Fedora 17 highly recommended

I've used Linux since my OS class required us to modify Minix so many years ago and RedHat was in it's infancy. Building a new server was always at least 3 days to 2 weeks of headache. So I would put it off as long as possible. So yesterday I finally decided I had to bite the bullet and up my personal dev. server to Fedora 17.

Imagine my surprise when it was installed and running in 16 minutes! YES!! The most fiddly part was changing from System V to Systemctl but still painless!

Give it a test drive, you can burn a Live CD and try it before you decide:
https://fedoraproject.org/en/get-fedora

I would never recommend fedora/redhat/centos for a server and I manage over 4,000 of them. Debian is way better, I am sorry it just is and Ubuntu for desktop. In 3-4 years from now you are going to have to go thru a potentially traumatic upgrade on that thing.

The way we upgrade Centos/Redhat/Fedora boxes is by doing a fresh install on a new server and then sync all the content over then after testing we switch the ip's..Not a huge deal if your doing this constantly you get pretty fast but with Debian its just aptitude dist-upgrade and done.