FreeBSD for webserver?

[Tim Daneliuk]

Chris St Denis wrote:
> VeeJay wrote:
>> Hi there
>>
>> I am going to make 2 Webserver at my work going to handle 50 mil hits per
>> month... They are using Linux already. But being a FreeBSD fan, I have
>> proposed FreeBSD to my Boss convincing him that FreeBSD is more Fast and
>> Secure solution for his needs... And now I want to show the results...
>> *Hardware:*
>> Dell PowerEdge 2950 III having 2 x CPU 3,0 GHz Intel Xeon L5450 Quad-Core
>> 2x6MB cache WITH 16 GB RAM.
>>
>> *Tools:*
>> 1. FreeBSD 7 Production Release
>> 2. Apache 2.2.9
>> 3. MySQL 5.1.26
>> 4. PHP 5.2.6
>>
>> My question is, "*To get the speed, performance and security*":
>>
>> Should I use Ports or Packages to install all these tools One by One?
>>
>> *OR*
>> Should I use TAR files and compile them manually. For example giving 
>> command
>> line arguments and commands like
>>
>> ./configure --prefix=/www --enable-module=so
>> make
>> make install
>> cd ../php-xxx
>> ./configure --with-mysql --with-apxs=/www/bin/apxs
>> make
>> make install
>>
>> etc....
>>
>> I have googled but still haven't reached to solution...personally I would
>> prefer comiling them with command line arguments
>> but then I seek some help from you guys i.e.
>>
>> How should I write this ./configure......stuff in FreeBSD and what 
>> would be
>> the best options combination, I must choose to get the speed, 
>> performane and
>> security in Apache, MySQL and PHP?
>>
>> Any suggestion is very welcomed!
>>
>>   
> Best to just use the ports. They take care of all of the dependencies 
> for you and have extra patches to make them work optimally for FreeBSD.
> 
> Why ./configure by hand when the port's makefile will do it for you?
> 

+1


Also, using ports makes it much easier to update systems with portupdate later on.