So now you’ve read how I got to an Ubuntu Server running teamspeak, subsonic, minecraft, and apache… Well, recall that all of this runs on a repurposed Dell tower. This Dell tower has 3GB of ram, 80GB hard drive space, and a single-core processor that goes up to 3.40-somthing GHz. This tower can’t do it all.
I now run 2 minecraft servers (sometimes even 3) which because of java use a lot of memory and resources. My uncle had no further use for his dell when he switched it up to a mac (pff) so he gave me his Dell tower. It’s superior to mine, minus the graphics card. Same ram, but better processor (dual-core), and more than half a terabyte of storage. Not too shabby.
And so, I felt it best to put the resource hogs (i.e. minecraft servers) onto this new machine and let my old one handle all the other stuff.
This was an easy transition… now I had 2 Ubuntu Servers running.
You’d think I’d be satisfied, but alas I’m not, and probably never will be. There’s always room to improve.
These servers had to be rebooted once daily (especially the minecraft servers) because if they didn’t, they’d run out of resources and crash. Sure the server with subsonic, teamspeak, and apache would last without the need for rebooting, but even it had its limits. Connecting to it via ssh tunnel was pretty slow (took me a good 10-15 seconds on some days).
When I first started learning about linux from Linux.org, I took their beginner’s tutorial on it. The distribution of choice they used was Debian. I wasn’t sure at the time what was so special about Debian, but I knew Ubuntu was easier to use. I’d also read that Ubuntu was based on Debian. Well this got me really curious about Debian, and I wanted to know even more. It wasn’t until I’d read an article about the best overall distribution out there that I finally settled on trying Debian out. This article ranked Debian as the best all-round distribution, mostly due to its stability.
I’m a developer by trade, so stability to me is awesome. Debian’s STABLE releases were tested and tested and tested… pushed to their limits, and beaten within an inch of their lives. Every community out there has been beating it with a stick trying to make it break. After all that time, if it’s still running, I’d say that’s a pretty damn stable operating system. The updates for Debian aren’t done based on marketing projections or quarterly releases so people get paid… Rather, the updates are done when they’re ready. This ensures that I don’t get a half-assed product.
Sounds like Debian can survive a nuclear apocalypse, but there’s only one downside. Whatever Debian has is going to be out of date compared to the more popular distributions (red hat, Ubuntu, mint) that are out there.
You know what? I’m fine with that. If it works, I don’t care. Besides, I can upgrade it to its other repositories that aren’t as stable if I want the latest and greatest stuff… I don’t need to change anything about it anyway. I can use a browser, email client, documentation suite, music player, video player, and gaming engine all with the stable, albeit outdated, system I’ve got. I’m totally fine with that.
I downloaded Debian and tried it on a virtual machine. Unlike the latest versions of Ubuntu, it used the old familiar gnome desktop interface I’ve always liked, and it was fast! It’s stripped down to work, and work well, so there isn’t any fancy crap running. This meant I had to configure some things manually, but at this point I knew how to configure (or find out how to configure) anything I needed. A little work, and bam, useful and efficient desktop system.
If Linux ever explodes as a gaming platform, Debian’s my distro of choice, hands down.
But, how did it function as a server? I decided to let my minecraft machine be the test pilot of Debian.
How did it fare?
First, let me just say that just about anything I was used to doing in Ubuntu, I was doing in Debian. Any time I was in an Ubuntu terminal, I was always using Debian, and just never realized it. All Ubuntu did was configure some stuff ahead of time for me.
Now, just like on the desktop version, I had to do some manual configurations. For one, I had to go get the sudo command I was so used to in Ubuntu. I didn’t know what “su” was… Thankfully, this was easily mitigated.
1 | su -l |
Ok, ok, I got it. Ubuntu had sudo set up for me by default, and Debian didn’t. That’s not too bad. Perhaps there were extra sudo things that Ubuntu did for me that I wasn’t aware of nor needed. At least here I’m only activating precisely what I need rather than grabbing the full package “just in case”.
After that, everything went pretty easy. I installed the minecraft servers exactly as I’d done before, and I was off and away. The first thing I noticed about this was that I never, ever, had to reboot the machine, let alone the minecraft servers. I could leave them running always, with no lag. In fact now they run tekkit, which is basically minecraft with a bunch of mods thrown on top. If all of this runs without me rebooting, I’d have to say job well done there Debian! The access to ssh is instantaneous compared Ubuntu’s, and I haven’t had a moment’s trouble with it.
Time passed, and I finally couldn’t take it with the last remaining Ubuntu server I had. I hated how slow certain things were sometimes, like the ssh tunnel. Every time I typed in a command, I had to wait a second for it to process… even a simple ls or cd command. One day when subsonic decided to screw up for no reason, I’d had it.
I reformatted that old desktop and put Debian on it. I moved all my website content onto it, redownloaded and reran teamspeak 3 and subsonic, and installed LAMP using my own tutorial (thank you, past me, that tutorial was really helpful).
The first thing I noticed was the ssh tunnel, which used to take 5-8 seconds on a good day to connect, now was instantaneous. The next day from outside my network, I’d ssh to the terminal just to watch how fast it would connect. Everything was more efficient. I don’t even have a daily reboot routine anymore.
What did I gain out of using Debian over Ubuntu Server? Speed and efficiency. Sure I had to manually set some things up that Ubuntu would handle for me… But it wasn’t that hard to set up in the first place, and in the end I have an even more efficient system than Ubuntu Server.
I highly recommend Debian as both a desktop and a server. It’s been running since the beginning of June, 2013, and I’ve only rebooted it once (needlessly, since the problem was with verizon’s internet service and not my server).
But, with Debian being so much more superior, what do I think now of Ubuntu? I think of Ubuntu now as a necessary step for everyone in learning linux. You’re not going to know going in what you need, and the best way to start learning is to have a platform that works and works well. Ubuntu’s ease of use is something they’ve really got going for it. After all I’d learned in the linux world, moving to Debian was the next logical step.
So I run 2 Debian servers out of my house. I didn’t get there for the hell of it; I got there from constantly improving my situation. I don’t think you can even begin to appreciate Debian until you’ve used Ubuntu.
Soon after, I launched this site. I wanted a place to share my findings, because nobody near me could even begin to understand all I’d been through to get to where I am now. Also, nobody around where I live really cares whether or not I’ve upgraded from Ubuntu to Debian… They don’t even use linux.
Still, I hope my story here will help others, and assist them in their server administration endeavors.