* * * * *

 I should realize the futility in ever thinking I'll get a server configured
 as I think a server should be configured and learn to love how those jokers
  at Red Hat or Suse or Debian deem it best to run a server, and oh, by the
way, hope you like the Upgrade Dance™ because you'll be doing it for the rest
       of your life because Red Hat or Suse or Debian say so. So there.

I would have thought that by now, the major Linux distributions, or at least
some offshoot of one of the major or even minor Linux distributions, would
have targetted LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, Perl|Python|PHP). Really, at this
stage of the game, all I really want in a distribution is a base system
loaded with the development packages. Most of the servers I'm installing
these days (and over the past month I've done quite a few) are doing nothing
more than web serving and forwarding email and that's it.

So basically, all I need is a distribution that includes:

* The Linux kernel and the base operating system, stuff that you would
 normally find in /bin/, /sbin/, /usr/bin/ and /usr/sbin/.
* A development system. At the least, this includes GCC (GNU Compiler
 Compiler) [1] and the various P-languages (Perl [2], Python [3], PHP [4]).
 Oh, and maybe a debugger [5].
* Apache [6], ideally installed such that ./configure; make; make install
 right from the tarball installs over the previous version. If I have to
 upgrade Apache due to a security flaw, the last two things I want to do is
 wait for the distribution to provide a package and have to think Okay, what
 parameters to configure did this distribution use?
* MySQL [7], ideally installed such that ./configure; make; make install
 right from the tarball installs over the previous version. If I have to
 upgrade MySQL due to a security flaw, the last two things I want to do is
 wait for the distribution to provide a package and have to think Okay, what
 parameters to configure did this distribution use?
* No package manager. This is non-negotiable! I haven't had luck with any of
 the package managers; not yum, not emerge, not apt-get, not a single one.
 Sure, they may work. When they're not overwriting your existing
 configuration (are you listening G? If it ain't broke, don't fix it!). Or
 including X Windows [8], not because you need it (for you don't, not for a
 server) but just because (and because of X Windows, you now get Gnome [9]
 and KDE [10], because … well … why the XXXX not?). But what about a year
 from now? They've moved the repositories and no longer support your “older
 than the ancient Greeks but in reality it's only two weeks old” version of
 the distribution (and it should be noted—I don't play that “continuous
 upgrade just because it's new” game; unless there's a security hole or a
 feature I just can't live without, I won't upgrade).

Yes, there are ways of taming some of the distributions to only include what
you want, but it's quite a bit of work for something that I'm surprised
hasn't been done already (or is everyone being lazy and waiting on the Lazy
Web [11] to do it?). And what some of these distributions consider “bare
bones” I consider “about as bloated as Windows.”

Sheesh.

[1] http://gcc.gnu.org/
[2] http://www.perl.org/
[3] http://www.python.org/
[4] http://www.php.net/
[5] http://www.gnu.org/software/gdb/
[6] http://httpd.apache.org/
[7] http://www.mysql.com/
[8] http://www.x.org/
[9] http://www.gnome.org/
[10] http://www.kde.org/
[11] http://www.lazyweb.org/

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