I'm currently running CentOS 6.? and on it I have a few websites, teh, wordpress, tiny tiny rss, owncloud, etc.  I'm getting ready to build a new server and I wondered if there was a distro better suited for this kind of thing or if CentOS is a good choice.  I want to configure email/webmail on this box as well.

Advice please!

I don't know near enough to comment, but loads of web hosts are still using CentOS so it's not a bad choice!

CentOS is just a free-of-cost rehash of Redhat Enterprise and if you like that sort of thing then imo Scientific Linux is a better option - it's essentially the same thing but more up to date and better engineered. There's nothing scientific about it, it's just called that cos it's made by the people at CERN and used to run, amongst other stuff, all the PCs at the LHC site.

Sticking with RPM based stuff, there's OpenSUSE, which is a bit of a love it or loathe it distro. Especially when it comes to the stuff they pile on like YaST. Personally I loathe it but it's well respected and widely used. A couple of things that make it interesting are the Tumbleweed repo, which turns it into a rolling-release distro (I always use rolling releases on (not 'mission critical' stuff, obviously) servers because fuck upgrading every 6-18 months. The price of this is obviously that you have to fix stuff when it breaks. Which it will). And secondly SUSE Studio, which allows you to, essentially, customise your SUSE in a live environment and then download the iso/vm with all your customisations intact.

Debian's obviously popular on servers and a very good choice. Especially on the testing repo (which makes it essentially a rolling release). Robust and extremely well tested and with tonnes and tonnes of documentation. Though I can't really see an argument for using Debian over Ubuntu Server on something small-scale, Ubuntu's PPAs are just too handy.

Personally I use Manjaro, which is basically just an easier-to-install respin of Arch. I absolutely fucking adore Arch, but installing it is a pain in the arse, hence Manjaro. Can't beat it (Arch/Manjaro) for simplicity and ease of configuration. The Arch ethos being to present all packages with as few modifications as possible - no config tools, no default configs. So everything is very standard and the documentation is amazing. There's a bit of a learning curve at the start (which basically just involves getting it into your head to use the wiki) but once you're over that it's easier than most distros because there's only one way (the correct way) to do each thing - you're not dealing with layers of abstraction fighting eachother. The 'down'-side of this is configuring most things means getting your hands dirty in the text files.

Summary: If you liked CentOS then I'd recommend Scientific Linux. If you didn't, I'd recommend Debian/Ubuntu. If you want something rolling-release I'd recommend Debian/SUSE/Manjaro. And if you want to learn and get better at Linux then I'd strongly recommend Manjaro/Arch.

Thanks for that, very good info!  It's not that I don't like it, it was more of a "Am I using the right tool for the job" type thing. It seems fine, I am just wondering if something like Ubuntu Server would handle these tasks better or if I'm limiting myself in some way by choosing the Distro that I have.

The choice between RHEL and its derivatives and Debian/Ubuntu/derivatives is really just the choice between RPM and .deb/apt. Other than that they're basically the same thing and will act the same in terms of performance and so on.

SUSE is a special case because of YaST. They try to make a GUI for configuring everything. Some people like that, some don't.

Best thing to do would be to spend a few hours just trying out a few distros in a VM and see which one you get on with best cos it's pretty subjective. All the big ones are equally good choices, they just do things slightly differently and feel a little different.

Good advice.  Although I don't install any desktop environment.  I think I'll just stick with CentOS then, I am getting used to using it.

Thanks handsome!

:*

I like Fedora for a desktop pc (newer kernels etc), but centos/scientific are safer choices for server. Ubuntu 12.04 LTS is probably a good compromise, generally has a bigger software library and better documentation. Oh, and yum is usable for package management, but apt/synaptic are vastly superior. Fedora now has yumex, which is an improvement but still lagging the debian stuff. You can do a headless server install, and add a de if needed (I run a couple at work over vnc)

I used Ububtu 12.04 on my server because I didn't know any better :C

Is there something wrong with it?

Nothing wrong with 12.04, Teh runs on it. Also better than 12.10 IMHO

Well yeah, I'm not saying it's bad or anything (in fact it's been just fine), just that on the setup page for the server it asked me to pick from a huge list of distros and I was like :? so I picked the only one I'd actually used before :$

I agree.

Using 12.04 on everything except one VM. Should probably build a new VM with 12.04 since that's running something older that isn't an LTS version so I think the support period has ended.

If it's not one of the LTS releases, support is currently offered for up to 18 months after release. With the next release (13.04) support will be cut to 9 months.

All the LTS releases are supported for 5 years, so even 10.04 is good for support until April 2015.

Also, I edited your signature to make it work correctly.

What is the opinion of Debian Squeeze?

S'good. I like Debian a lot. For a no-Xorg installation Debian's going to be functionally the same as Ubuntu, really.

I may give that a go.  I am sitting here trying to install CentOS on an older (not real old) box with a 500GB and 1.5TB hdd and it seems like it's stuck on formatting.  Been here for for 15 minutes at least.  I'm going to go shopping and see what it's like when I get back.  If it's still like this then I'll try Squeeze. 

 (hug) Thanks! I did try but it was showing differently between different previews.

I thought I read somewhere they're extending support? Oh yeah, LTS server and desktop are getting the same length of support now.

But yeah, I totally forgot about the short support time for none LTS releases until I tried to update the old XBMC HTPC at my parents over christmas and apt-get update wouldn't do a thing. I think I'll stick with LTS releases from now on. I don't quite enjoy full system reinstalls like I used to! (Probably why I've not bothered with Windows 8 yet, whereas in the past I used betas and RCs of XP, Vista and 7)