The similarities and differences between CentOS, Ubuntu and Debian
There are many distribution versions of Linux , which are divided in nature, roughly divided into commercial versions maintained by commercial companies and free distribution versions maintained by open source communities.
The commercial version is represented by Redhat, and the open source community version is represented by debian. These versions have different characteristics and play different roles in different application fields, and cannot be generalized. And most VPSs only provide distributions maintained by the open source community. Below is a brief analysis of these different Linux distributions.
Ubuntu
Ubuntu has more and more fans in recent years. Ubuntu has a beautiful user interface, a complete package management system, a strong software source support, and a rich technical community. Ubuntu also has good compatibility with most hardware, including the latest Graphics card, etc. All this makes Ubuntu more and more popular. But don't forget: all you need is a simple, stable, and easy-to-use server system!
Ubuntu's graphical interface is beautiful, but it also determines that its best application area is a desktop operating system rather than a server operating system. If you want an immersive environment while learning Linux, then Ubuntu is really good: just install it on your own computer, not a server. From this point of view, Ubuntu is not among the operating system options for VPS installation, and I believe you will not pay for the hundreds of M drivers and precious memory.
CentOS
You will find that many commercial companies deploy servers in production environments using CentOS, a community redistribution compiled from RHEL source code. CentOS is simple and user-friendly under the command line. It is stable and has strong English documentation and support from the development community. Has the same origin as Redhat. Although commercial support is not provided separately, a clue can often be found in Redhat. Relative to debian, CentOS is slightly larger. is a very mature Linux distribution.
Debian
Generally speaking, Debian, as an operating system suitable for servers, is much more stable than Ubuntu. It can be said that the stability is unparalleled. The entire debian system, as long as there are no logical defects at the application level, is basically a solid system that does not need to be restarted all the year round (of course, this is an exaggeration, but it does not exaggerate its stability). The basic core of debian's entire system is very small, not only stable, but also occupies small hard disk space and memory. 128M VPS can run Debian smoothly, while CentOS will be a little bit laborious. However, due to the development route of Debian, it has slightly less help documents and less technical information than CentOS.
Due to its excellent performance and stability, Debian is very popular with VPS users.
In addition, there are also a series of Linux, FreeBSD, Unix and other systems such as Arch Linxu, Gentoo, Slackware, etc. Because of their more professional fields, they rarely appear in VPS, so they will not be introduced.
For starters, we recommend CentOS or Debian, both of which run smoothly on a less-spec VPS. However, if the VPS configuration is too low (OPENVZ memory is below 128M, or XEN architecture memory is below 192M), it is recommended to use Debian; otherwise, it is recommended to use CentOS for more online help and support, making it easier to get started.