Advice Appreciated: Centos Or Fedora Server ?

Hi guys,

We currently run our site on a windows vps server (which we know now wasn't the best choice to sit Zen Cart on)

We have another site - non zen cart - which we intend to run on the same vps server. The developers have advised us that this site will not play well with windows servers and they have suggested either Centos or Fedora for a new vps server.

When this is up and running we will migrate our current site(s) from the windows vps to the new server. My question is out of the two server systems advises - Centos and Fedora is there any preferred one for Zen Cart to operate on. Is there any known issues I need to be aware of ?

Thanks in advance for any advice.

Either will take a bit of tuning the settings

If your site is not that large this is an expensive way to go and then be responsible for server admin on top of all the other things

Hi Kobra,

Thanks for the response. Our main zencart site isn't hugely busy. Gets approx 2000 - 3000 unique visits a day with a second site getting 800 approx. We moved onto a vps server after our shared hosting started to be painfully slow.

We're taking over another site now which we ideally want to group onto the same server to share the costs. It's just that the site we are taking over is an existing custom build that will not sit on a windows server too easily. I'm also concerned with pci compliance on shared hosting.

Do you think our volumes should still be on shared hosting ???

When you say either will require a bit of tuning - does this mean that zencart is not compatible with these servers out of the box ?

It is compatible but to experience the speed you will want takes some tuning of the LAMP stack(linux kernel, apache,mysql, php)

VPS is a partitiuoned "shared" server - - or virtual machine
But you still share the CPU(s) and memory

PatF:

My question is out of the two server systems advises - Centos and Fedora is there any preferred one for Zen Cart to operate on. Is there any known issues I need to be aware of ?

Thanks in advance for any advice.

For web applications both systems can be considered as identical as they both use the same LAMP software.

Fedora caters to the hobbyist market which wants up to date software.

CentOS/RHEL is designed for the professional market that wants stability and long term software support.

Cheers
rod

Going back to the original question my vote would be for CentOS. As RodG has pointed out CentOs is Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) released as Open Source. The interesting thing is that whilst you have to pay a licence for RHEL which includes support it's actually CentOS which is quicker off the mark issuing security updates and bug fixes. Sometimes this can be a difference of months and not weeks.

I'm sure that the Red Hat corporation would love it if CentOs did not exist, but unfortunately for them the framework was developed when they were part of an Open Source consortium which released under GPL. That project, by the way, was the "Fedora" project.

Vger

I believe that I am correct in that all LINUX systems are based upon the kernel released and updated by the org that Linus Torvalds started

I believe that the "Fedora" project predates Linux. They may well have started with Apache and Unix. But I could also be wrong.

Vger

Vger,

I only know it as Fedora linux by Red Hat

July 21st 2003 - Red Hat Linux Beta 1 (Severn) / Fedora Core 1 Test 1

You got some other history??

There are several Unix projects back to the 70's at least with the later BSD taking prominence

kobra:

I believe that I am correct in that all LINUX systems are based upon the kernel released and updated by the org that Linus Torvalds started

Linus was also influenced by MINIX created by Andrew S. Tanenbaum around 1987

I can remember studying Minix around 1992

gilby:

Linus was also influenced by MINIX created by Andrew S. Tanenbaum around 1987

I can remember studying Minix around 1992

kobra:

Vger,

I only know it as Fedora linux by Red Hat

July 21st 2003 - Red Hat Linux Beta 1 (Severn) / Fedora Core 1 Test 1

You got some other history??

There are several Unix projects back to the 70's at least with the later BSD taking prominence

Vger:

I believe that the "Fedora" project predates Linux. They may well have started with Apache and Unix. But I could also be wrong.

Vger

kobra:

I believe that I am correct in that all LINUX systems are based upon the kernel released and updated by the org that Linus Torvalds started

... and this history listen is helping HOW???

