Debian vs centOS

[TPerry]

Well, I think I'm glad I decided to go with Debian. On my Mac I have VirtualBox set up and have a centOS 6.4 Final x86_64 and a Debian 6.0 x86_64 installed (same config values for both - 2 gig ram, 20 gig HD space) with default install setups. Both are running Percona and nginx with php-fpm. Installed test sites of xenForo on both to compare speeds and setup differences. So far I've noticed that the centOS takes a LOT longer to rebuild the templates than the Debian box does. It also seems slower to on the page loads (this could be due to it being run in VirtualBox but Debian doesn't suffer this problem). The main reason I had done this was to see if I wanted to convert my VPS from Debian 6.0 over to centOS - and if I did what the differences in the setup would be. Once I got back into the swing of RPM it wasn't bad, but I still think Debian/apt is easier to deal with than centOS/yum.
Has anybody else that ran both noticed that centOS is slower in an actual VPS (don't really want to get another small VPS to test on but guess I could).
Any suggestions on centOS for tweaks that need to be made?

One thing I found is that (by default on my install) nginx in centOS did not have gzip enabled and Debian did. Turned gzip on in the nginx.conf and that sped the webpage views up some.

 

[Sheratan]

I run and managed both of them. And didn't have any problems so far. The only main difference between CentOS and Debian is cPanel.

But yeah, I like apt more than yum. For me, it's easier.

 

[Liam D.]

I personally disagree. I like using RedHat/CentOS and YUM more than Debian/apt. I don't know why, apt looks too messy to me. YUM provides you a neat list of dependencies needed to install in a table-like manner. Listing dependencies in apt confuses me for some reason. But that's just me.

Also, I like how RPM packages PHP differently. It doesn't include suhosin like Debian. While suhosin makes PHP more secure, I don't really like using it for my clients because it causes too much problems that are difficult to explain to non-technical users. I also like the vSwap feature for CentOS 6 (I don't know if there's an equivalent in Debian), and CentOS seems much faster to me than Debian.

Again, these are just my opinions.

 

[Adam Howard]

Debian also has a lot of control panel options, such as Direct Admin. And unlike CentOS with cPanel, you can actually buy Direct Admin thus not having the pay the monthly leasing cost of cPanel. Although Direct Admin does have a leasing option which is still more economical than cPanel (cost less). Direct Admin also can be installed not only on Debian, but also on FreeBSD, Red Hat, CentOS, and Ubuntu. So you can move around freely. And of course uses less resources than cPanel.

Debian OS as you noticed does uses less / fewer resources out of the box.

And if you like yum, you'll like aptitude which is more developed in some ways compared to the default apt command (apt-get install aptitude).

And as you've noticed Debian is generally overall more "speedy" than CentOS. And Debian starts you out with less than CentOS, allowing you to add only what you want (not having to remove things)... So its more of a nice; fresh start to build up from.

You can also of course build from source for Debian or rely on the many repositories that are out there, such as Dotdeb.org

 

[simbolo]

I personally use Debian because I'm more familiar with using and managing debian or debian based OSs. IMO you'll be happy with either choice.

 

[TPerry]

I personally use Debian because I'm more familiar with using and managing debian or debian based OSs. IMO you'll be happy with either choice.

Yep... one thing I found when I installed centOS on my local server. I used the "minimal" install - and had to manually configure the network card.
Minimal install on Debian 7.0 auto-detects the network card.
Also, @Liam D. , suhosin is NOT installed as a default on Debian (or at least none of the installs I've done with it using PHP 5.4.x).

 

[Adam Howard]

Yep... one thing I found when I installed centOS on my local server. I used the "minimal" install - and had to manually configure the network card.
Minimal install on Debian 7.0 auto-detects the network card.
Also, @Liam D. , suhosin is NOT installed as a default on Debian (or at least none of the installs I've done with it using PHP 5.4.x).

Debian and those who follow it, such as Ubuntu, are generally more developed on driver support. Ubuntu which is based off of Debian does have an advantage in that regard. So I'm not at all surprised that CentOS couldn't find your network card, but Debian could.

As you pointed out, suhosin is not installed by default on Debian. Which in my opinion is a good thing. But you can install it if you need it.

 

[TPerry]

Debian and those who follow it, such as Ubuntu, are generally more developed on driver support. Ubuntu which is based off of Debian does have an advantage in that regard. So I'm not at all surprised that CentOS couldn't find your network card, but Debian could.

