Choice of operating systems for a Rackspace cloud installation [closed]

Question

I am planning to use Rackspace cloud services to host a java web application and also run apace for wordpress and trac. What would be a stable operating system to host such an application. My requirements are that the core OS bundle should be minimalistic (so I can install only what I want), consume very little memory and be performant. I would also need it to contain softwares for the common lamp stack, J2EE stack etc. A supported package manager would be lovely. My choices are listed below.

• RHEL 5.3 or 5.4
• Debian Lenny
• Ubuntu 8.04 onwards
• Centos 5.3 or 5.4
• Arch 2009.02
• Gentoo 2008.0 or 10.1
• Fedora 11 or 12

Answer 1

If your looking for ease of use, Ubuntu would really be good. The package manager is one of the best and with an Ubuntu minimal install, you have a pretty clean state that isn't that big. And unlike Gentoo, you don't have to compile all of your programs you want to install.

But I would pick one that I'm familiar with. Diving into an unknown OS on a dedicated production server (that probably isn't cheap) isn't something that I would recommend. Being able to use the OS is much better than having some super light but super complicated obscure OS.

Answer 2

If minimalistic is what you're after, I'd definitely opt for Gentoo or Arch. Being an Arch user over the years, that would be my personal preference. Configuring it is fairly easy via pacman, and Arch has one of the most up to date repositories.

You can make either as minimal as you want, and only install what you need. Of course, each will have it's own learning curve, and you'll get better along the way. I'd say Gentoo has a bit more configuring to do though. After using both for extended periods of time, I can assure you they are rock solid when it comes to stability, provided you configure the machine right and install stable software.

You'd probably be interested in Arch's Comprehensive server Guide if you take that path (work in progress).