Cen Tos wrote: > I'm a relative newbie to all this so pardon me if the following are all > stupid questions. Nobody's born knowledgeable. > However now that I looked into CentOS, I find myself at a point where > it's transitting to a major new version. So the key question for me is, > should I wait for CentOS 5 to be released or just go for 4.4? Wait for 5, it'll be out pretty soon now. It has newer software that provides more features in general. Also, the focus of most contributors will move towards 5 very quickly, and you want to stay close to the spotlight, don't you? > 1. RAID : Was planning to run "hardware" RAID 1 on the server and has > noted comments that software RAID 1 on Linux may be better than raid 1 > using onboard firmware controllers. This is a religious war, it's pretty hard to find unbiased opinion. Both are fine. Soft RAID is quicker to setup and cheaper. Hard RAID gives you more options. If you can't afford a good RAID card that can be replaced quickly in case something happens, use soft RAID. If you do use hard RAID, make sure you back up the card's config and keep the backup in a safe place. Also make sure you either have a cold spare somewhere, or you can quickly purchase an identical card. > 2. Software that would be running on the server would include Apache 2.x > with ASPx support, php 5.x, MySQL 5.x, Exim, ProFTPD, Direct Admin CentOS 5 and RHEL 5 offer most of those software versions right off the bat. One more reason to wait for 5. -- Florin Andrei http://florin.myip.org/