Which Distro for me?

[garyoak]

Well I have been running SRCDS on Windows for years.

But what used to be fun has become boring and I need a new project, I need to learn the ways of the Linux

I have been using Ubuntu on my netbook but am not familiar with it enough to prefer it to anything else.

So before we get into anything here is what I would like the distro to best suit my needs.

I need it to be :
Not a pain in the @$$
Run at least 1000FPS without to much work
I would really prefer a GUI
I need really good reg on the servers
I need my game servers to not lag
I need a big mac

Now I have people tell me Ubuntu is good, but I have also had people tell me CentOS is the way to go.

Now after research I haven't found much about Ubuntu but I found that CentOS isn't the best for SRCDS and the reg on the servers won't be good.

I am also hearing some good things about Arch Linux, and Debian, but I only know what I read so I am here, posting, craving a big mac, at 2:02 in the morning.


Just a little bit more information, I run a Large Game Community, and we currently use Windows, but I want the ability to put some more servers on each unit without over crowding it, and better server performance (Unless I am wrong, Linux dose these things, right? because if not, I might as well stick with windows)

And if any one would point me in the right direction the yellow-brick road is to more then 1000FPS, please do, please, I asked nicely.



Please

[Terrorkarotte]

-Not a pain in the @$$

You will have to read a lot. First you should not care about high performance. Instead you should learn how to secure linux. Later on you can care about gameserver

-Run at least 1000FPS without to much work
The most Distros run close to 1000FPS out of the box. If you want more you need a lib that is provided here in the forums

I would really prefer a GUI
One of the advantages of linux is that you do not have a gui that needs recources. So learn and read how to get along with the linux shell. The most comman tool is putty

I need really good reg on the servers
If you do not run to much servers for your line or hardware this won´t be a problem. Normally 2 small or one big Server per core is the maximum. Depending on the hardware 24-32 tick100 slots per core

I need my game servers to not lag
Again you need a good connection and don´t gave to run more Servers than the machine can handle.

If you compare distros. Ubuntu is a Debian version. The Difference is that Debian has the Goal to be stable and Ubuntu wants to be up to date and userfriendly. For Servers I would go with debian. I have no experience with CentOS but it I guess it will work fine too. What i dont like is Suse because you never know where it puts the config.

What you should do is setting up a testserver at home and try out. If you think you learned how to set up a secure server expand and try to set up gameservers. Also first at you homebox. If you got it working there go online with the Server or rent a rootserver.

[BehaartesEtwas]

100% agree with terrorkarotte. pick a distro (if you are already a little familiar with ubuntu I would recommend you ubuntu or debain, wich are pretty similar if it comes to servers). some people seem to have slight "performance" problems with gameservers on centos, so maybe I would not use that (though I didn't try personally).
regarding GUIs: game servers are not easier maintained through any GUI. if you want to up-/download and edit your files thorugh some GUI tool I would recommend you winscp to do that from your windows pc. everything else like starting game servers has to be done at a console (unless you set up some web interface, but that's more complicated than lerning some basic linux commands which come in handy in any case sooner or later).

[Narwhal]

Yes, as others have stated, a GUI interface serves no benefit for running SRCDS in Linux. It's a process that runs completely in the shell, so there would actually be extra steps taken to manage it with a GUI than without. Also if you happen to have a crappy home internet connection like me, you'll find you can work with your remote server a lot faster in a responsive SSH prompt than with a laggy remote desktop. That plus the game server's performance will be decreased, however so slightly, with GUI apps running. Linux through the command line takes a little bit of patience to learn, but it's well worth it.

Also, don't expect miracles with Linux out of the box in terms of stable FPS. SRCDS was originally coded and optimized for Windows, and afterwards ported to Linux. The CPU usage will be higher, and generally takes some kernel tweaking to get a nice solid FPS with a full server. Although, in most cases the FPS drops aren't really that bad at all. And you get a higher average FPS out of the box with Linux than with windows. So there's definitely pros and cons with Linux vs. Windows regarding running SRCDS. Generally the reason why someone would choose Linux over Windows could be any of the following (the reasons I chose Linux for my community):
A) It's free (a lot of dedicated server providers charge you a licensing with fee to run Windows, whereas you don't have to pay anything to run most Linux distros)
B) The operating system and the process itself tend to be more stable (very few crashes compared to Windows)
C) No automatic updaters, virus scanners, etc., running at all times and gobbling up your system resources (tend to be a standard feature with Windows servers)
D) They want the ultimate level of control of their system

So to get to the question in terms of what mainstream distro runs it the best out of the box (I've been doing a little research on this very topic):

Arch Linux in all the tests I have performed. Although it's designed for already experienced Linux users, there's plenty of documentation available to where a newbie could figure stuff out pretty quickly I think. Arch is on its own branch of Linux, and no other mainstream distros behave similarly from what I've seen.

Debian based distros also run it pretty good...including:
Ubuntu (actually more stable FPS than Debian)
Linux Mint (Ubuntu clone with a different front-end and some extras...runs SRCDS identically)
Debian itself

Slackware (its own branch) fits in the middle of the mainstream distros...kind of so/so
SUSE (also its own branch) and also sits right about in the middle

RedHat derived distros run it the worst, although like I said earlier it's still certainly acceptable...these include:
Fedora
CentOS

This is just my preliminary ranking. And, it may turn out in the end, my research is flawed. But that we will see what level of criticism I get when I finish my analysis and post the full results of my Linux distro shootout on this board...