From: Ben Giddings <ben@...>
Date: 2003-09-04T03:27:07+09:00
Subject: Re: (OT) Another Ruby-powered site

ahoward wrote:
>>Could this possibly have some deeper philosophical reasons? I have choosen both
>>FreeBSD over Linux and Ruby over Python because they somehow more match the way
>>I am thinking. ;-)
> 
> could you elaborate?  i'm in the process of setting up some new machines and
> was planning on Linux, Ruby, Apache, PostgreSQL - along with fastcgi and
> amirta.

For what it's worth, I'm running Linux, Apache, Ruby and MySQL for my 
main Ruby application.  The other one is an OS X box, but I don't use a 
DB or web server on it.

For me, choosing Linux was a matter of convenience.  I didn't have a 
particular role for the server in mind, and wanted an easy install, so 
RedHat was all I needed.  It's been doing fine, running for months on 
end with minimal maintenance needed, until the power failed of course.  ;)

I think for a "mission critical" box, I'd probably use either Debian or 
FreeBSD.  From what I understand, both are harder to install but more 
reliable and easier to keep up to date than RedHat.  If I needed 
multi-user concurrant DB access, I'd probably go for PostgreSQL, but I'm 
more comfortable with MySQL and it does what I need for now.

For me it's a combination of laziness, familiarity and simplicity that 
has kept me with RedHat and MySQL.  Philosophy has had nothing to do 
with it.

Ben