Linux "equivalent" to freebsd

[mailing-lists at msdi.ca]

Hi,

Sorry this question is a little off-topic...

We've been using Freebsd for many years and all of our servers are running
freebsd.

The only thing that is a pain with freebsd, is poor commercial support :(

We are running in a situation where a customer needs Zend platform 3
(http://www.zend.com/products/zend_platform) which won't be available for
freebsd until the end of the year...

So I will need to setup a machine with linux.

I don't know much about linux distributions, could someone recommend one to
me please.

We are looking for a platform that will support amd64 extensions, will act
as a console only server and that has a good way to install ports and
upgrade. We want something secure and stable. We don't wanna go with Redhat
or any commercial distribution.

I really like the cvsup/make install/portupgrade way of dealing with
software installation and updates and I am looking for something equivalent
on a linux distribution.

Could you recommend a distribution you are using in production, we've check
ubuntu, fedora and Debian, but I wonder what freebsd users recommend...

Thanks