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  #1  
Unread 12th August, 2003, 06:54 PM
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Azazel Azazel is offline
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Default The Best Linux Distribution for UT Servers >> REVEALED

Alas, the search is over! ...After 2 months of downloading Linux iso's, 6 weeks of partitioning hardrives, and countless

hours of researching distribution bugs, anomalies, and querks...the answer is in: THERE IS NO "BEST" LINUX

DISTRIBUTION
....for hosting UnrealTournament/UT2003 servers.

There are, however, some simple but important considerations you should make before selecting "your"

Linux distro. Practicality vs Simplicity should be key in your decision, and is what you will most likely

face when you make your choice.First stop: Let's start with the easy one: if you have a sparkling new 3ghz procesor, about a gig

of RDRAM, and a 120gig serial ATA hardrive...STOP HERE!!! This info wont apply to you...simply load your favorite OS,

(WindowsXP, SuSE, Redhat, whatever...) then read all the instructions carefully for the UT server and have fun with it.

After all, this is why you bought a nice new shiney computer, ...isnt it?

Next stop: If you have a computer with a fairly modern processor (lets say PIII 1ghz+ or P4), a

fair amout of RAM (512mb or more), and hard drive space is definately not an issue (lets say you got an extra 10gig-20gig

laying around), ....then you may as well lean toward a more complete Linux distribution and enjoy a little more of what the

wonderful world of Linux has to offer....where OS also stands for Open Source

SUSE and REDHAT are both highly commercial versions of Linux whose developers have

gone to painstaking efforts to ensure that all the t's are crossed and the i's are dotted so that you can spend more time

using the distribution and less time configuring it. MANDRAKE is

also commercialized and very refined, but all other measurements aside, there is one huge thing that sets Mandrake apart

from the other "major" distributions....ITS FREE Anything it loses to the other distro's it gains back with the extra

padding in your pocket more suited for things like ....well, beer! hehehe. If money is not an object, then SuSE is my

personal favorite. I give it the edge due to it's very easy installation and good assortment of tools to make upgrading a

cinch. With Linux loaded on one of these modern computers you can run the UT server from the X-Window GUI with no problems,

and also have easy access to a file manager for ease of UT Server installation and a browser for admin-ing the server.

Optionally, you could run the server from a shell prompt (without starting an X-window session) to use less overhead if you

have a less powerful computer, or if it is to be used as a dedicated server only.

Last stop: This brings us to somewhat older computer systems, and we now have to lean a little

more toward simplicity and forgo all the bells and whistles. Now we're talking about a computer with less than 1ghz of

processing power (preferably at least 400mhz), and at least 256 meg of RAM...if you dont have 256 meg of RAM, save your

lunch money and just go buy some, it dirt cheap.

If your computer is toward the upper end of this catagory, then you might also consider the more popular distributions

listed above, ....but starting with the installation, you should have as few unnecesary things loaded as possible. During

the installation, select as few packages as possible and if it's an option, have it start as few service as possible at

boot-up, and then elect to "not" start the X-window system automatically. You will also need to do a little research and

manually turn off unnecesary servers at boot time like CUPS (for printing), WINE (for Windows enulation), FTP servers, Web

servers, remote admin servers, and a host of others... This should keep your instalation lean enough for running a smooth

UT server and yet still afford you the opportunity to utilize the benefits of the OS if you want to Bye the way, if you

have an old MAC computer laying around collecting dust, you can get a PPC compliant version of Mandrake 9.1 and breath an "unreal" amount of new life back into

that old box, .

If your computer is not on the upper end of this scale, or you will be strictly running a dedicated server, then you would

be better off finding a distribution that's already "lightweight" out of the box. There are many Linux distros available

that fit this bill, but a very important note to keep in mind is that the further you stray from the mainstream commercial

distributions of Linux, the more you increase the likelyhood that you will run into some kind of an incompatability issue

with your computer hardware. The best bet is to try 2 or 3 of them and see which distribution seems to work the best with

your rig....In most cases the choice will be obvious. Additionally, be prepared to learn a little bit about the Linux OS

and it's peculiarities. Although there are many distributions to choose from, very few of them have easy or even intuitive

installations....but on a better note, nearly all of the distributions are totally free to download ....so those

beers you bought with the money you saved, you might need them at some point during the Linux install, hehehe. Two of the

best "lightweight" (and complete) Linux distributions I've found so far are VECTOR LINUX and PEANUT LINUX. Both of these get points for a fairly easy installation (compared

to similar distributions), a complete set of software and tools for the average desktop user, they both run fast, and they

both have a choice of X-windows GUI's to select from. Peanut comes loaded with KDE 3.1, which is the defacto standard for