Don't misunderstand me, but it DID find the card - it just didn't configure it (you had to do that manually ), whereas Debian did it automatically.
It was just a little more work since I wasn't familiar with centOS and all other minimal installs I have used would configure your network card for you.

As you pointed out, suhosin is not installed by default on Debian. Which in my opinion is a good thing. But you can install it if you need it.

The first install I did (I think it was using PHP 5.3) on my VPS did have it by default - and it was immediately removed. But with 5.4 series it's not.

 

[p4guru]

Well, I think I'm glad I decided to go with Debian. On my Mac I have VirtualBox set up and have a centOS 6.4 Final x86_64 and a Debian 6.0 x86_64 installed (same config values for both - 2 gig ram, 20 gig HD space) with default install setups. Both are running Percona and nginx with php-fpm. Installed test sites of xenForo on both to compare speeds and setup differences. So far I've noticed that the centOS takes a LOT longer to rebuild the templates than the Debian box does. It also seems slower to on the page loads (this could be due to it being run in VirtualBox but Debian doesn't suffer this problem). The main reason I had done this was to see if I wanted to convert my VPS from Debian 6.0 over to centOS - and if I did what the differences in the setup would be. Once I got back into the swing of RPM it wasn't bad, but I still think Debian/apt is easier to deal with than centOS/yum.
Has anybody else that ran both noticed that centOS is slower in an actual VPS (don't really want to get another small VPS to test on but guess I could).
Any suggestions on centOS for tweaks that need to be made?

One thing I found is that (by default on my install) nginx in centOS did not have gzip enabled and Debian did. Turned gzip on in the nginx.conf and that sped the webpage views up some.

No problems here with CentOS 6.4 and Xenforo rebuilding templates.

I like a few other folks here use Centmin Mod to auto install Nginx/php-fpm and MariaDB and it's pretty much optimized out of the box including gzip enable etc. So if you have convenience of Virtualbox testing, give it a whirl

free -m
            total      used      free    shared    buffers    cached
Mem:          499        377        121          0        142        155
-/+ buffers/cache:        79        419
Swap:            0          0          0

Above memory usage is from CentOS 6.4 32bit, 512MB VPS running Centmin Mod Nginx 1.4.1, PHP 5.4.16 and MariaDB 5.5.31 MySQL with memcached server and APC Cache with Wordpress, Xenforo (3k posts) and vBulletin 4.2 forum on same server.

FYI,

1). with Centmin Mod you might want to leave Google ngx_pagespeed module disabled http://centminmod.com/nginx_ngx_pagespeed.html unless you know what you're doing as you might have to disable or exclude some Xenforo files from pagespeed optimization i.e. css.php
2). with Centmin Mod CSF firewall is installed by default

 

[TPerry]

I like a few other folks here use Centmin Mod to auto install Nginx/php-fpm and MariaDB and it's pretty much optimized out of the box including gzip enable etc. So if you have convenience of Virtualbox testing, give it a whirl
FYI,
1). with Centmin Mod you might want to leave Google ngx_pagespeed module disabled http://centminmod.com/nginx_ngx_pagespeed.html unless you know what you're doing as you might have to disable or exclude some Xenforo files from pagespeed optimization i.e. css.php
2). with Centmin Mod CSF firewall is installed by default

I'll give it a whirl once I get my computer room set back up. I've got to have the electrician come in and wire a couple of extra outlets (not to mention change out the breaker box for two 200 amp boxes and have a double lug meter installed - also needed for the welding equipment in the garage) for the Dell 2900 server and the Gateway 980 (which has centOS already installed on it) so I can have them and my 3 other Linux desktops and Windows 7 one all on the KVM.

 

[kprojects]

I admin both, but have always been a Red Hat guy.. and have been slowly converting Debian boxes to CentOS boxes at the hosting company I work for

Linux.org runs CentOS.. you should too

(as i say all this w/ my slackware shirted avatar pic)

 

[TPerry]

I admin both, but have always been a Red Hat guy.. and have been slowly converting Debian boxes to CentOS boxes at the hosting company I work for

Linux.org runs CentOS.. you should too

(as i say all this w/ my slackware shirted avatar pic)

So far, what little I've played with it I find that I still prefer Debian. I've always leaned towards the .deb packaging (it doesn't hurt that is what the JB iPhone/iPad grabs from Cydia).

