Best Operating System

[Telebubbies]

Hello. I just got a server with 6 hard drives, 32GB of RAM, and 2 Xeon CPUs. Now I was wondering. What is the best operating system to run this server on? I have been looking at Ubuntu, Linux Mint and Windows server 2016. Which one do you guys recommend and why?

Thanks

[2FA]

That depends on what you plan on doing with the server.

[Telebubbies]

3 minutes ago, DeadEyePsycho said:

That depends on what you plan on doing with the server.

Oh ya. I forgot to mention that. Sorry.

So I plan on hosting SQL servers as datacenters, and 2 people are willing to pay me to host a Minecraft servers for them. So I will be hosting Datacenters (SQL) and I will also host 24/7 minecraft servers. 

[2FA]

3 minutes ago, Telebubbies said:

Oh ya. I forgot to mention that. Sorry.

So I plan on hosting SQL servers as datacenters, and 2 people are willing to pay me to host a Minecraft servers for them. So I will be hosting Datacenters (SQL) and I will also host 24/7 minecraft servers. 

You mean databases?

 

If you aren't super familiar with the Linux versions of software you are going to use, I would suggest just going with Server 2016 if you already have a license for it.

[fjdhdhcyfhf]

Ubuntu and debian have a long term commitment to providing security updates.

10 minutes ago, Telebubbies said:

I plan on hosting SQL servers

well that is going to heavily influence the OS choice. which SQL?

[Telebubbies]

3 minutes ago, SCHISCHKA said:

Ubuntu and debian have a long term commitment to providing security updates.

well that is going to heavily influence the OS choice. which SQL?

Either MySQL or Microsoft SQL server. But I might just go with the SQL server

[fjdhdhcyfhf]

3 minutes ago, Telebubbies said:

Either MySQL or Microsoft SQL server. But I might just go with the SQL server

MS is bringing their SQL server over to linux but I dont know what stage they are at and if it will be as good as running on windows server. It is very expensive!

MySQL sucks at big data

[Telebubbies]

Just now, SCHISCHKA said:

MS is bringing their SQL server over to linux but I dont know what stage they are at and if it will be as good as running on windows server. It is very expensive!

MySQL sucks at big data

I have scratched out the Microsoft server as it will just be a waste of money. We have also decided to go with the Microsoft SQL server. I see people recommending that more.. 

So now, should I use Linux Mint or Ubuntu? Or is there another OS you recommend? 

 

[fjdhdhcyfhf]

1 minute ago, Telebubbies said:

Ubuntu

Ubuntu Server 16.04 has a commitment to 5 years of security updates so it will end in 2021. None of the other free systems have that. Debian 8 is supported up to 2020. Mint is a desktop not a server so if you cut it down to what you need in a server it will basically be Debian anyway.

[Sintezza]

Open Suse pretty much.

You could either choose for Leap LTS or Tumbleweed rolling.

 

Suse SLE Linux is currently one of the leading OSses is the enterprise server market. 

Open Suse Is a direct derivative of Suse Enterprise Linux.

But there is a large community behind it for allot of support.

It has support for multiple diffrent file systems like ZFS, BTFRS, EXT etc.

And it also supports live kernel patching.

Which in case of a security kernel patch, you dont have to reboot the system, but you could live patch it.

Which does not cause you any downtime.

Open Suse is arguablly one of the best Linux distro´s of all time.

[Electronics Wizardy]

4 hours ago, Telebubbies said:

I have scratched out the Microsoft server as it will just be a waste of money. We have also decided to go with the Microsoft SQL server. I see people recommending that more.. 

So now, should I use Linux Mint or Ubuntu? Or is there another OS you recommend? 

 

Install ESXi or A linux distro with kvm(centos is my favorite) on the hardware. Then vm it all.

 

For servers, You want linux, Id go centos or debian(ubuntu only if your paying for support or using openstack, don't use mint, its not that stable, not well supported for servers, and mint is just repacked ubuntu, and ubuntu is just rebranded debian, might aswell go to the source), you want windows go 2012r2, you want something else, you know what you need.

 

[ssfdre38]

It really all depends on what your doing.

[Blake]

On 12/15/2016 at 10:07 AM, Telebubbies said:

Hello. I just got a server with 6 hard drives, 32GB of RAM, and 2 Xeon CPUs. Now I was wondering. What is the best operating system to run this server on? I have been looking at Ubuntu, Linux Mint and Windows server 2016. Which one do you guys recommend and why?

Thanks

Doesn't matter, comes down to what you know.

On 12/15/2016 at 10:15 AM, Telebubbies said:

Oh ya. I forgot to mention that. Sorry.

So I plan on hosting SQL servers as datacenters, and 2 people are willing to pay me to host a Minecraft servers for them. So I will be hosting Datacenters (SQL) and I will also host 24/7 minecraft servers. 

There is a reason MS SQL Server and Oracle are the only ones deployed in large scale financial databases, but I am assuming you are not going to be paying the ~10k per core licensing fees. which means you'll end up on linux, which means SQL server 'does work' (technically, but i'd also look into PostgreSQL or something).

 

Also I think you mean databases, not datacenters.

[geo3]

For your situation I'd go with PostgreSQL or MySQL. I believe PostgreSQL will handle large DBs better than MySQL. But it could also depend on what application makes use of those databases. Some require a specific SQL implementation.  

[kerradeph]

Looking at your use, I would say go with what Electronics Wizardy said and install some kind of hypervisor on it and virtualize your servers. 

 

ESXi is free for a single host and is a very effective hypervisor and it's pretty simple to use. Also, how much money do you want to drop into this? If you don't want to drop a lot you're probably better off looking at a *nix based setup for your database servers. 

[NelizMastr]

Never run all tasks on a single OS instance. Spread them out to dedicated virtual machines instead. Run Proxmox or ESXi and go from there. If you want an easy setup, go Win2012R2 (2016 is licensed per CPU core, 2012 per socket) and SQL Server for the database servers, run minecraft in a small Linux based VM.