Hello,

I was pointed at your services by a happy user, and I'm greatly interested in setting up an account. I browsed the forum learning the basics, but I still have some questions:

1) Is it possible to run a different Linux distribution than the ones you provide? I'm interested in running ArchLinux, which is my distro of choice for both desktop & server. I suppose I can do with Slackware just fine, but having the ability to run ArchLinux would certainly save me some time.

2) After reading the forum and all the info about CPU, RAM, IO shortages, I'm not sure which plan I need. On my server I'd like to host:

* Apache + two domains/web pages - one being my blog/homepage (~ 30000 visits monthly) and the other being the homepage of my movie production company (~1000 visits monthly).
* Mail server + IMAP server (~5 mail accounts)
* Subversion server for some software I write. Very small activity.
* PostgreSQL or mySQL (I'd chose Postgres over mySQL any day, but I'm not sure which one is more resource hungry)
* RubyOnRails or modASP - haven't choosen yet, but anything is better than PHP. I suppose ASP is very hard on CPU/RAM.

Is the basic plan enough to host all this?

_________________
Michael Dominic K.
The Berlin-Warsaw Express
http://www.bwexpress.org

Howdy,

At the very least you would need to install one of the distros provided as a base. The most I've ever seen with this is ppl upgrading to a new version of an existing distro that isn't offered yet, however even with that it usually requires more work than it is worth. You do need to use a Linode kernel though. I'm currently using Slackware with no issues (upping to Debian whenever I find time to do so). I'm on a 64 running Apache+PHP, ProFTP, and Qmail. The server can even handle mySQL too when I have it running (which is hardly ever as I don't need it). A 64 is usually fine for a basic setup. If you find it too restricting you ca nalways migrate to a larger plan.

-Brian

You'll need to use a small distro to bootstrap the process of moving your new distro's files into a disk image. Once that's done, use the instructions here...

http://www.linode.com/wiki/index.php/Cu ... stribution

... for the necessary changes for our environment.

-Chris

A clean, optimized server with Apache2/MySQL/PHP has been known to work on a Linode 64, but that barely cuts it usually and typically only works for admins that know what they are doing with their resources. The added mail server, I assume WebDAV for Subversion, and any decent amount of traffic, I'd suggest a 96 at the least. If it's also a Linode for more personal use (as you mentioned it'll be hosting your blog), you may like the 128s with the added room for testing out new stuff.

Linode can handle very easy, seamless upgrades without any problems, so you could simply get a 96 setup, see how your resources look, and upgrade at anytime if needed.