would consider it cruel to leave a Gentoo box to anyone but the most devoted Linux fans. My current gripe is this: The «stable» version of Postgres on Debian is 8.4. In order to install 9.1, I added this line to /etc/apt/sources.list: deb http://ftp.debian.org/debian unstable main contrib non-free Then I did an apt-get update and apt-get install postgresql-9.1 postgresql-client-9.1 Finally I commented out the added line of /etc/apt/sources.list. This seems a rather roundabout way, is there a better one? regards, Leif -- Sent via pgsql-general mailing list (pgsql-general@postgresql.org) To make changes to your subscription: http://www.postgresql.org/mailpref/pgsql-general
Re: [GENERAL] what Linux to run
Two quick notes: First, you really want a long-term support release. Your main options here are Debian and spinoffs (Ubuntu LTS, for example) and RedHat Enterprise and spinoffs (CentOS, Scientific Linux, etc). If you know one of these groups go with it. Second, GUI's usually come separate from the distro. You can choose GNOME, KDE, XFCE, etc. depending on your taste. Really the best way to go is to try a bunch out and see what you like. If you are doing development, you want a cutting-edge distros (so something like Debian Testing, Ubuntu, or Fedora). Best Wishes, Chris Travers
Re: [GENERAL] what Linux to run
On 03/03/2012 10:33, Leif Biberg Kristensen wrote: Lørdag 3. mars 2012 01.43.29 skrev Gavin Flower : I think if you are going to select a member of the Debian family, I would strongly recommend Debian itself. I have the impression that the Debian community is more serious about quality than Canonical (the company behind Ubuntu). I haven't run Debian for ten years, when I had a headless old PC running with a LAMP stack. Since I discovered Gentoo, that has been my preferred distro. However, I'm currently in the process of setting up a dedicated Web server with Debian as it may one day be another person's responsibility to admin this box, and I would consider it cruel to leave a Gentoo box to anyone but the most devoted Linux fans. My current gripe is this: The «stable» version of Postgres on Debian is 8.4. In order to install 9.1, I added this line to /etc/apt/sources.list: deb http://ftp.debian.org/debian unstable main contrib non-free Then I did an apt-get update and apt-get install postgresql-9.1 postgresql-client-9.1 Finally I commented out the added line of /etc/apt/sources.list. This seems a rather roundabout way, is there a better one? You can get Postgres 9.1 from backports.debian.org: deb http://backports.debian.org/debian-backports squeeze-backports main Ray. -- Raymond O'Donnell :: Galway :: Ireland r...@iol.ie -- Sent via pgsql-general mailing list (pgsql-general@postgresql.org) To make changes to your subscription: http://www.postgresql.org/mailpref/pgsql-general
Re: [GENERAL] what Linux to run
On Sat, Mar 3, 2012 at 9:33 PM, Leif Biberg Kristensen l...@solumslekt.org wrote: My current gripe is this: The «stable» version of Postgres on Debian is 8.4. In order to install 9.1... This seems a rather roundabout way, is there a better one? We use Debian at work, and I went for the other favorite way of getting Linux software: compile it from source. That does mean that I have to personally support it, though, and it has a few other consequences (had to compile a couple of other things from source instead of apt-getting them), but it's always a valid option. ChrisA -- Sent via pgsql-general mailing list (pgsql-general@postgresql.org) To make changes to your subscription: http://www.postgresql.org/mailpref/pgsql-general
Re: [GENERAL] what Linux to run
Lørdag 3. mars 2012 12.34.27 skrev Raymond O'Donnell : You can get Postgres 9.1 from backports.debian.org: deb http://backports.debian.org/debian-backports squeeze-backports main Ah, sweet, thank you! regards, Leif -- Sent via pgsql-general mailing list (pgsql-general@postgresql.org) To make changes to your subscription: http://www.postgresql.org/mailpref/pgsql-general
Re: [GENERAL] what Linux to run
On Sat, Mar 3, 2012 at 3:33 AM, Leif Biberg Kristensen l...@solumslekt.org wrote: My current gripe is this: The «stable» version of Postgres on Debian is 8.4. In order to install 9.1, I added this line to /etc/apt/sources.list: deb http://ftp.debian.org/debian unstable main contrib non-free Then I did an apt-get update and apt-get install postgresql-9.1 postgresql-client-9.1 Finally I commented out the added line of /etc/apt/sources.list. This seems a rather roundabout way, is there a better one? We use something like this to put 8.4 on an older debian release. I'm guessing that substituting the right repo and version would work for 9.1 sudo apt-get -t lenny-backports install \ postgresql-8.4 \ postgresql-client-8.4 \ postgresql-client-common \ postgresql-common \ postgresql-contrib-8.4 \ postgresql-plpython-8.4 \ postgresql-8.4-slony1 \ Note the -t switch. -- Sent via pgsql-general mailing list (pgsql-general@postgresql.org) To make changes to your subscription: http://www.postgresql.org/mailpref/pgsql-general
Re: [GENERAL] what Linux to run
