development server

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Posted by dkent, 01-30-2012, 03:36 AM
My production server is based on Centos 6 Please advise me on what OS (eg. centos/fedora/etc) to use for the development server? Should I use the same OS for both the production and the development servers? (ie. Centos 6 for both) Also, does Rsync work between different version of linux (say from Fedora to Centos?) Thanks very much
Posted by topgun, 01-30-2012, 04:21 AM
It depends what you are developing. If you want to compile your application into rpm packages, it would be much easier on centos than ubuntu, though still entirely possible. Certainly for hosting web apps, it is much easier to version control your application stack (apache, mysql versions for example) if you use the same distro. That said, there are advantages to running Fedora on dev and Centos on production as it is easier to install and try out the latest packages. Do you have a Staging envrionment as well as that should mimic your production 1:1, in which case it is less critical what you use on dev? On a side note, while Rsync is a agnostic to the OS (you can get windows Rsync Clients), it is generally not considered the right tool for deploying code to a production server. Used SVN/GIT and tag your release candidates. http://nvie.com/posts/a-successful-git-branching-model/
Posted by fabin, 01-30-2012, 04:23 AM
It is better to use the same environment ( same version of OS, web server, language packages etc ) for both production and development servers. Fedora can be unstable at times. Centos is better. Rsync works well across all linux distros.
Posted by dkent, 01-30-2012, 04:58 AM
Thank you all for your responses. @topgun: I develop PHP/MySQL apps. I don't have a staging environment currently, but might set-up a virtualbox for it or maybe just do it on the backup server. So I guess as long as there is some sort of staging environment to test the software before production (Centos), it would not be too bad to develop on, say, Fedora? As for Rsync, it's for sync'ing some of the development files to the backup server which also runs Centos. @fabin: Hmmm...my only issue with Centos is that the repos just look a bit too old. And I am also concerned that (as i have little experience with linux) Centos might not be able to support the latest hardwares? Last edited by dkent; 01-30-2012 at 05:08 AM.
Posted by fabin, 01-30-2012, 05:22 AM
As you are developing a PHP/Mysql application, you should be more concerned about the version of apache, php and mysql. For example, PHP 5.2 and 5.3 makes difference when you deploy the application. Fedora is always one-step ahead with latest versions. When you deploy the applications in centos, you might find that some of the features not working.
Posted by barbus, 01-30-2012, 05:23 AM
I would go with the same environment too. It can minimize your problems with deployment.
Posted by dkent, 01-30-2012, 05:31 AM
Thank you all for the recommendations. I personally prefer to match the environments as much as possible so I might end up just go with Centos 6. However, I forgot to mention that I also do some c++ development, so is Centos suitable for that as well? or do I have to boot to a different OS like Windows.
Posted by jdilegge, 01-30-2012, 12:00 PM
I use Centos for everything and think t is the easiest and safest bet. Yeah, CentOs is fine with C++.
Posted by dkent, 01-30-2012, 03:48 PM
jdilegge: thank you for the response. After all the recommendations, I have decided to go with Centos, thanks to all

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