Though FC is also not a distro to run on a server.
I've heard this too, but is it backed up by anything? RH7.x, 8, 9 were all acceptable distros to run on a server, especially a small home network server. While it's true that RHEL has taken off, I don't think that the changes in ideology between RH9 and FC1 were that great (I admit FC2 did push a few boundaries, but RH always did) and I don't think that there'd be any reason not to continue running FC as an unsupported home server OS.
Well for SOHO's it is probably ok. Especially if you put a good firewall and some intrusion detection stuff in front of their Internet facing ether. I don't say this because FC is inherently less stable or insecure than RHEL et al. More because it moves very fast and is bleeding edge. Errata support falls off very quickly compared to Debian "stable" or RHEL. For larger businesses (and even some smaller ones) there is a lot of benefit in having a server system you know is stable (as in slow moving) for a long period where the only changes are to patch security flaws and bugs. Likewise, in many cases if a company needs a service that isn't supplied by (or can not be installed on) the current version of the distro running on their server it can be a better systems management decision to install a 2nd server with a newer release of the "stable" distro than disrupt the existing infrastructure by upgrading the existing server's distro to the new version. In business, change is bad. :) I know the last thing I'd want is a server where I had to re-install the OS and migrate all the service configuration and user data every 6 months to stay current. This topic has been talked about at length on this list in the past. Regards -- Oliver Jones » Director » oliver(a)deeperdesign.com » +64 (21) 41 2238 Deeper Design Limited » +64 (7) 377 3328 » www.deeperdesign.com