Linux X-windows GUI's, but I recommend disabling it when running a UT server. Although KDE has all the best goodies

built-in, it also weighs in as the heaviest of all the X-windows GUI's...which will eat up resources on an already taxed

computer. The current version of Vector Linux is in the RC-1 stage of developement, which means it is stable, but

there are likely to be a few additions or refinements in the finished version , which is due out very soon. Vector

Linux
is based on Slackware, which is the oldest and considered to be the most stable distribution of Linux, and Vector

is very fast. So fast in fact, that the lightweight X-windows GUI can probably be run concurrent with the UT server and

show no ill effects. Based on the stability and speed of Vector Linux, I would have to give it the official "nod"

over other similar distributions, including Peanut Linux. Both Vector and Peanut have very good online support and a

group of helpful people in their forums.

Here are a couple of great places to start in your search for the Linux distro that best suits your needs....
ibiblio.org and Distrowatch.com

A final note...for those who are not weak of heart and have already backed up all their important data. You can dual

boot your Windows OS with a fast Linux distro, for those times when you want to run a clean UT server...it's not too

difficult to set up, but it will require that you do a little research on the subject. Additionally, if you are limited to

only running one copy of Windows XP, and your Linux installation will be on a second (or 3rd) computer, then you can just

as easily dual boot two Linux distros....A nice full featured one like Mandrake, and a very fast and stable one like

Vector. This way you will have the best of both worlds...the Real one and the Unreal one.


Best of luck with your new Linux OS and your new UT server, but most of all, I hope you keep on UT-ing
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  #2  
Unread 11th September, 2005, 05:30 PM
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I use Gentoo now, which allows me very fine tuning on my game servers. allowing proper treading and those kind of things, good one to look into
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  #3  
Unread 11th September, 2005, 06:19 PM
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I think that unless you use X Window System it really doesn't matter which distribution you use if you only compile your own kernel, which really isn't so hard. And one more thing ... Linux distributions aren't like windows, new versions are usually faster than their predecessors, there is NO REASON to install older distribution on an older computer(like RH9.1), the only time it is logical is when your P133 cannot handle graphical installation process, but then most distributions still sustain a text-mode installer. Azazel if you check source distributions like gentoo and play with them a little, you would find programs compiled for a specific processor outperforming programs compiled to run almost everywhere. So Gentoo is imo the fastest but costs a lot of work to set.
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  #4  
Unread 11th September, 2005, 04:03 PM
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That was news post done on behalf of someone else in the nuke days .. unfortunately there name didn't come across with it

Personally I prefer debian.
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  #5  
Unread 11th September, 2005, 04:28 PM
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I have a contact who seems to prefer BSD. We tested a server with it and it seems to offer the most stable ping on UT.
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  #6  
Unread 11th September, 2005, 07:24 PM
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Killing and Limited (I think) who work on this site both swear by FreeBSD as well.
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  #7  
Unread 12th September, 2005, 03:49 AM
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A good stable network is much more important then which distribution, if a distribution was so pants it would be clearly a lot slower then it would be posted all over the internet.
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Unread 13th September, 2005, 04:21 AM
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I had 2 years of Suse and 1 year of redhat fedora2
I must say and i think all linux guru's will say
SUSE is nr1
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  #9  
Unread 13th September, 2005, 06:03 AM
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I've only tried gentoo and i'm happy with it.
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  #10  
Unread 13th September, 2005, 04:18 PM
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I'm highly pleased with debian for 7 years.
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  #11  
Unread 13th September, 2005, 08:33 PM
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I expect laughter, but as a LOOOOOONGTIME windows NT 3.51 whore (who converted from Amiga), I'm now exploring SuSE Pro 9.3 & OpenSuse 10 RC1 and really enjoying it.
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  #12  
Unread 14th September, 2005, 04:46 AM
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I'm a firm believer that all roads lead to GNU/Debian Linux...
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