Ubuntu Server 18.04. With the aim being to set up and host my own web server & email server.
So far I've been enjoying it, in a techie, hairshirt, masochistic kind of way.
I haven't really used Unix since writing my final year degree project in vi. And the command line interface reminds me of the first computer I used: the 1970's Word Processing mini / mainframe computer where my dad worked.
I see large parallels between Microsoft and Unix / Linux and the Linn / Naim Flat Earth bullshit, as discussed in this thread: viewtopic.php?f=3&t=49929
I've never been a big fan of Microsoft and have always seen them as the triumph of marketing over technical excellence.
Anyway, for a job like web hosting, I can see why so many of the World's websites are hosted on Linux.
.....It's free!
![Dance :dance:](./images/smilies/eusa/dance.gif)
.....There's a lot of perfectly good or good enough software for Linux that's free!
![Dance :dance:](./images/smilies/eusa/dance.gif)
![Dance :dance:](./images/smilies/eusa/dance.gif)
.....It's fast.
![Clap :clap:](./images/smilies/eusa/clap.gif)
.....It's stable.
![Geek :geek:](./images/smilies/icon/geek.gif)
.....It doesn't require the latest fancy hardware with loads of RAM to work well.
![Very Happy :grin:](./images/smilies/icon/biggrin.gif)
.....It is, reputedly, more secure than Windows.
![Drool :drool:](./images/smilies/eusa/drool.gif)
.....There are fewer Linux viruses than Windows viruses.
![Geek :geek:](./images/smilies/icon/geek.gif)
![Doh! :doh:](./images/smilies/eusa/doh.gif)
.....Installing software is very quick and easy. Thanks to the repositories. Or is it suppositries?
![Very Happy :grin:](./images/smilies/icon/biggrin.gif)
For a server we don't need no Graphical User Interface. We want it to sit in the corner, 24/7 and just serve out data.
The biggest downside is the learning curve for someone like me that's been stuck in the Windows paradigm for years. But as I said, I've sort of been enjoying that in a teaching an old dog new tricks kind of way.
Another downside is that you're interacting with the computer in a very direct kind of way. Type the wrong thing and you can muck things up. But in a way I quite like that. None of this "Are you sure you want to go ahead and do that" hand holding. The computer just gets straight on with what you tell it to do.
I just wish Linux with Mariadb and PHP had been available - for free! - when I was starting out on my career and knocking up a specialised stock control database on the stupid wank Paradox PC based system that my idiot of a boss at the time thought was the bees knees after he read a PC magazine review on it.
![Very Happy :grin:](./images/smilies/icon/biggrin.gif)