[MUD-Dev] Preference for host OS

[Travis Casey]

Sunday, September 09, 2001, 2:35:54 AM, Brian Hook wrote:

> I don't want this to get into a religious war, but I'm curious
> about anecdotal data when it comes to the preference in hosting
> operating systems.  I'm doing some preliminary research right now,
> and the obvious candidates seem to be:

>   - Windows NT/2000 Server (expensive)

Personally, I'd avoid this route completely... but that's just
personal perference.

>   - OpenBSD
>   - FreeBSD
>   - NetBSD

>From what I've seen, any of those should do fine running a mud.

>   - various forms of Linux (RH,Debian,Mandrake,SuSE, etc.)

SWmud has been running on various forms of Linux for... well, pretty
much as long as it's been around, which is getting close to eight
years now.  The OS has been more stable than the mud itself over
that time -- I don't think that SWmud has ever been brought down due
to an OS problem.

>   - Solaris (anyone bother?)

I ran a mud for testing on SunOS for a couple of years while I was
at University, but it never experienced high loads.  Seemed stable,
though.  Note that this was on Sun hardware -- I've heard that
Solaris on Intel hardware isn't as stable, but I heard that a few
years ago, so it may not be true now.

Also, it should be noted that last I checked, Solaris does *not*
come with a C compiler (or, more accurately, it comes with a C
compiler, but you can't use it unless you pay for a license).
You'll either need to install a free one (e.g., gcc) or pay for a
license for Sun's.

>   - OS X server (doubtful since hardware is very expensive)

Don't really know anything about it.  Before trying anything with
it, I'd look into whether it includes a C compiler, and how
compatible it will be with what you want to run.  I understand that
OS X doesn't use XWindows for a GUI, but instead uses something
proprietary and incompatible that Apple cooked up -- thus, if you're
looking at a mud server that has X tools for doing things, that lack
might be a factor.

> I'm sure there are MUDs that still run on AmigaDOS or OS/2 or
> something, but I doubt they're mainstream =)

> The factors that seem to be the crux of an OS choice are probably
> price, robustness, security, performance, and ease of
> installation/administration/development.  I've done some Linux
> installs and, overall, they seem to be okay (RH and Mandrake).

For something that's just going to be a mud server, if you're going
to use Linux, I'd recommend one of the lighter, security-oriented
distributions, like Trustix or Immunix.  You can find links to just
about every distribution there is by going to http://www.lwn.net and
going to their "Distributions" page.

--
Travis Casey
efindel at earthlink.net

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