Hello

I am a new learner who is learning Linux for the last one year, in our country education related to Linux is slightly not upto par, so finding some one to teach linux is an issue and finding knowledge through forums and online mode.

Presently I am learning setting up servers and fixing security issues, in this I am confused with selecting proper OS for a server, can i go still with CentOS 6.X ? Is it good and stable or should i select some other distro?

Also is there any good guide to learn all commands and how to tutorials for CentOS 6.X?

Hi,

of course CentOS is a good and stable Server OS, but everything to get information on how to do something in CentOS is related to RedHat, because CentOS is a free release based on RedHat, so everything applies.

some how-to's and here

good luck

Regards.

CentOS is a good choice!

Some tutorials:

http://wiki.centos.org/Documentation
http://wiki.centos.org/TipsAndTricks
http://wiki.centos.org/HowTos

It is good to know the same. I am informed by one of the server company that CentOS6.X is not working fine with direct admin control panel, is it true?

I have never used DirectAdmin, but according to their website, CentOS 6.x is supported:

http://www.directadmin.com/install.html
http://www.directadmin.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=79

Thanks for the information, i had gone through it.

Also one more doubt, some companies are selling VPS with guaranteed RAM and burst RAM, how to identify originally how much RAM is alloted and how much is BURST, is there any command for that in CentOS? I should clearly get information on how much is original RAM and how much is swap or burst, i tried "free" or "free -m" but not sure is it right

I do not know the answer to your guaranteed/burst RAM question, sorry.

Be careful with VPS; they are not necessarily "genuine CentOS":

http://wiki.centos.org/AdditionalResources/OtherSpins

CentOS is good but if you can go with RHEL and get support I highly recommend it. CentOS is basically RHEL with all the red hat names stripped out and replaced with CentOS and is given away with no support. If this system is going to be generating revenue for you I wouldn't go with an OS with no support.

Which OS is preferred then? I understand that CentOs is not that much supported but its widely offered

Do you need paid support? That is the main difference between Red Hat and CentOS. (If you are paying a hosting company then you may be able to get support from them.)

by no support it means you wont have a team of people to answer your questions directly from a support staff.

Centos has an active community and RHEL and Centos are almost one in the same so tutorials/guides will apply.

Agreed, I use wiki.centos.org more often then the red-hat site for quick checks. I just wanted to throw that idea out there. If you are using a free OS through a hosting company and your server has a kernel panic the only support option they are going to provide is a re-provision unless your lucky enough to use a hosting provider that installs a secondary kernel for fail-over if needed. At the end of the day you should make this call on how critical this server is to you. My post said if this server is generating revenue you should go with red hat which basically means that if your running an e-commerce site and its your only source of income you should have that support. Otherwise you won't notice any difference between RHEL and CentOS.

Hope that clarifies my response a little better.

DirectAdmin VPS implies this is a low-budget project; if you are considering the required $299+ per year for Red Hat support for your e-commerce enterprise, then you probably want a better server/hosting plan too.

I think CentOS with community/wiki/forum support is probably fine for most people's needs.

I agree with everyone here. CentOS is a very good OS. That said Oracle Linux is also putting their OS out there. It is based on Red Hat as well but with tweaks added for better database support...you can buy support but you don't have to. I think they had said you get quarterly updates if you go that route rather than monthly. We have a mixed Red Hat, CentOS and Oracle Linux environment and they all run great.

As said yes ours is a low budget project, I already wrote that this server is being used for learning purpose mostly and not as a production server. In the recent days I am seeing that more and more people are opting for Ubuntu Server and Debian editions rather than opting for Centos? Why this shift is happening?

Also I have a small doubt if we learn the commands in CentOS will it be the same for Debian or Ubuntu?