Enterprise-Standard Linux Distributions

[Rob Pomeroy]

Mainly a question for GX1_Man...  I'm just about to deploy a backup Linux server which may well eventually become our primary server here.  I'm looking for an "all-in-one" (due to budget constraints!) and it will be sitting behind a firewall.

I've mentioned that I've been running TinySofa, in the past - but I'm considering the alternatives, and would be interested in any input.  It has to be featureful and free.  

I've just come across White Box Linux, which looks near enough perfect, taking all of the free bits out of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (all versions).  Any others I should be considering?

What I'd really like is the holy grail of server maintenance - a decent preferably web-based management interface.  Webmin just doesn't quite cut it for me because it's so piecemeal.  What I'd love to have is the performance, flexibility and security of Linux, with the ease of management of Windows 2003 Server (etc).  And for free.

I don't ask much, do I?!

Any thoughts?

[GX1_Man]

White Box or CentOS would be the frontrunners for this, and they are more alike than different. You could do well with Slackware as well, but it is definitely not a RedHat clone, and the others would have advantages of RedHat solutions working. Great forums for both.

Have you checked out www.linuxquestions.org for those forums also? (Top right hand corner of the main page.)

[Rob Pomeroy]

Thanks for the thoughts and the leads.  I think I'll pursue White Box for now, although on the Slackware front, VectorLinux is looking interesting.  (That's for that lead too!)