Linux is Linux—you can use any distribution; the real difference between distributions lies primarily in how much effort it takes to accomplish your specific goals. The five distributions compared here represent the "Who's Who" of the major English-language distributions.
Looking for a database? This handy database feature comparison matrix and glossary let you compare and contrast the supported features of four popular open source databases: Apache Derby 10.1, MySQL 5.0, PostgreSQL 8.1, and One$DB 4.0.
Giving Apache the ability to run Python scripts opens up a wealth of options for eliminating those old CGI scripts and using Python for your Web development tasks—and gives your scripts a big performance boost into the bargain!
The combination of Python and PostgreSQL is potent, particularly when you use the Psycopg2 driver.
While transactions are nice, PostgreSQL's current all-or-nothing transaction mechanism leaves much to be desired when an error occurs within the transaction code. Fortunately, the upcoming PostgreSQL version 8 addresses that problem by adding "savepoints," letting you roll back only part of a transaction and recover from errors gracefully.
Although PostgreSQL doesn't include full-text indexing and search capabilities by default, you can install and use the TSearch2 module that ships with PostgreSQL to index and search large amounts of text efficiently.
Even at the enterprise server level, there are wide differences between Linux distributions, not only in price, but in ease of installation, included features and software, and particularly in ease of administration. See how the two most popular Linux enterprise server distributions match up.
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