Is Ubuntu Server the reference for server today?
Posted by sdns575@reddit | linuxadmin | View on Reddit | 46 comments
Hi,
since the CentOS thing (from some years ago) I found that many and many are migrated to Ubuntu LTS/Debian Stable for their server and workstation.
This is the time EL based distros have been superseded in the server env or it is only bad perception?
Every news about linux distro is Ubuntu related, big ISP push Ubuntu faster than other distro like Rocky/AlmaLinux. For example on my IPS they create VPS Cloud image for Ubuntu LTS 24.04 and Debian 12 than for AlmaLinux/RockyLinux 9 and when I asked to them "when I can expect an image release?" they aswered me that today there are better alternatives like Ubuntu LTS and Debian looking also for a future proof usage.
What do you think about this?
Thank you in advance
_BoNgRiPPeR_420@reddit
We only have Ubuntu because it's what our developers were comfortable with, and we could get support directly from the maintainers. There's only a small handful of distros that offer direct support like RHEL, Suse, and Ubuntu otherwise you're stuck using a 3rd party and it's best-effort.
The other reason is that it's fully supported by Docker Engine. With RHEL you have to use Podman instead.
https://docs.docker.com/engine/install/
alex---z@reddit
I think 90% of the reason Ubuntu even exists in a server form is only because it's what Developers were comfortable with after using it as a workstation.
nightcom@reddit
Ubuntu is solid on desktops but Debian is a server king...not much changed in this
BringNewRevolution@reddit
Why do you say that? I'm genuinely trying to understand because I have used both and almost all the time interchangeably without friction
nightcom@reddit
Generally Debian is more stable and like some people say (including me), have less garbage so also spyware. Ubuntu is based on Debian it's good and works fine for most people but if I could pick from those two on some crucial server then I pick Debian IF I would like to install on workstations some Linux then most likely I would pick Ubuntu
BringNewRevolution@reddit
I've heard that before and I think that mostly applies to desktop variants of Ubuntu. Ubuntu server however, I don't recall seeing any out of the ordinary package
nightcom@reddit
Yes and no, even when you look on minimal requirements for hardware Debian is way less demending, resources are important in server and stability, Debian have huge experience in servers, those small differences makes difference if you setting server.
shulemaker@reddit
Ubuntu Server LTS is much more popular than Debian and has been since the dawn of the cloud.
sdns575@reddit (OP)
Thank you for your answer. I find debian better for server versus Ubuntu LTS but it is also widely used for server, specially when support is required or things like FIPS 140 or very long term usage like 10 years
skc5@reddit
Ubuntu is better for enterprise use because of Ubuntu Pro, Landscape, and guaranteed 10-yr support
Littlebouncinparrot@reddit
I am in north America. I work in FinTech. The dominant Distro in my world is RedHat with some Ubuntu and BSD thrown here and there.
pizzacake15@reddit
Ubuntu used to be my choice for my homelab as that was the distro i'm most familiar with. But since a few years ago when i had my proxmox server i've replaced all my Ubuntu with Debian. I'm also experimenting on Alpine Linux as my secondary docker host.
FalconDriver85@reddit
Some kind of commercial software requires either SLES or RHEL. When you start going RHEL for instance is simpler continuing and standardizing on RHEL or compatible distros (Alma/Rocky) to avoid going insane with your configuration management software (Ansible or whatever).
sdns575@reddit (OP)
Hi and thank you for your answer. Today many software are supported on Ubuntu LTS as for RHEL and SLES.
What type of software do you refer to?
About continuity and familiarity you are right
NL_Gray-Fox@reddit
Back in the day, Oracle and SAP.
Obviously for Oracle you can use Oracle Linux.
sdns575@reddit (OP)
Oh ok but SAP and Oracle DB are niche products and only big enterprise use them. I think that this two does not represent a "trend" use case
NL_Gray-Fox@reddit
True, but usually when we talk about using RHEL we are talking about "enterprise grade" services which "require" support...
