test systems

[Thomas Jollans]

On 02/08/11 00:42, Ethan Furman wrote:
> Howdy,
> 
> I'm going to setup a few linux systems for testing (probably three) as
> well as the three FreeBSD, OpenBSD, and (possibly) NetBsd.  Oh, and
> Windows.  ;)
> 
> Any recommendations on which linuces to pick?

I would say that the Debian vs Red Hat issue is secondary compared to
how recent the installed packages are. IMHO, you'll want:

(1) "state of the art" - newest Ubuntu, Fedora Core, or perhaps openSUSE
release

(2) stable/"business-level" maturity - Debian stable, CentOS (or
Scientific Linux/RHEL/other RHEL rebuild), Ubuntu LTS release

and, perhaps:

(3) bleeding edge - Arch / Gentoo

You may also want to consider non-current releases. If I had to chose
three, it might be Ubuntu 11.04, Debian 6, and CentOS 5.

 - Thomas