Differences between Server Edition and Desktop Edition?

Differences are as you said CLI in server version ( you can install GUI if you want) and GUI in desktop version (you can install LAMP on it) but I think main difference is kernel.Server version have different kernel then desktop and that kernel allow you to use all your ram resources.But now in Karmic you can install 32 bit version and then install linux-generic-pae kernel and it will recognize all your ram.Or you can install 64 desktop version and then install LAMP.If you choose to install server version you can always install GUI if you want.

The primary differences between desktop and server are very much "under the hood" type things.

Server is built to handle a lot of power, and be incredibly stable. Desktop is built to provide you a GUI, and "just work" when you put in the disk.

Server edition should not be installed on your "home computer" as it is not intended for standard web browsing use. It has a much beefier kernel built to cater to serving up requests to lots of people - not a kernel built to optimize your everyday work and performance.

Thanks both of you!

It sounds like you're both telling me that I want to install the Desktop Edition to develop my site.

And then, when the site is developed, wipe the HD and install the Server Edition when I'm ready to put my site up for the public to use.

Yes?

Thanks tjagoda, that solved my question.

Hi :)

Perhaps not even 'wipe to install the server edition'. You can install both as a dual-boot so that you can boot into desktop edition for some tasks and then reboot into server edition for the most part. They could share the same /home partition but it might be sensible to keep them separate, especially as each can happily write to the other's space anyway.

Desktop Edition is available as both 32 bit and 64 bit but i would recommend the 32 bit version as the advantages of 64bit are unlikely to be noticed but the disadvantages might cause problems while you are new to linux land. Really the advantages and disadvantages are quite minor tho. 64bit can address over 4Gb ram, but Ubuntu rarely needs more than 2Gb anyway, in fact it rarely needs even 2GB. It is marginally easier to access a wider range of programs more easily with 32bit version.

Server Edition is built to be web-facing and has a huge range of programs and features that would be a waste of time having on a desktop machine. It does provide extra security against things a desktop wouldn't encounter and enables throughput and gateway functions to the desktop machines it networks. Most of these features can be added to a desktop edition fairly easily if you're experienced enough with server functions but it's recommended that you use the right edition for the task. A desktop edition is fine running a Lan but not if it faces the internet itself (it could probably cope but wouldn't be ideal). On the other hand server edition doesn't do multimedia or gui's or a ton of other stuff you would expect from a desktop machine. Although some of this could be added but the more gui stuff you add the more likely that the machine will need to be rebooted at some point.

Good luck and regards from
Tom :)

Hi again :)

I think i would recommend using a hosting service for your website rather than trying to host it yourself although it could be interesting. Hosting it yourself almost certainly means dedicating a machine to be a server only. However, that might not need your top machine as servers are much less likely to deal with unexpected rapid changes in demands and can queue things up (cache) better than desktop machines (humans are wildly unpredictable).

Regards again from
Tom :)

Thanks, Tom! That's the best answer yet!

But if I choose to host my site myself, the server WILL be web-facing. And once my site goes live, I'm not going to want to take the site down to noodle with the box. I'm not going to want to touch the server again, ever, except to handle hardware faulures or to upgrade the site.

Yeah, lots of people are advising me to use a hosting service. I'm undecided whether to get a static IP from my ISP, or to use a hosting service.

I like knowing that my site would be right here under my nose to take care of any problems that come up. I don't mind dedicating a machine to the site. That's why I'm shopping for servers...

Yup, but once you have installed Ubuntu it only takes up about 10Gb or so & its easier to keep it "just in case" rather than lose it and regret. If you still haven't gone back to it in 6 months and really need the space you can wipe it from inside server without even rebooting or anything. Compare that to reinstalling and tweaking in a hurry if anything went wrong & against a deadline! it could be a stress! Having the option to reboot into it doesn't force you to reboot.

The renowned Caitlyn Martin did an excellent article about server functions for hobbyists in Distrowatch a few months ago and it made a lot of sense very easily but i can't find her article right now :(

This other article might give some insight though
http://distrowatch.com/weekly.php?issue=20090921

Regards from
Tom :)

Hi again :)

Before throwing money at the problem and commiting yourself to something uncertain it might be better to use some old box as a server and see what kinds of issues occur. If it all goes horribly wrong then you can junk the machine without wasting vast amounts of money. Hopefully though the experience would help guide you on where to focus your money when you do upgrade to a decent machine for your server. Linux is designed as a server OS and is also built to make use of ancient old machines. Somehow it has ended up also being a very modern desktop.

I hope this helps! it's late here so i might be making less and less sense.
Good luck and regards from
Tom :)

LoL! Good point about keeping it around. But this is for my own website that I want to develop. It's not for my job or anything, so there'll be no tight deadlines or stress, no matter what happens.

Though, of course, I want as little downtime as possible for my site, which is why I'm noodling around with Linux instead of taking the easy road and just using Windoze Server... (I hate how XP just reboots itself without warning whenever it gets the wim to install automatic updates...that's unacceptable behavior for a server!)