Don't worry, in my 30+ years in IT I've had to contact RedHat once and Microsoft once... and from that I can tell you I hope you never have to file an issue with Microsoft.
sdns575@reddit (OP)
This I mean, RHEL seems only affordable and useful for big enterprise and since they made centos upstream and closed source to replicant they cut off small and medium companies making RHEL a niche product. I'm wrong?
Fr0gm4n@reddit
I think you've misunderstood how the EL situation is. Before the shift it went:
Fedora Linux -> Internal RHEL dev blackbox -> RHEL -> Rebuilds like CentOS Linux, Oracle Linux, etc.
CentOS Linux development was discontinued and now that C7 is EOL, the distro is dead. The current situation is:
Fedora Linux -> CentOS Stream -> RHEL -> Rebuilds like Rocky, Alma, Oracle, etc.
Red Hat implemented a policy of refusing further access and support to customers who took the Red Hat sources they were due per the GPL and shared them. Red Hat still fulfilled their obligations under the GPL and the interpretation of is refusing further services constitutes a further restriction or not is legally untested. Customers do get the code they are due per the GPL, and nothing in the GPL seems to require a provider to continue providing future binary or code to those who had previously been given them.
scoreboy69@reddit
One time or yearly cost?
syncdog@reddit
The pricing seems to be comparable to what Canonical and SUSE charge. All numbers below are per machine per year.
self-support:
regular support:
better support:
These tiers aren't identical as far as what they cover but that's not my point, my point is the RHEL pricing isn't an outlier, and certainly isn't making RHEL a niche product.
https://www.redhat.com/en/store/red-hat-enterprise-linux-server
https://ubuntu.com/pricing/pro
https://www.suse.com/shop/server/
kazik1ziuta@reddit
Centos is fully open source. What are you referring to?
jimirs@reddit
Oracle and SAP can be anything but niche. 90-95% of companies with +500 employees use some older or newer SAP system. Oracle DB's are around for years...
I'd vouch for SLES, Rhel, Debian before Ubuntu LTS.
NL_Gray-Fox@reddit
Oh definitely, anything over Ubuntu, never had so many broken packages due to a complete lack of QA testing on their end.
sdns575@reddit (OP)
This not sound good but I don't get that problem (I'm trying it on some server and I can't say the same.
Can you report what problem you encountered?
NL_Gray-Fox@reddit
Broken sssd packages, cannot log in anymore.
broken mdadm package cannot create, manage raid sets.
Broken SSH package, cannot remember the issue.
For sssd they blamed Debian, which never had the problem and after that it took them more than a month to fix.
For mdadm they never fixed it, it was a 3 character fix to which I offered a patch but they just decided to wait until they could deprecate the release.
BaileysOTR@reddit
Ubuntu is the most prevalent OS I see for FedRAMP.
sdns575@reddit (OP)
What is FedRAMP?
BaileysOTR@reddit
My bad, I thought i was in the fedramp forum
TemporaryImplement24@reddit
Honestly I feel like this is still relevant because FedRamp is the Us governments whole certification process. That's like a nontrivial indicator of large enterprises (gov only but still)
MurderShovel@reddit
Debian is my go-to unless I need newer packages. Adding PPAs defeats the whole purpose of using a thoroughly tested and approved product like Debian. Ubuntu is probably my fallback if Debian won’t do what I need.
I do a lot with Oracle’s cloud so I’ve used Oracle Linux and also Amazon Linux some. Amazon Linux is not bad for running containers. Oracle Linux pushes itself as binary compatible with RHEL so it might be a good alternative to Rocky/Alma/CentOS. You also have Fedora which is the public testing for RHEL.
Outside that, you have workstation distros that you can make servers or do a minimal install and build from there.
Ubuntu does fine for me but many people do NOT like Canonical.
whetu@reddit
I wouldn't hold Ubuntu as a reference for servers today at all, and I never would have.
Ubuntu is an excellent "my first Linux" that happens to be good enough for winging-it in production.