PatF:

My question is out of the two server systems advises - Centos and Fedora is there any preferred one for Zen Cart to operate on. Is there any known issues I need to be aware of ?
As far as running Zen Cart is concerned, either is fine.
I would suggest that your decision be made in conjunction with whomever your server administrator is, since it is that person who will be fine-tuning the server's performance for all the sites that are running on it.

Kim,
Are we infringing upon your fragile psyche??
Or just curious?

... and this history listen is helping HOW???
Not much different than which cart is best...
OSC or ZenCart

It assists to know the history to be capable of making an informed decision...How long they have been in existence and from what they were developed

Fedora & CENTOS are both linux based but each supported for differing purposes

Vger:

I believe that the "Fedora" project predates Linux.

Not so. Fedora is a derivative project of Redhat Linux, so it can't have predated linux.

Cheers
Rod

kobra:

I believe that I am correct in that all LINUX systems are based upon the kernel released and updated by the org that Linus Torvalds started

Yes, you are indeed correct.

However, many people confuse the kernal itself with the different distributions, and even the GPL system and the GNU project started by Richard Stallman back in 1983

The founding goal of the project was, in the words of its initial announcement, to develop "a sufficient body of free software [...] to get along without any software that is not free."[1] To make this happen, the GNU Project began working on an operating system called GNU ("GNU" is a recursive acronym that stands for "GNU's Not Unix"). This goal of making a free software operating system was achieved in 1992 when the last gap in the GNU system, a kernel, was filled by the third-party Linux kernel being released as Free Software, under version 2 of the GNU GPL.

This changed the game by making it possible for anyone to create their own distribution package consisting of an operating system plus whatever GPL/GNU applications they chose, and they did... This is what all the different distributions are all about... they ALL use the same code base (including the linux kernal), they are just packaged with different apps for different needs.

Although Linus gets the credit for creating Linux, it is really Richard Stallman that deserves most of the credit for what we currently all enjoy for free as it is/was his project.. the kernal being just a part of it.

If any of you know, or have met Richard (I have) you'll find he gets very annoyed when people refer to 'Linux' without giving any reference to the GNU project that started it all.. He insists it be called "GNU/Linux"

I tend to agree with him on principle, but in practice, I'm just like everyone else and simply (and incorrectly) say "Linux" when in reality I am referring to the entire GNU project in conjuction with the linux operating system.

Sorry about the rave... I guess having met Stallman has left a strong impression on me.

Cheers
Rod

DrByte:

As far as running Zen Cart is concerned, either is fine.
I would suggest that your decision be made in conjunction with whomever your server administrator is, since it is that person who will be fine-tuning the server's performance for all the sites that are running on it.

Well to be honest it's me who is the server admin - not that I know much about them so it's going to be outsourced if it needs tuning.

Our problem is we're on the verge of being very busy (shared hosting is too slow / causing issues and pci compliance was also an issue) but not having the turnover to regularly employ the technical expertise ideally needed to run vps servers.

Not an ideal situation but have to plough on regardless :smile:

It seems though from the replies that CentOs is the way forward. Thanks to everyone for the help and indeed the history lesson - as a complete newbie it was interesting to me. I always though Linux was a single OS like Windows and did not realise it was fragmented into a number of systems working from the one core base as such.

It seems though from the replies that CentOs is the way forward.
Hopefully, you picked up amongst our ramblings, that CENTOS & CENTOS/REL can be used tfor the same thing and that REL(Red Hat Linux), is what CENTOS is based upon

So if offered any of those at the same cost, take what you can get

AS REL is usually a paid package and mostly for mission critical clients, only stable, meaning tested, modifications are offered...

Where do they test these, basically in the GNU/GPL CENTOS distributiuons

As we run mission critical apps, at least to us, run the stable release versus edge, and patch it if necessary

It seems though from the replies that CentOs is the way forward. :smile:Thanks to everyone for the help and indeed the history lesson - as a complete newbie it was interesting to me. I always though Linux was a single OS like Windows and did not realise it was fragmented into a number of systems working from the one core base as such.:smile: