[OPEN-ILS-GENERAL] What is the best OS for installing Evergreen-ILS?

[Ben Shum]

I'm still a relatively new to Linux server administration, but I'll 
throw in my two cents.

When we first setup Evergreen 1.4, we used Debian Lenny, as that was the 
recommendation at the time.  Shortly thereafter, Evergreen 1.6 came out, 
and we continued using Debian Lenny since we had become fairly 
comfortable with it.  It wasn't until 2.0 series was being developed 
that we started looking at other distributions.  At the time, getting 
the backported version of PostgreSQL 8.4 installed with Lenny was 
turning out to be a real chore since we were building from source rather 
than installing from backports (and people might not remember all the 
fun times we had learning to properly upgrade old databases from 8.2 to 
8.3 to 8.4).  Ubuntu Lucid had just been released around then, so it 
contained more of the "newer" packages required with the latest 
Evergreen.  Debian Squeeze was still in beta testing, or might have made 
it to RC status.  Either way, Ubuntu Lucid was recommended to get us 
moving with "stable" operating system platform for production.  I also 
felt reasonably comfortable with that choice because I got to know 
several of the other site admins from other Evergreen libraries running 
Lucid.

This is my first LTS cycle, so I'll have to get back to you on how I 
feel about the "age" of them over time.  I imagine we'll be among those 
seeing how we feel about the next LTS rollout, Pangolin.  Having a 
faster release cycle is nice, but seems to introduce problems with 
keeping everything working with the newer packages (like xulrunner 
quirks).  To me, it seems pretty point-in-time for any given Linux 
release and there's always some little quirk about each operating system 
used.  Debian Lenny felt pretty old to me when I started using it, but 
so did the previous Ubuntu LTS 8.04 Hardy.

After all the quiet crickets in IRC and mailing list during the last 
round of people asking about RHEL issues, I'm very wary of that OS; not 
just that I don't use it.  Dan Scott or Chris Sharp might have more 
things to say about Fedora installations, but I recall their release 
cycle is shorter than Debian or Ubuntu.

Curious to see what others write on this.  Good luck in your exploration.

-- Ben

On 11/29/2011 8:04 AM, Wolf Halton wrote:
> I know the standard wisdom is "Whichever OP your organization has 
> standardized on is the best OS for installing Evergreen-ILS" however I 
> am in a position to test and try stuff with minimal red tape (barring 
> structural alteration).
>
> I understand Evergreen has been tested on Ubuntu, Debian, Fedora and 
> RHEL.  From your experience what are the hurdles or the differences in 
> using one over another.  Presume equal skill in all of these Distros.  
> Are there other distros that work easier, more dependably? Have you 
> gotten EG to work on Puppy Linux, Slackware, Gentoo, Absolute Linux, 
> BSD, AIX, Solaris...
>
> I am considering Debian for reasons of the long life of major 
> versions.  Ubuntu LTS versions start to feel their age toward the 
> middle of their lifespan, if 10.04 is any indicator.  I never ran EG 
> on Ubuntu 8.4, so I don't have firsthand knowledge of your experience 
> with that.
>
> -- 
> This Apt Has Super Cow Powers - http://sourcefreedom.com
> Advancing Libraries Together - http://LYRASIS.org
>

-- 
Benjamin Shum
Open Source Software Coordinator
Bibliomation, Inc.
32 Crest Road
Middlebury, CT 06762
203-577-4070, ext. 113