On Sat, Mar 3, 2012 at 4:36 AM, Chris Angelico ros...@gmail.com wrote: On Sat, Mar 3, 2012 at 9:33 PM, Leif Biberg Kristensen l...@solumslekt.org wrote: My current gripe is this: The «stable» version of Postgres on Debian is 8.4. In order to install 9.1... This seems a rather roundabout way, is there a better one? We use Debian at work, and I went for the other favorite way of getting Linux software: compile it from source. That does mean that I have to personally support it, though, and it has a few other consequences (had to compile a couple of other things from source instead of apt-getting them), but it's always a valid option. When I was running a VERY busy pgsql site and needed to be able to report a bug, get a patch and apply it quickly. It's quite easy to patch a system running source code. If you've got racks of postgresql servers you'd build new packages. If you've got two servers in failover, building from source is faster and easier. -- Sent via pgsql-general mailing list (pgsql-general@postgresql.org) To make changes to your subscription: http://www.postgresql.org/mailpref/pgsql-general
Re: [GENERAL] what Linux to run
On Sat, Mar 3, 2012 at 3:56 AM, Chris Travers chris.trav...@gmail.com wrote: Two quick notes: First, you really want a long-term support release. Your main options here are Debian and spinoffs (Ubuntu LTS, for example) and RedHat Enterprise and spinoffs (CentOS, Scientific Linux, etc). If you know one of these groups go with it. Note that you can also start on short term releases then slide into a long term release when a new one comes out, IF you're developing now for a release some years in the future. I.e. start on Fedora Core, and migrate to Centos or RHEL, or start on non-LTS builds of ubuntu and so on. For OSes that have shorter spaces between LTS releases like Ubuntu this is often the best way to put a fast system in the field from development. But keep in mind you may have work fixing any issues that pop up from an upgrade before or shortly after you go live. -- Sent via pgsql-general mailing list (pgsql-general@postgresql.org) To make changes to your subscription: http://www.postgresql.org/mailpref/pgsql-general
Re: [GENERAL] what Linux to run
On 03/03/12 23:33, Leif Biberg Kristensen wrote: Lørdag 3. mars 2012 01.43.29 skrev Gavin Flower : I think if you are going to select a member of the Debian family, I would strongly recommend Debian itself. I have the impression that the Debian community is more serious about quality than Canonical (the company behind Ubuntu). I haven't run Debian for ten years, when I had a headless old PC running with a LAMP stack. Since I discovered Gentoo, that has been my preferred distro. However, I'm currently in the process of setting up a dedicated Web server with Debian as it may one day be another person's responsibility to admin this box, and I would consider it cruel to leave a Gentoo box to anyone but the most devoted Linux fans. My current gripe is this: The «stable» version of Postgres on Debian is 8.4. In order to install 9.1, I added this line to /etc/apt/sources.list: deb http://ftp.debian.org/debian unstable main contrib non-free Then I did an apt-get update and apt-get install postgresql-9.1 postgresql-client-9.1 Finally I commented out the added line of /etc/apt/sources.list. This seems a rather roundabout way, is there a better one? regards, Leif To be honest I got into Linux in 1994 when a friend set me up with Debian, the first distribution I installed myself was Red Hat. Though I had previous experience with mainframes and minicomputers, starting in the mid 1970's - COBOL FORTRAN era. (There is a distant possibility I may get back into FORTRAN, as that is run on the HPC's at the University where I now work!!!). My knowledge of Debian is via friend's (an extremely competent and experienced Unix guy who got me into Linux who still runs Debian) comments and what I've noticed on the web. For a Desktop development machine, I currently prefer Fedora, but for a server I need to be more conservative. One place I worked used Ubuntu, but I quickly switched my machine to Fedora, when I found Ubuntu lacked the desktop things I relied on! So I would interested in the answers, also I would need to be able to install JDK7. Cheers, Gavin
Re: [GENERAL] what Linux to run
On 03/03/12 2:55 AM, Gavin Flower wrote: My knowledge of Debian is via friend's (an extremely competent and experienced Unix guy who got me into Linux who still runs Debian) comments and what I've noticed on the web. For a Desktop development machine, I currently prefer Fedora, but for a server I need to be more conservative. One place I worked used Ubuntu, but I quickly switched my machine to Fedora, when I found Ubuntu lacked the desktop things I relied on! So I would interested in the answers, also I would need to be able to install JDK7. the server equivalent to Fedora is, of course, RHEL or CentOS.CentOS 6.2 is working very well for us for a range of stuff. JDK7, I dunno, we're still using JDK 6 and trying very hard to stay away from bleeding edge proprietary features. I sure don't see anything here we need for our work: http://openjdk.java.net/projects/jdk7/features/ but, any version of java can be installed on most anything... JDK's just need to be untarred somewhere (we'll put unpackaged ones in /opt/something) -- john r pierceN 37, W 122 santa cruz ca mid-left coast -- Sent via pgsql-general mailing list (pgsql-general@postgresql.org) To make changes to your subscription: http://www.postgresql.org/mailpref/pgsql-general
Re: [GENERAL] what Linux to run
Long thread - figured may as well toss in some data: We use CentOS 5 and 6 and install PG from the yum repository detailed on the postgresql.org web site. We've found that the PG shipped as part of the OS can never be trusted for production use, so we don't care what version ships with the OS -- we'll never use it. Regarding JDK7 : some interesting GC features, but as a whole too scary from a stability perspective to commit to in production. Considering most of the good engineers have likely left due to Oracle management, this is an area where we'll let others debug for a year or so before considering adopting. Regarding missing packages from desktop install : for production servers we use the minimal install then explicitly add the packages we need that are not part of that. From experience desktop distributions will install stuff that a) creates security risks and/or b) creates stability risks. -- Sent via pgsql-general mailing list (pgsql-general@postgresql.org) To make changes to your subscription: http://www.postgresql.org/mailpref/pgsql-general
