CentOS is about as conservative an option as you can get, though. Unusably so, in my opinion. None of the other popular distros have packages that old.

Question to manager: WTF are we using CentOS ?

Reply: because it's Enterprise.

Which distro you think is the best to run LAMP stack with an up to date package manager?

Some flavour of Debian would be my preference.

Generally with Python WSGI applications I tend to keep things sandboxed using virtualenv and pip in any case.

I am complete newbie when it comes to running a server but have a bit of experience using Ubuntu in my local box. Is ubuntu a good choice? Since most use a flavor of Red Hat like CentOS I am a bit hesitant to use Ubuntu in production.

It depends on what you are using the server for and who is using the server.

Ubuntu and debian are used by plenty of people in production and are probably the better choice for learning how to set up a server if you already use ubuntu.

Apt is also a great package manager.

Apt and yum are not very different. In the early 2000s, before yum Debian was a clear choice for packaging alone, but things have changed these days.

(I'm an Arch guy these days, but hey...)

Every time I set up a server with yum I have to look up how to install development tools, groupinstall just doesn't really click with me.

Pacman and apt are both better imo, and apt-get build-dep is really great when you need to do a source install but can still use normal dependencies.

(I do use aptitude now instead of apt though)

Will be using it host a small e-commerce web site that I am building on the side.

I would tend to say go with Debian, if that is your aim. While I understand that some of the Ubuntu long-term support releases have stable package bases, I have had nowhere near the same level of comfort with an Ubuntu LTS as I have with Debian stable, especially when boxes are to be migrated to newer releases. With Ubuntu the LTS to LTS hop is often not successful, usually for lack of testing, whereas I've rolled from one Stable release to another many times with no issue. The Debian project works very hard to do regression testing, issuing a new release only when the release is finished. This has proved to be more prudent an approach that that of Ubuntu's, which opts for a hard(ish) 6 month release cycle; a new LTS is release every two years but is a 6 month iteration over the last Ubuntu release plus some influx from Debian Testing.

It could well be that I'm biased--and you should certainly go with what you are comfortable if this is to be a one-man show--but in the pony show that is choosing a server OS, I'd go with Debian every time.

Thanks for all the replies.

Sure. If you have any problems the Debian mailing lists are excellent, the Ubuntu forums are good and I'm very often polite via email if you have a question that isn't very tightly focused.

Maybe it was in the past, but these days Debian stable is fresh by comparison.

IIRC RHEL still depends on Python 2.4 for a ton of internal administrative scripts. Nobody at Redhat wants to mess with the wiring in a working system.