By 
- CentOS
- VERY solid and stable.
- I have several servers that have uptime of >500days (the very few incidences of downtime were from power issues, not OS).
- I did get hacked a couple of times before I learned how to use iptables adequately.
- VERY solid and stable.
- Debian
- SOMETIMES, compatibility calls for non-CentOS.
- I am not a fan of Ubuntu – they are becoming more like M$ every day.
- FreeBSD
- FreeNAS with ZFS rocks!
- VERY stable.
- jails etc are great – but – complicated for us lesser beings.
- you need “big” hardware for FreeNAS – especially RAM.
- because ZFS!!!
- IF you go the FreeNAS route… and I REALLY really mean this…
- Read Aaron Toponce’s blog repeatedly BEFORE you start.
- Read Aaron Toponce’s blog again BEFORE you start
- … although … I have (subsequently/recently) successfully set up several Debian+ZFS boxes based on Aaron Toponce’s blog
- These would not have been possible without reading Aaron Toponce’s blog repeatedly.
- IF you go the FreeNAS route… and I REALLY really mean this…
- pfSense/OPNsense
- I have started developing a preference for OPNsense over pfSense
- Although fundamentally similar, the latter seems to be changing/improving faster, and seems (so far) to be easier
- I have started developing a preference for OPNsense over pfSense