Re: [GENERAL] what Linux to run
David Boreham david_l...@boreham.org writes: Long thread - figured may as well toss in some data: We use CentOS 5 and 6 and install PG from the yum repository detailed on the postgresql.org web site. We've found that the PG shipped as part of the OS can never be trusted for production use, so we don't care what version ships with the OS -- we'll never use it. [ raised eyebrow... ] As the person responsible for the packaging you're dissing, I'd be interested to know exactly why you feel that the Red Hat/CentOS PG packages can never be trusted. Certainly they tend to be from older release branches as a result of Red Hat's desire to not break applications after a RHEL branch is released, but they're not generally broken AFAIK. regards, tom lane -- Sent via pgsql-general mailing list (pgsql-general@postgresql.org) To make changes to your subscription: http://www.postgresql.org/mailpref/pgsql-general
Re: [GENERAL] what Linux to run
On 3/3/2012 7:05 PM, Tom Lane wrote: [ raised eyebrow... ] As the person responsible for the packaging you're dissing, I'd be interested to know exactly why you feel that the Red Hat/CentOS PG packages can never be trusted. Certainly they tend to be from older release branches as a result of Red Hat's desire to not break applications after a RHEL branch is released, but they're not generally broken AFAIK. No dissing intended. I didn't say or mean that OS-delivered PG builds were generally broken (although I wouldn't be entirely surprised to see that happen in some distributions, present company excluded). I'm concerned about things like : a) Picking a sufficiently recent version to get the benefit of performance optimizations, new features and bug fixes. b) Picking a sufficiently old version to reduce the risk of instability. c) Picking a version that is compatible with the on-disk data I already have on some set of existing production machines. d) Deciding which point releases contain fixes that are relevant to our deployment. Respectfully, I don't trust you to come to the correct choice on these issues for me every time, or even once. I stick by my opinion that anyone who goes with the OS-bundled version of a database server, for any sort of serious production use, is making a mistake. -- Sent via pgsql-general mailing list (pgsql-general@postgresql.org) To make changes to your subscription: http://www.postgresql.org/mailpref/pgsql-general
Re: [GENERAL] what Linux to run
On Sat, Mar 3, 2012 at 8:23 PM, David Boreham david_l...@boreham.org wrote: On 3/3/2012 7:05 PM, Tom Lane wrote: [ raised eyebrow... ] As the person responsible for the packaging you're dissing, I'd be interested to know exactly why you feel that the Red Hat/CentOS PG packages can never be trusted. Certainly they tend to be from older release branches as a result of Red Hat's desire to not break applications after a RHEL branch is released, but they're not generally broken AFAIK. No dissing intended. I didn't say or mean that OS-delivered PG builds were generally broken (although I wouldn't be entirely surprised to see that happen in some distributions, present company excluded). I'm concerned about things like : a) Picking a sufficiently recent version to get the benefit of performance optimizations, new features and bug fixes. b) Picking a sufficiently old version to reduce the risk of instability. c) Picking a version that is compatible with the on-disk data I already have on some set of existing production machines. d) Deciding which point releases contain fixes that are relevant to our deployment. Respectfully, I don't trust you to come to the correct choice on these issues for me every time, or even once. I stick by my opinion that anyone who goes with the OS-bundled version of a database server, for any sort of serious production use, is making a mistake. I have been generally happy with the RedHat/CentOS/ScientificLinux offerings (with respect to PostgreSQL, specifically). Furthermore, I also make extensive use of openSUSE offerings and generally prefer them. openSUSE has an 8 month release cycle and as a consequence I'm rarely too far behind the latest _stable_ release, while still being able to run the last-most-recent stable release for, I think, 3 years. If I want more, that's what the commercial offerings are for. -- Jon -- Sent via pgsql-general mailing list (pgsql-general@postgresql.org) To make changes to your subscription: http://www.postgresql.org/mailpref/pgsql-general
Re: [GENERAL] what Linux to run
On Sun, Mar 4, 2012 at 1:23 PM, David Boreham david_l...@boreham.org wrote: I stick by my opinion that anyone who goes with the OS-bundled version of a database server, for any sort of serious production use, is making a mistake. I would qualify this. If you accept the OS-bundled version, you are relinquishing responsibility to the OS packagers. If you install your choice of package, you retain responsibility for choice of version (and if you install from source, you retain even more). It's not a mistake to use the OS-provided version necessarily, but if you have particular needs, you always have the option of picking your own version. ChrisA -- Sent via pgsql-general mailing list (pgsql-general@postgresql.org) To make changes to your subscription: http://www.postgresql.org/mailpref/pgsql-general
