Brion Vibber wrote:
Is there any compelling reason to use a non-rpm distribution, either? What does the package format have to do with anything?
You're right; it doesn't. However, APT (the Debian packet manager) is addictive - in practice, it reduces administration overhead more than most admins can imagine. Want to stay up to date with the bleeding edge? It's one command. Prefer rock-solid instead (Debian is known for being extremely conservative about their stable releases) - one command. Install any/all security updates automatically? Also one command. I've been dabbling with Linux since one of the earlier 1.1 releases in 1994 (not very seriously back then, however) and have probably tried every distribution under the sun. Debian is my hands-down, leaves-everything-else-in-the-dust favorite for servers.
I've gotten the impression that Debian isn't really mature on amd64; there's no stable release. Has anyone used it *on amd64*? Would you recommend it for a production server?
Debian is not mature on AMD64. But as I mentioned - we're trying to squeeze out every last bit of performance on this box anyway. Gentoo, even if the bootstrapping takes a while, is designed precisely for our situation, and AFAIK is stable on amd64.
Again, please do not hesitate to let me know if I can be of help with any of this.
Cheers, Ivan