And you're a mind reader, Tom! I actually have an old box right next to me. It's a 1GHz machine with 1GB of ram and a 20 GB IDE HD. Kind'a dated and XP would probably groan on it, but it should run Linux just fine. My original plan was to upgrade the HD to 300 GB SATA with a big cache, plug in a ATAPI/SATA converter module, and then load Ubuntu onto it to develop my site.

But then I started browsing online for discount servers and I see that it would probably cost about the same to buy a cheap server than to upgrade this old machine and make it perform as a web server for a live site... http://www.abmx.com/low-cost-1u-server

Hi :)

20Gb is more than enough for even Ubuntu which is widely renowned for being the most "bloated" (=feature rich) distro. This would leave you with approx 10Gb for the first try at a website. Presumably largely html & java which is all text based and shouldn't take up much space at this stage until you start adding movies and pictures. Even then 10Gb should be plenty of room for the 1st page? Ideally you need the first page light-weight to load fast otherwise people get bored and cancel it. Gifs and other very light-weight animations might be good but more can be a problem. So 20Gb machine should be a great test machine.

1Gb Ram doesn't sound like much, it's near the min.spec. for Desktop Ubuntu although other distros require less. However, i suspect the ram usage on a server could be a lot less until you have a lot of hits/day. A lot of the work a server does is cached and queued up. Even Xp would work on this machine, but probably not server edition. A fresh install of Xp can work kinda fine with 1Gb ram but chugs and slows to a grinding crawl after just a few months. Linux doesn't get that slowing down effect that Windows uses to boost sales of it newer stuff all the time. Linux tends to stay just as fast as it was when freshly installed except that users get used to pushing it more and more.

Yeah, RedHat seems to be the traditional favourite with CentOS and Scientific Linux growing off RedHat and becoming more popular. Ubuntu is more famous as a desktop but is growing into server markets, usually for the type of server we seem to be talking about here but increasingly corporate too.

Hope something here helps! I cant quite remember if there was a problem here still to solve? Lol, it's not meant to be a chat room but its kinda fun
Good luck and regards from
Tom :)

@Tom - Yeah, I know. Linux won't take hardly any space. As will the HTML, PHP/Perl/Python, and Javascript (I plan to avoid Java--ugly, slow, ugly code!). But the site's database is the big question. I have no idea how fast that will grow and how big it will get as users pile in (big wish there).

I plan to run a lean site, graphics-wise. You can design some attractive "graphics" using just HTML tables and CSS without a single image. Users will all have thumbnail size avatars, and there'll be little "buttons" and "arrows" here and there, but that's unavoidable. Now, graphics isn't a big issue these days now that everybody has broadband and can watch a YouTube video on a whim without even thinking about how long it'll take to download it, but I do have to be careful not to exceed my ISP's or web host's monthly bandwidth limits.

And yeah, that old machine needs a lot of $$$'s to make it ready for prime time. It only supports IDE/ATAPI, and 1GB is the max ram the mobo will take. That's why I figure I'm better off just buying a new server with the latest tech than upgrading that old machine. Plenty of places sell discount servers on the cheap. Even a vanilla desktop machine from WorstBuy might be ok, but you can't get one withouit Windoze preloaded on it. Ugh! And there are technical advantages to using a box designed to be used as a server.

You're absolutely right about XP! I have to re-image my XP machine every so often, otherwise the registry gets bloated with crap and slows the machine to a craw! And the AV running in the background gobbles up most of my CPU even when XP is fresh and new. That's a HORRIBLE design, though it must have seemed like a nifty idea to Mr. Bill at the time. And I HATE how it reboots itself automatically whever it gets the whim to download automatic updates. XP is totally unacceptable to me as a server.

I researched all the flavors of Linux before I even came here. And everybody seemed to recommend Ubuntu to run my server, so that's why I'm here :-(

Oops, I meant :-) at the end there...

Hi :)

Well it's traditionally been RedHat and derivatives (and other names we dont hear of in the desktop scene at all) but gnu&linux always grows new fertile things and Ubuntu is growing into the server market. Being ahead of the game is not a bad thing! :)) It's not exactly pioneering because many people do successfully run Ubuntu servers already, including an increasing amount of corporate networks.

I'm suggesting starting with the machine you have as it is, without upgrading it at all to start with. Then you will see what issues are worth considering and which are like "The Emporer's New Clothes" and worth ignoring. Obviously a lot of people talking about servers will be talking about Windows problems that are not issues in linux, so why waste money in the wrong direction? Once you have played around with running a server for a few weeks and have more idea about what you really want then picking out a decent server machine should be really easy and transferring the whole thing over should be really easy too. I think you do know what i mean but keep thinking you need to upgrade in order to run a server and i really dont think you do. Linux is much more likely to offer an experimental stage to run a trial demo version whereas Windows you just have to buy all the latest stuff and when it doesn't work get the blame for being a bad user somehow. Linux tends to say, dont buy anything at all, just throw together what you already have and use it. Apparently in Mexico ppl use linux to surf the internet and do emailing via ham radio as they dont (or didnt) have the technology and infrastructure to handle even dial-up let alone broadband!