Re: [GENERAL] what Linux to run
On Sat, Mar 3, 2012 at 6:23 PM, David Boreham david_l...@boreham.orgwrote: On 3/3/2012 7:05 PM, Tom Lane wrote: [ raised eyebrow... ] As the person responsible for the packaging you're dissing, I'd be interested to know exactly why you feel that the Red Hat/CentOS PG packages can never be trusted. Certainly they tend to be from older release branches as a result of Red Hat's desire to not break applications after a RHEL branch is released, but they're not generally broken AFAIK. No dissing intended. I didn't say or mean that OS-delivered PG builds were generally broken (although I wouldn't be entirely surprised to see that happen in some distributions, present company excluded). I'm concerned about things like : a) Picking a sufficiently recent version to get the benefit of performance optimizations, new features and bug fixes. b) Picking a sufficiently old version to reduce the risk of instability. c) Picking a version that is compatible with the on-disk data I already have on some set of existing production machines. d) Deciding which point releases contain fixes that are relevant to our deployment. Respectfully, I don't trust you to come to the correct choice on these issues for me every time, or even once. I stick by my opinion that anyone who goes with the OS-bundled version of a database server, for any sort of serious production use, is making a mistake. I can't speak for RHEL (I usually compile from scratch on servers), but here's my take on Fedora: The positive side of going with the distro packages is that you are less likely to forget a minor upgrade, and the compile options are usually more expansive in their support than what you might do on your own. On the negative, I have seen a yum-based upgrade between versions happily upgrade the binaries from 8.4.x to 9.0.x So there is a tradeoff. Best Wishes, Chris Travers
Re: [GENERAL] what Linux to run
On 03/03/12 7:01 PM, Chris Travers wrote: On the negative, I have seen a yum-based upgrade between versions happily upgrade the binaries from 8.4.x to 9.0.x I haven't. the PG 9.x yum packages not only have a different name, they install into different directories. here I have dead stock centos 6, with the fedora epel and the postgres developers group 9.0 repositories added. you can run several versions of postgresql side by side on different ports and data directories.. # yum list postgres\* Loaded plugins: auto-update-debuginfo, fastestmirror, refresh-packagekit Loading mirror speeds from cached hostfile * base: mirror.san.fastserv.com * epel: linux.mirrors.es.net * extras: centos.mirrors.hoobly.com * updates: mirror.5ninesolutions.com Installed Packages postgresql90.x86_649.0.7-1PGDG.rhel6 @pgdg90 postgresql90-contrib.x86_649.0.7-1PGDG.rhel6 @pgdg90 postgresql90-devel.x86_64 9.0.7-1PGDG.rhel6 @pgdg90 postgresql90-libs.x86_64 9.0.7-1PGDG.rhel6 @pgdg90 postgresql90-server.x86_64 9.0.7-1PGDG.rhel6 @pgdg90 Available Packages postgresql.i6868.4.9-1.el6_1.1 base postgresql.x86_64 8.4.9-1.el6_1.1 base postgresql-contrib.x86_64 8.4.9-1.el6_1.1 base postgresql-devel.i686 8.4.9-1.el6_1.1 base postgresql-devel.x86_648.4.9-1.el6_1.1 base postgresql-docs.x86_64 8.4.9-1.el6_1.1 base postgresql-ip4r.x86_64 1.05-1.el6 epel postgresql-jdbc.x86_64 8.4.701-3.el6 base postgresql-libs.i686 8.4.9-1.el6_1.1 base postgresql-libs.x86_64 8.4.9-1.el6_1.1 base postgresql-odbc.x86_64 08.04.0200-1.el6 base postgresql-plparrot.x86_64 0.04-5.el6 epel postgresql-plperl.x86_64 8.4.9-1.el6_1.1 base postgresql-plpython.x86_64 8.4.9-1.el6_1.1 base postgresql-pltcl.x86_648.4.9-1.el6_1.1 base postgresql-server.x86_64 8.4.9-1.el6_1.1 base postgresql-test.x86_64 8.4.9-1.el6_1.1 base postgresql90-debuginfo.x86_64 9.0.7-1PGDG.rhel6 pgdg90 postgresql90-docs.x86_64 9.0.7-1PGDG.rhel6 pgdg90 postgresql90-jdbc.x86_64 9.0.802-1PGDG.rhel6 pgdg90 postgresql90-jdbc-debuginfo.x86_64 9.0.802-1PGDG.rhel6 pgdg90 postgresql90-libs.i686 9.0.7-1PGDG.rhel6 pgdg90 postgresql90-odbc.x86_64 09.00.0310-1PGDG.rhel6 pgdg90 postgresql90-odbc-debuginfo.x86_64 09.00.0310-1PGDG.rhel6 pgdg90 postgresql90-plperl.x86_64 9.0.7-1PGDG.rhel6 pgdg90 postgresql90-plpython.x86_64 9.0.7-1PGDG.rhel6 pgdg90 postgresql90-pltcl.x86_64 9.0.7-1PGDG.rhel6 pgdg90 postgresql90-python.x86_64 4.0-2PGDG.rhel6 pgdg90 postgresql90-python-debuginfo.x86_64 4.0-2PGDG.rhel6 pgdg90 postgresql90-tcl.x86_641.9.0-1.rhel6 pgdg90 postgresql90-tcl-debuginfo.x86_64 1.9.0-1.rhel6 pgdg90 postgresql90-test.x86_64 9.0.7-1PGDG.rhel6 pgdg90 postgresql_autodoc.noarch 1.40-1.rhel6 pgdg90 -- john r pierceN 37, W 122 santa cruz ca mid-left coast -- Sent via pgsql-general mailing list (pgsql-general@postgresql.org) To make changes to your subscription: http://www.postgresql.org/mailpref/pgsql-general
Re: [GENERAL] what Linux to run
On Sat, Mar 3, 2012 at 7:39 PM, John R Pierce pie...@hogranch.com wrote: On 03/03/12 7:01 PM, Chris Travers wrote: On the negative, I have seen a yum-based upgrade between versions happily upgrade the binaries from 8.4.x to 9.0.x I haven't. I thought I was clear that my experiences thus far had not been RHEL/CentOS/SL because I tended to compile my own on such platforms. I have however seen Fedora do that, and it is a caution worth noting going forward. The question is what happens when new versions of RHEL come out, whether the postgresql-server package gets a new major version number. Hopefully by mentioning this now, we will make sure it doesn't ;-) Best Wishes, Chris Travers