 

[Liam D.]

Yep... one thing I found when I installed centOS on my local server. I used the "minimal" install - and had to manually configure the network card.
Minimal install on Debian 7.0 auto-detects the network card.
Also, @Liam D. , suhosin is NOT installed as a default on Debian (or at least none of the installs I've done with it using PHP 5.4.x).

sorry for that. It did have suhosin on PHP 5.3 (I know that for a fact since it was the very reason why I chose CentOS) but I wasn't sure for 5.4. Thanks for pointing that out!

I must say that I have this new-found love for Debian after playing around with it. I'm planning to convert all my current servers running CentOS to Debian.

 

[Slavik]

Incidentally this week I dropped all support for debian servers.

As of Monday, i'm only officialy supporting RHEL based systems.

 

[TPerry]

sorry for that. It did have suhosin on PHP 5.3 (I know that for a fact since it was the very reason why I chose CentOS) but I wasn't sure for 5.4. Thanks for pointing that out!

I must say that I have this new-found love for Debian after playing around with it. I'm planning to convert all my current servers running CentOS to Debian.

I've got a centOS server sitting here beside me right now. Been playing with it for a while and still haven't "felt the love" for it.
The Debian server I have setting up beside it was much quicker to set up and get configured - but that's due to the structure layout being different.

 

[TPerry]

I like a few other folks here use Centmin Mod to auto install Nginx/php-fpm and MariaDB and it's pretty much optimized out of the box including gzip enable etc. So if you have convenience of Virtualbox testing, give it a whirl

Shoot...no need to do it in a VM now since I have the two servers sitting in the computer room. One is going to keep Debian on it (it's my testbed to duplicate my current servers), the other is just a play around with machine - which has centOS on it (at least for the rest of the month or until I get it working to set up with my dyndns hosting to test out).

 

[p4guru]

Ah everyone has their own tastes it seems.. just go with which ever feels most comfortable. For me that is CentOS/RHEL all 6.x series.

 

[Adam Howard]

I must say that I have this new-found love for Debian after playing around with it. I'm planning to convert all my current servers running CentOS to Debian.

I've got a centOS server sitting here beside me right now. Been playing with it for a while and still haven't "felt the love" for it.
The Debian server I have setting up beside it was much quicker to set up and get configured - but that's due to the structure layout being different.

I think most people are use to CentOS, because Red Hat was the original "market share" bulk of servers and when they went primarily paid, CentOS which was (is) based off it, became the easy switch over.

But from what I've seen is a lot of people who give Debian (or Debian alternatives) a try, find its more user friendly, easier to configure, and uses fewer resources (compared to CentOS). And it does this out of the box before you even go about changing anything.

The big selling point in my opinion for CentOS is that cPanel only works on Red Hat type systems. And as that became the "standard norm", most people who depend on it for whatever reason, fear the idea of change or trying anything else. Even without cPanel, most people normally don't like change or trying new things.

Of course there are tons of alternative control panels for Debian for those who feel the need. My recommendation for those who do, would be Direct Admin. Which offers all the basic things most users use in cPanel. But at a more affordable cost, fewer resources, and unlike cPanel, you can switch OS's (Debian, Ubuntu, CentOS, Red Hat, ect...).

Debian has a low learning curve for those who do prefer SSH. It's friendly to even Windows users who are learning Linux and if you know CentOS, Debian will be even more easier to use as you can configure things manually if you choose, but you have the option not to or mix & match.

It's very flexible and from my experience, you don't compromise performance or require "extra" tweaking to achieve that performance when customizing Debian to your liking.

 

[Slavik]

But from what I've seen is a lot of people who give Debian (or Debian alternatives) a try, find its more user friendly, easier to configure, and uses fewer resources (compared to CentOS). And it does this out of the box before you even go about changing anything.

Personaly, I find the complete opposite of everything here, apart from fewer resources out the box, but even thats a negligible difference.

I find debian nothing but a headache to work with compared to RHEL.

 

[Adam Howard]

Personaly, I find the complete opposite of everything here, apart from fewer resources out the box, but even thats a negligible difference.

I find debian nothing but a headache to work with compared to RHEL.

What is it that you find so hard about Debian?

You, yourself admit that out of the box Debian uses fewer resources.