Regards from
Tom :)

Lol!! Ahh, in that case ignore my last comment! The whole thing was based around that being an unhappy face! :)

Yeh, Ubuntu server is well worth using and is easy to get support for as it works mostly the same as the desktop version and even mainstream magazines often have articles about Ubuntu :)

Regards from
Tom :)

I've heard of Red Hat and the others, but everything I'd researched suggests that Ubuntu is the best of the bunch -AND- is ideal for what I want Linux for--to develop my site and then host it.

Well, okay, I'll try installing Ubuntu on the machine I have. I suppose there's a logic to developing my site on a weak machine. So when it goes live on a good machine, it's bound to fly!

I kknow what you mean, but I also know that I need a powerful machine to host my site.

I'm also inclned to install the OS on a smallish internal HD on both the development box and the web server, with nothing else on the internal drives. And then put the site on an external USB drive that I can easily move back and forth. But I'm concerned with throughput using a USB drive. It seems silly to have a SATA drive at 10,000 RPM and gobs of cache inside the box, and run the site through a USB bottleneck.

And once I get comfortable with Linux, and find a browser, IM, email client, paint program, etc., etc., that I like, I may even ditch XP on my regular machine!

Oh! D'oh! Okay :-)

Sucks they don't let you edit your answer for the first 5 minutes or so...

Hi :)

Lol, funny you should say that ... We posted a bug-report and there seems to be a little movement on it. Still it makes some of these threads quite funny to read, especially if the poster edits the initial question to make the thread useless for ppl in the future.

Again with having the website on an external hard-drive going through a usb port, it's another thing that might be handy at the start and could easily be finessed to perfection later.

For a look at the standard linux equivalents of many of the progreams you suggested this guide might help
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/SwitchingToUbuntu/FromWindows
or perhaps this
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/SwitchingToUbuntu

For email clients i would recommend trying Thunderbird and Claws. Claws is an unusual choice because it's very much lighter-weight but i think that adds to its charm.

Obviously Gimp for pictures, it's in the standard desktop install. For IM most start with Pidgin but i believe there are other choices although i think the front-ends tend to look a little "retro". If you have a webcam and install "cheese" (the standard package for getting cams to work) then Pidgin automatically adds that functionality to its menus, usually that works smoothly. Any multimedia stuff needs you to work through copywrite issues with the mediubuntu worksheet
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Medibuntu
usually a max of 10mins copy&pasting

Well good luck chap and welcome in to the wonderful world of linux, especially to the Ubuntu corner of it :)
Regards from
Tom :)

Lol! Yes, you can edit your question for a few minutes here, but you can't edit your answer at all.

And the situation you describe is a common problem on other Q&A sites...people change their question after they get a few answers, and then the answers become nonsensical.

Thanks for the suggestions! But it's still way off before I totally abandon Windoze. As I said, I want to develop my site on Linux. But for my casual computing, I'll be on XP for a while still until I get REALLY familiar with Linux... I don't want to feel like an utter novice on ALL my machines :-)

Yeh, for me it was about 6months between first installing my first linux (as a dual-boot) and then actually booting into it occasionally.

I found it was faster to reboot into Mandriva, do the report and then reboot back into Windows rather than open Word and spend ages trying to get the thing to stay in English and format the text nicely. OpenOffice was much more slick. Considering at one time i taught ppl how to use MS Office i think it's fair to say i understand why so many computer documents have bullet points that dont line up or numbered lists that can't count and constantly changing fonts.

I can't remember the exact order of things but eventually it was finding "Battle for Wesnoth" in Ubuntu that kept me from returning to Xp, by then all my multimedia and everything was just easier here than in Windoze.

So yes, there's no need to rush into linux, there's no expectations or deadlines. Take your time and let it grow on you
Regards from
Tom :)

I've used Word for years. But when I upgraded to XP, Word won't load when I click on a document. I have to launch word from the Start menu, then go and load the document. Pain! So I downloaded OO. After using OO for a while, I liked it, but it doesn't have a spell check, So now I find myself using Wordpad for writing (because it loads fast), and then launching Word on the final draft to spell check. I don't really need a fancy Word Processor, so on Linux, I'll probably use nano for my WP needs, and use OO only when someone sends me a DOC file.

OO does have a spell check in the linux version. It is worth changing the defaults in Tools - Options to MicroDquish formats so you dont have to use "Save As..." all the time. OO is soo much easier to use i cant believe i struggled on with Word for so long when OO has been around for years but people tell me that its only in the last couple of years that OO has really clicked.

Thanks for the tip! I'll see if the Windoze version works the same way :-)

Hi :)

I'm curious if the Windows version of OO does allow you to change the default formats in the same way. Glad i was able to help with something at last in this thread :)

Hope all's well
Good luck and regards from
Tom :)