It excels at being a gateway drug for the Linux world. If you're a Windows Sysadmin who wants to grow up, you can use your limited click-next skills to get through an Ubuntu install and go from there. If you're a copy+paste developer, Ubuntu can get you up and running quickly, and as you grow through your professional evolution, you'll start using Ubuntu containers in Docker, and then switch to Alpine or Distroless images, and then maybe graduate to Kubernetes etc.
It otherwise brings very little to the table: a bunch of half-baked "not-invented-here" Canonical bullshit like snaps, no certifications that anyone recognises or respects etc. If it has to be a deb family distro, I'll take Debian instead, thanks.
For me, a reference server today would look something like Flatcar Linux. It's an immutable base with A/B partitioning (mainframers know) and automatic updates, which neatly carves a tight security profile and all-but-eliminates having to keep up with changes to STIG and/or CIS hardening standards.
johnklos@reddit
No.
aphasial@reddit
RPM is the key difference, honestly (combined with community norms around spec files). dpkg/apt is just not a great design, and there's a lot of stuff that can be easily done at the package layer on an RPM-based system that's much more annoying in Debian-land. Inertia makes up a lot of the rest.
knxdude1@reddit
We only use RHEL in our environment but I’d use Debian over Ubuntu
khobbits@reddit
I think that Ubuntu/Debian are likely taught more in schools, and are a bit more accessible to newbies, so get a bit of a larger push on things like VPS providers, but not as much in public cloud.
In the enterprise, I think RHEL has enough inertia and staying power to mean, Redhat, Oracle, Rocky, Alma and Amazon Linux collectively, will still be leading the way in enterprise market share.
If you need something a little faster on the update stream, you can still use Centos Stream, or Fedora Server, which are a bit more similar to ubuntu on the uptake.
ermurenz@reddit
We use Oracle Linux
mraddapp@reddit
Oracle Linux seems to have taken the place of centos, its open source and free to use like centos and has compatiblity with RHEL (as its compiled from RHEL releases similar to centos)
Rocky Linux also similar but I guess a lot of corporations end up going oracle for support contracts and their whole unbreakable kernel thing
GrammelHupfNockler@reddit
Never heard of Oracle Linux used in production before, but plenty of Rockys and Almas
deac714@reddit
Oracle Linux is a reasonable choice if Oracle is a business 's main RDBMS, vendors (such as ERPs like SAP or Banner --for my higher education sysadmins) only support RHEL or RHEL-alike Linux distros and you need support -- even if it is just to check a box.
Otherwise, go with what best supports the environment and software the company uses.
Hotshot55@reddit
We have a fuck load of Oracle Linux. I find it slightly easier to deal with for some things compared to RHEL since the repos are actually public.
mraddapp@reddit
Im part of a buisness that sells some NMS/OSS software and we state support for oracle linux 7/8 (as well as RHEL), same goes from the last job I was in that sold a similar type of software
Good few customers out there that have that in their production
In our lab I switched from centos to oracle also and its essentially identical in the way it behaves and is built/installed, just with oracles own repo. Avoids the whole RHEL subscription thing to get access to their repo for package installs/updates
I was pretty surprised that its open source/free considering its oracle
ConstructionSafe2814@reddit
10 years ago we had one Ubuntu server because Zimbra only officially was supported on Ubuntu Server. Now luckily both are gone and we're just Debian and RHEL :)
symcbean@reddit
I think that large, commercially driven Linux distributions (Redhat, Ubuntu) spend more time and money on marketing than others.
Where the decisions have been within my remit I have migrated from RHEL/Centos to Ubuntu and Debian based, not primarily on the cost of licensing, but rather for the quality and range of software, the quality of support and getting away from SELinux/targeted policy.
GamerLymx@reddit
ubuntu server has to much bloat
bnberg@reddit
I would say not. I see a lot of Debian 12 Servers, and many EL Servers - usually Red Hat, but also Alma and Rocky. And in Germany SLES pretty often as well.