Re: [GENERAL] what Linux to run
On Sat, Mar 3, 2012 at 8:49 PM, Chris Travers chris.trav...@gmail.com wrote: I thought I was clear that my experiences thus far had not been RHEL/CentOS/SL because I tended to compile my own on such platforms. I have however seen Fedora do that, and it is a caution worth noting going forward. The question is what happens when new versions of RHEL come out, whether the postgresql-server package gets a new major version number. Hopefully by mentioning this now, we will make sure it doesn't ;-) I started using source code on RHEL back when it was using floating point dates instead of integer dates. We were using slony for replication, and we added two Ubuntu 10.04 48 core servers, and since slony versions must be an exact match, it meant we needed to compile slony from source, so it was easy to add postgresql compilation from source to our script at that point. So if you're running a mixed server environment, especially with only a handful of machines, it's often easier to just build from source. -- Sent via pgsql-general mailing list (pgsql-general@postgresql.org) To make changes to your subscription: http://www.postgresql.org/mailpref/pgsql-general
Re: [GENERAL] what Linux to run
Ivan Voras wrote: On 28/02/2012 17:57, mgo...@isstrucksoftware.net wrote: Our application runs on Windows, however we have been told that we can pick any OS to run our server on. I'm thinking Linux because from everything I've read, it appears to be a better on performance and there are other features like tablespaces which we could take advantage of. On our hosted solution, the application runs in a Software as a Service model and being able to keep each companies tables in their own table space would be nice. Additionally it appears that there are a lot more ways to tune the engine if we need to than under windows, plus the capability to hold more connections. If we move to Linux, what is the preferred Linux for running Postgres on. This machine would be dedicated to the database only. I'd like a recommendation for both a GUI hosted version and a non-GUI version. I haven't used Linux in the past but did spend several year s in a mixed Unix and IBM mainframe environment at the console level. Hi, PostgreSQL administration would not benefit much from a GUI, as it is basically centered around editing and tuning configuration files (either its or the OS's). For Linux, if you want stability and decent performance, you should probably choose either CentOS, or if you want commercial support, Red Hat Enterprise Linux (which is basically the same thing, only commercial). Personally, I'd recommend FreeBSD (it's not a Linux, it's more Unix-like) but I'm probably biased ;) +1 from me. http://leaf.dragonflybsd.org/mailarchive/kernel/2011-11/msg00017.html Nice numbers with a choice, BSD excel not in numbers but in stability surviving all tests. -- Sphinx of black quartz judge my vow. -- Sent via pgsql-general mailing list (pgsql-general@postgresql.org) To make changes to your subscription: http://www.postgresql.org/mailpref/pgsql-general
Re: [GENERAL] what Linux to run
Le mercredi 29 février 2012 à 11:31 -0500, Gary Chambers a écrit : Note that Ubuntu also comes in a GUI free server edition as well. I can definitely state that Ubuntu 10.04 LTS Server edition is rock solid stable +1 I've been running 10.04 LTS Server for over three years (on a Dell PowerEdge 2850) using Martin Pitt's PostgreSQL 9.1 PPA. Hi, I find that using the Dedian distribution (which Ubuntu is based on) makes the process of building a server very simple and reliable. Below are the notes I took for the last one; you'll have most steps outlined; it uses a LAMP stack made of Linux+Apache+Mod_Perl+Postgresql. The one I built before this one was up for 550 days, serving 5 users full time. The machine is the cheapest server at online.net (dedibox, 15 €/month)), it serves 100 requests/seconds, session validation included. I only took it down because it required a bios update. # #Install Notes # Debian V6.0.0 (64BITS) Date 2012 01 26 #installation initiale avec sda1,2 et 3 seulement apt-get install parted #après installation, création des partitions logiques 5,6,7 #et remount de /var, /home, /var/log dessus # #ssh # #edit /etc/ssh/sshd_config # Authentication: LoginGraceTime 60 PermitRootLogin no StrictModes yes #pas plus de quatre essais (message dans les logs à partir de la troisième erreur) MaxAuthTries 4 AllowUsers X #edit .ssh/config on workstation #ssh displays funky characters dpkg-reconfigure locales 207. fr_FR ISO-8859-1 208. fr_FR.UTF-8 UTF-8 209. fr_FR@euro ISO-8859-15 default : fr_FR@euro #désactiver les programmes lancés par défaut et non utilisés update-rc.d -f bind9 remove update-rc.d -f mdadm remove update-rc.d -f portmap remove #run apt-get update apt-get upgrade #utilities apt-get install gcc rsync sqlite3 make apt-get install git # #Postgresql # apt-get install postgresql postgresql-client postgresql-plperl-8.4 createuser -d X #pg_dumpall pg_restore cluster from workstation # #Apache # apt-get install apache2-mpm-worker libapache2-request-perl libapache2-mod-perl2 libapache2-mod-apreq2 apache2.2-common #configure logrotate : edit /etc/logrotate.d/apache2 #enable apache2 modules a2enmod ssl rewrite apreq # #install perl modules # #pre-compiled binaries for DBI DBD::Pg sqlite3 apt-get install libapache-dbi-perl libdbd-pg-perl libdbd-sqlite3-perl Done. -- Vincent Veyron http://marica.fr/ Logiciel de gestion des sinistres et des contentieux pour le service juridique -- Sent via pgsql-general mailing list (pgsql-general@postgresql.org) To make changes to your subscription: http://www.postgresql.org/mailpref/pgsql-general
