OT: New server build

[Fairlight]

CentOS 7 is fine/good.  

Be prepared to migrate all startup sequence stuff you may have
customised/added to use systemd, as SysV Init is no longer supported.
That's not purely a CentOS thing; every modern distro is moving or has
moved to systemd, whether we like it or not (some of us hate it).

You'll also need a 32-bit compat-libtermcap.  The SRPM Red Hat wrote did
not originally build i686, only x86_64.  I modified it to handle the job
properly and generate the 32-bit library if you specifically order i686.
The stub you'll get with ncurses was incomplete/improper for use.

Those are the two main 'gotchas' I can think off off the top of my head,
when moving from 5/6 to 7.

Depending what filesystem you're used to, you may be in for a switch.
Or it may simply be appropriate.  I hate ext4, as your inode table is
static, no matter how many times you resize the filesystem.  Whatever you
create at mkfs is what you get, so you have one chance without having
to tear down the system and play musical disks/filesystems.  This won't
-usually- be an issue, but it does make some assumptions about inode counts
in relation to disk space.  On small filesystems (100GB or so), if you
generate millions of files (say, for a hierarchical archiving system),
you'll quite possibly exhaust your inode table before your space, meaning
47% disk space available, but 0% inode space available, meaning you get
'disk full' no matter what, if you're trying to create a new file.  Of the
alternatives, we concluded xfs looks best.  It handles the inode limits a
bit differently.

Recommended specs always depend upon usage patterns.  In filePro's case,
get the fastest disk and controller you can, stock up on RAM to allow
decent amounts of disk cache, and CPU is actually your lowest prioriity
(but still obviously a decent priority).

For enterprise use, and given the decade-long life-cycle commitment, no, I
don't feel there's a better distribution.  Red Hat would have parity, but
that's obvious due to the fact it's the upstream basis for CentOS in the
first place.

If you go elsewhere, avoid Ubuntu like the plague.  They have Very Odd
Ideas about where things go, at a minimum.  As a desktop -maybe-.  I'd put
them only marginally above Windows Server for a server role, which is not
saying a hell of a lot, to be honest.  That's like saying I'd rather have
my fingers pressed against a power drill with a disk of 20-grit sandpaper
for ten minutes, instead of a cheese grating wheel.  I loathe Ubuntu in a
server role.  YMMV, but be it on your own head.

mark->

On Mon, Jan 08, 2018 at 12:15:53PM -0500, scooter6--- via Filepro-list thus spoke:
> It's about that time again - need to build a new server to fun fP for our
> company here
> 
> We are a call center and have approx. 60 users using putty to access the
> system, so we have a large fP license.....
> 
> Currently, we have a Dell PowerEdge 2850 running CentOS 5.10
> 
> Two Intel Xeon Processors 3.6MHz that are running at 3.2MHz per dmidecode
> 4GB RAM
> 
> Running hardware RAID with total of 4 drives....operating system mirrored
> and data mirrored
> Also backup to tape using Dell 122T LTO tapes - which I know for new
> capacities isn't going to work - so want to make sure our newer Linux will
> support backup to larger tapes (LTO6 most likely)
> 
> We do run a lot of backend things as well that utilize Python, Perl, etc
> 
> Wondering if we should move to CentOS 7 most current build, etc and what if
> any issues I may encounter? Or is there a better/faster version of Linux
> that users have switched to?
> 
> I do have time on this - will probably look to do this beginning of 2nd
> quarter this year sometime..
> 
> Just looking for recommended specs, RAM, CPU's etc......
> 
> TIA
> 
> Scott
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