Best Linux Distro for Ruby on Rails?

Question

After a bad experience trying to get even the simplest Rails application running at Lunarpages, I'm moving to Slicehost. Does anyone have an opinion as to which of their Linux distros to use for a fairly high-traffic Rails site? They offer CentOS, Debian 5, Fedora (10 to 12), Gentoo, Red Hat EL 5, and Ubuntu (8 and 9).

While we're on the subject, does anyone have any opinions as to the relative merits of Slicehost versus Amazon WS?

Thanks!

Answer 1

I've always been a fan of Ubuntu, it's easy to use and lots of other people are using it so there is a lot of information if you run into trouble.

I've never used Slicehost but AWS is pretty great if you're going to be bringing instances up and down often (since you only pay for what is running). If you just have one server that will be running continuously then AWS might end up costing more without giving you much benefit. It all depends on how you use it though and if the flexibility of AWS is worth the (potential) added cost in your situation.

Answer 2

If you are interested in systems administration. I would go with Slicehost, Linode or AWS ec2, Linode has been shown to be more performant (link) than both Slicehost and AWS.

With that said, if you aren't interested in systems administration I would go with Heroku. It is the easiest way to deploy and management is minimal. You do have to be aware that Heroku is limited on some 3rd party services you would install on your own, but but they do have some packages included that you can enable for sending email etc. You are also limited on file size and they recommend you store your assets on AWS s3.

In terms of overhead Linode is less than AWS ec2, because AWS ec2 is really for high availability, Heroku is the least as mentioned above. AWS will cost you more than Slicehost or Linode and I think if your site is small more than Heroku too.

You will need decent Linux chops to get going on AWS, Slicehost, and Linode. Heroku will keep you away from most of this but also limit you if you need something really custom. For distro choice I would say Ubuntu hands down if you are new.