Re: [GENERAL] what Linux to run
On 28/02/2012 18:17, Rich Shepard wrote: On Tue, 28 Feb 2012, mgo...@isstrucksoftware.net wrote: If we move to Linux, what is the preferred Linux for running Postgres on. This machine would be dedicated to the database only. Michael, There is no 'preferred' linux distribution; the flame wars on this topic died out a decade or so ago. From what you write, I would suggest that you look at one of the Ubunutus http://www.ubuntu.org/. Either the KDE or Gnome versions will appear Microsoft-like; the Xfce version appears more like CDE. Download a bootable .iso (a.k.a. 'live disk) and burn it to a cdrom and you can try it without .installing it. If you do like it, install it from the same disk. The Ubuntus boot directly into the GUI and that tends to be more comfortable for newly defenestrated users. If you like that, but want the more open and readily-available equivalent, install Debian. The ubuntus are derivatives of debian. One interesting thing I've discovered recently is that there is a HUGE difference in performance between CentOS 6.0 and Ubuntu Server 10.04 (LTS) in at least the memory allocator and possibly also multithreading libraries (in favour of CentOS). PostgreSQL shouldn't be particularly sensitive to either of these, but it makes me wonder what else is suboptimal in Ubuntu. signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: [GENERAL] what Linux to run
On 28/02/2012 17:57, mgo...@isstrucksoftware.net wrote: Our application runs on Windows, however we have been told that we can pick any OS to run our server on. I'm thinking Linux because from everything I've read, it appears to be a better on performance and there are other features like tablespaces which we could take advantage of. On our hosted solution, the application runs in a Software as a Service model and being able to keep each companies tables in their own table space would be nice. Additionally it appears that there are a lot more ways to tune the engine if we need to than under windows, plus the capability to hold more connections. If we move to Linux, what is the preferred Linux for running Postgres on. This machine would be dedicated to the database only. I'd like a recommendation for both a GUI hosted version and a non-GUI version. I haven't used Linux in the past but did spend several year s in a mixed Unix and IBM mainframe environment at the console level. Hi, PostgreSQL administration would not benefit much from a GUI, as it is basically centered around editing and tuning configuration files (either its or the OS's). For Linux, if you want stability and decent performance, you should probably choose either CentOS, or if you want commercial support, Red Hat Enterprise Linux (which is basically the same thing, only commercial). Personally, I'd recommend FreeBSD (it's not a Linux, it's more Unix-like) but I'm probably biased ;) signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: [GENERAL] what Linux to run
On Thu, Mar 1, 2012 at 5:25 AM, Ivan Voras ivo...@freebsd.org wrote: One interesting thing I've discovered recently is that there is a HUGE difference in performance between CentOS 6.0 and Ubuntu Server 10.04 (LTS) in at least the memory allocator and possibly also multithreading libraries (in favour of CentOS). PostgreSQL shouldn't be particularly sensitive to either of these, but it makes me wonder what else is suboptimal in Ubuntu. To be fair, RHEL6 was released 7 months after Ubuntu 10.04. But Redhat is pretty good at kernel patching for optimizations ertc. I'd be more interested in comparisons with ubuntu 12.04, due out next month. -- Sent via pgsql-general mailing list (pgsql-general@postgresql.org) To make changes to your subscription: http://www.postgresql.org/mailpref/pgsql-general
Re: [GENERAL] what Linux to run
On Wed, Feb 29, 2012 at 3:58 PM, Scott Marlowe scott.marl...@gmail.com wrote: Note that Ubuntu also comes in a GUI free server edition as well. I can definitely state that Ubuntu 10.04 LTS Server edition is rock solid stable for the hardware I've run it on (48 core AMD and 40 core Intel machines with LSI, Arecam and 3Ware cards) Ubuntu 9.10 isn't LTS, but it's served me just fine. I have a server that's not been rebooted since July 2010 (including a database-using application process that has been running since boot, and is in constant use), and I don't feel like bringing it down to bring it up to date! Really, any of the main-stream Linuxes should be fine. Chris Angelico -- Sent via pgsql-general mailing list (pgsql-general@postgresql.org) To make changes to your subscription: http://www.postgresql.org/mailpref/pgsql-general
Re: [GENERAL] what Linux to run
Note that Ubuntu also comes in a GUI free server edition as well. I can definitely state that Ubuntu 10.04 LTS Server edition is rock solid stable +1 I've been running 10.04 LTS Server for over three years (on a Dell PowerEdge 2850) using Martin Pitt's PostgreSQL 9.1 PPA. -- Gary Chambers -- Sent via pgsql-general mailing list (pgsql-general@postgresql.org) To make changes to your subscription: http://www.postgresql.org/mailpref/pgsql-general
Re: [GENERAL] what Linux to run
I've been running 10.04 LTS Server for over three years (on a Dell PowerEdge 2850) using Martin Pitt's PostgreSQL 9.1 PPA. I apologize. That's over two years. -- G. -- Sent via pgsql-general mailing list (pgsql-general@postgresql.org) To make changes to your subscription: http://www.postgresql.org/mailpref/pgsql-general
Re: [GENERAL] what Linux to run
