Anyone running Plesk 2.5.1 on FreeBSD? We are considering a Rackspace solution but my UNIX consultant says FreeBSD is a better kernel than Linux (more efficient, better organized, more secure, etc.) However Rackspace only inlcudes Plesk on Linux as a standard option. We will have to pay them to install it on FreeBSD as a third party option and then also pay them if we need support. This seems odd since they will support a FreeBSD system anyway, and they support Plesk on Linux, what's the big deal? Does anyone have experience runing Plesk 2.5 on FreeBSD? Will we have any problems? Is it secure? Can my UNIX consultant still do command line admin while I use Plesk and things won't get screwed up?

Thanks in advance for the info.

Try haggling with them. If you like the deal overall and that is the only stumbling block, see if they will bundle Plesk installation support. Or the install and 1 hour of Plesk support per month, if the insist on some sort of cap.

I asked for a separate quote including installation of Plesk on BSD and the saleperson wouldn't do it. He "I spoke to my technicians further about this option of installing Plesk on BSD. Currently we can not install Plesk under BSD. Currently we have about a hundred of Red Hat technicians that can help you to lock down your box. We have tested with BSD and Linux and feel that we can support under Linux as opposed to BSD."

While I think FreeBSD has an edge over Linux as far as performance and security, I don't think it is worth giving up support from Rackspace over. Red Hat would not have such a huge install base if it had serious flaws for web hosting.

My UNIX consultant is going to cringe (being the FreeBSD fan that he is). Oh well.

IMO they shouldn't even offer FreeBSD as an option then. They prominently display it on every page, alongside Linux and Windows 2000. I don't recall ever seeing "Warning, our support is not fanatical for FreeBSD" on their site.

I have had quotes from them in the past and no not recall any warnings from them about differences in their support capabilities.

Plesk is not any harder to use on FreeBSD than on Linux is(It is not hard to use at all in fact.) I don't see what the problem would be with supporting plesk and freebsd together. IMHO Plesk and FreeBSD work together much better than Red Hat Especially if you were to use rpm based plesk on redhat