On Wed, Feb 29, 2012 at 10:05 AM, Gary Chambers gwch...@gwcmail.com wrote: I've been running 10.04 LTS Server for over three years (on a Dell PowerEdge 2850) using Martin Pitt's PostgreSQL 9.1 PPA. I apologize. That's over two years. Darnit! I was hoping to borrow your time machine too. :) -- Sent via pgsql-general mailing list (pgsql-general@postgresql.org) To make changes to your subscription: http://www.postgresql.org/mailpref/pgsql-general
[GENERAL] what Linux to run
Our application runs on Windows, however we have been told that we can pick any OS to run our server on. I'm thinking Linux because from everything I've read, it appears to be a better on performance and there are other features like tablespaces which we could take advantage of. On our hosted solution, the application runs in a Software as a Service model and being able to keep each companies tables in their own table space would be nice. Additionally it appears that there are a lot more ways to tune the engine if we need to than under windows, plus the capability to hold more connections. If we move to Linux, what is the preferred Linux for running Postgres on. This machine would be dedicated to the database only. I'd like a recommendation for both a GUI hosted version and a non-GUI version. I haven't used Linux in the past but did spend several year s in a mixed Unix and IBM mainframe environment at the console level. Best Regards, Michael Gould Intermodal Software Solutions, LLC 904-226-0978 -- Sent via pgsql-general mailing list (pgsql-general@postgresql.org) To make changes to your subscription: http://www.postgresql.org/mailpref/pgsql-general
Re: [GENERAL] what Linux to run
On Tue, Feb 28, 2012 at 11:57 AM, mgo...@isstrucksoftware.net wrote: Our application runs on Windows, however we have been told that we can pick any OS to run our server on. I'm thinking Linux because from everything I've read, it appears to be a better on performance and there are other features like tablespaces which we could take advantage of. On our hosted solution, the application runs in a Software as a Service model and being able to keep each companies tables in their own table space would be nice. Additionally it appears that there are a lot more ways to tune the engine if we need to than under windows, plus the capability to hold more connections. If we move to Linux, what is the preferred Linux for running Postgres on. This machine would be dedicated to the database only. I'd like a recommendation for both a GUI hosted version and a non-GUI version. I haven't used Linux in the past but did spend several year s in a mixed Unix and IBM mainframe environment at the console level. Best Regards, Michael Gould Intermodal Software Solutions, LLC 904-226-0978 -- Sent via pgsql-general mailing list (pgsql-general@postgresql.org) To make changes to your subscription: http://www.postgresql.org/mailpref/pgsql-general If you're going to use it for anything important, go with a mainstream distribution with commercial support available. RedHat, CentOS, Debian, Ubuntu are the most popular choices, its going to be easier to get system admins and chances are good that if you have a problem, someone else has had it and solved it before. -Adam
Re: [GENERAL] what Linux to run
On Tue, 28 Feb 2012, mgo...@isstrucksoftware.net wrote: If we move to Linux, what is the preferred Linux for running Postgres on. This machine would be dedicated to the database only. Michael, There is no 'preferred' linux distribution; the flame wars on this topic died out a decade or so ago. From what you write, I would suggest that you look at one of the Ubunutus http://www.ubuntu.org/. Either the KDE or Gnome versions will appear Microsoft-like; the Xfce version appears more like CDE. Download a bootable .iso (a.k.a. 'live disk) and burn it to a cdrom and you can try it without .installing it. If you do like it, install it from the same disk. The Ubuntus boot directly into the GUI and that tends to be more comfortable for newly defenestrated users. If you like that, but want the more open and readily-available equivalent, install Debian. The ubuntus are derivatives of debian. We use Slackware here, but that's not as easy a transition as are the ubuntus. Regardless of what distribution you select, there's a learning curve and a ton of help on mail lists and Web-based fora. The F/OSS community has always been excepionally helpful to everyone. Good decision. Now make it happen. :-) Rich -- Sent via pgsql-general mailing list (pgsql-general@postgresql.org) To make changes to your subscription: http://www.postgresql.org/mailpref/pgsql-general
Re: [GENERAL] what Linux to run
On Feb 28, 2012, at 9:16 AM, Adam Cornett wrote: On Tue, Feb 28, 2012 at 11:57 AM, mgo...@isstrucksoftware.net wrote: Our application runs on Windows, however we have been told that we can pick any OS to run our server on. I'm thinking Linux because from everything I've read, it appears to be a better on performance and there are other features like tablespaces which we could take advantage of. On our hosted solution, the application runs in a Software as a Service model and being able to keep each companies tables in their own table space would be nice. Additionally it appears that there are a lot more ways to tune the engine if we need to than under windows, plus the capability to hold more connections. Sounds like a good choice. If we move to Linux, what is the preferred Linux for running Postgres on. This machine would be dedicated to the database only. There isn't really a preferred distro in technical terms - all the major distros are fine. Where they differ is available support, stability and support lifespan. For production a good bet is probably RHEL if you have money to spend. Other good options include CentOS (RHEL knock-off without the Redhat infrastructure), Debian and maybe Ubuntu LTS[1]. Anything that has decent support available (both peer and paid) will be fine. Ununtu is a little friendlier to beginners, and RHEL a little more unfriendly, but there's not that much in it. I'd like a recommendation for both a GUI hosted version and a non-GUI version. I haven't used Linux in the past but did spend several year s in a mixed Unix and IBM mainframe environment at the console level. They all provide a fairly similar command line environment and all offer several GUI environments. Cheers, Steve [1] I love Ubuntu and use it on many of my servers, but it's a bit too far towards the cutting-edge end of the stable-to-bleeding-edge spectrum. -- Sent via pgsql-general mailing list (pgsql-general@postgresql.org) To make changes to your subscription: http://www.postgresql.org/mailpref/pgsql-general
Re: [GENERAL] what Linux to run
If we move to Linux, what is the preferred Linux for running Postgres on. This machine would be dedicated to the database only.=20 I'd like a recommendation for both a GUI hosted version and a non-GUI version. I haven't used Linux in the past but did spend several year s in a mixed Unix and IBM mainframe environment at the console level. =20 Hi, one thing you might want to consider is system lifetime: some distro may be set up so that you more or less have to reinstall within 2 years, if you plan to use update service - others may be longer. Now, fast development is great AND allows you to change to better hardware easily. It does however mean that you might get surprised with a different postgres version at times you dont really like it. If you plan to install from source, this would not be of any concern regards Wolfgang Hamann -- Sent via pgsql-general mailing list (pgsql-general@postgresql.org) To make changes to your subscription: http://www.postgresql.org/mailpref/pgsql-general
Re: [GENERAL] what Linux to run
On Tue, 28 Feb 2012, haman...@t-online.de wrote: one thing you might want to consider is system lifetime: some distro may be set up so that you more or less have to reinstall within 2 years, if you plan to use update service - others may be longer. Now, fast development is great AND allows you to change to better hardware easily. It does however mean that you might get surprised with a different postgres version at times you dont really like it. If you plan to install from source, this would not be of any concern Wolfgang, Most updates fix security vulnerabilities. If you keep current with those there's not a compelling need to upgrade the distribution itself unless you want to do so. There's a distinction between the distribution itself (kernel, and GNU tools) and the end-user applications bundled with the distribution. Also, the distributions with which I'm familiar allow you to select the applications to upgrade so you can avoid surprises. Rich -- Sent via pgsql-general mailing list (pgsql-general@postgresql.org) To make changes to your subscription: http://www.postgresql.org/mailpref/pgsql-general
Re: [GENERAL] what Linux to run
On Tue, 28 Feb 2012, haman...@t-online.de wrote: one thing you might want to consider is system lifetime: some distro may be set up so that you more or less have to reinstall within 2 years, if you plan to use update service - others may be longer. Now, fast development is great AND allows you to change to better hardware easily. It does however mean that you might get surprised with a different postgres version at times you dont really like it. If you plan to install from source, this would not be of any concern Wolfgang, Most updates fix security vulnerabilities. If you keep current with those there's not a compelling need to upgrade the distribution itself unless you want to do so. There's a distinction between the distribution itself (kernel, and GNU tools) and the end-user applications bundled with the distribution. Also, the distributions with which I'm familiar allow you to select the applications to upgrade so you can avoid surprises. Hi Rich, if - after say 18 months, I do no longer get updates (this seems to be lifecycle of the locally popular SuSE), it means that you either have to do an upgrade install or forget about security fixes. Now the upgrade install might bring you some software with incompatible changes, or even might replace some software you used to rely on with something different After some unpleasant surprises I stopped to upgrade: rather get a fresh box, install everything there, and once it plays nicely, swap them Regards Wolfgang -- Sent via pgsql-general mailing list (pgsql-general@postgresql.org) To make changes to your subscription: http://www.postgresql.org/mailpref/pgsql-general
Re: [GENERAL] what Linux to run
On Tue, Feb 28, 2012 at 10:17 AM, Rich Shepard rshep...@appl-ecosys.com wrote: The Ubuntus boot directly into the GUI and that tends to be more comfortable for newly defenestrated users. If you like that, but want the more open and readily-available equivalent, install Debian. The ubuntus are derivatives of debian. Note that Ubuntu also comes in a GUI free server edition as well. I can definitely state that Ubuntu 10.04 LTS Server edition is rock solid stable for the hardware I've run it on (48 core AMD and 40 core Intel machines with LSI, Arecam and 3Ware cards) -- Sent via pgsql-general mailing list (pgsql-general@postgresql.org) To make changes to your subscription: http://www.postgresql.org/mailpref/pgsql-general
