RE: 7.1 is out soon

[Bill Farrell <billfarr ages com>]

I've studiously stayed out of this thread until now...Awright, y'all... my
$.02:-)

I'm sticking with RedHat because it's grown my web business from "A" server
getting few hits per day to a multi-national server farm getting about 40
million+ a week and steadily growing.  And has done so admirably.  My
partner, Nic, and I have an excellent reputation for uptime and
availability, thanks to RH.

I'm also used to the way RH installs; I've had EXCELLENT experience with
their support;  and once installed, you can treat the machine like
furniture.  It's there, it's running, it's doing its job without
intervention.  Throw a doily on top for pretty.

Aside from checking emails each server sends me about its health (post-scan,
post-script-operation, turning logs, etc), there's not much to do for any
individual machine.  The server-farm-qua-hivemind sorta rocks and rolls on,
quietly doing its job.  In two countries and at several access points, at
that.  All homegrown.  That is, we spend our time adding features that
people WANT rather than figuring out how to get and keep a server going.

I've tried SuSe and found it a bit weird, like a throwback to UnixWare where
everything was in a strange places, called strange things, and the defaults
were nowhere NEAR what a real, online, working shop would want.  It's fine
for people playing about with Linux and some toys, but let's face it:  as
bad as linuxconf is (and, yeah, it's pretty awful), yast is even more
painful and unpredictable.  You can't configure half the stuff you need to
with it; it only configures half of any given thing and never finishing the
job, leaving you to figure out where the hell the rest is; and Go Find what
else you need to modify in order to get the sucker to work.  At best, expect
to spend hours tuning.  Drop yer breadcrumbs, Hansel & Gretel, cuz you'll
need a trail home.

My impression? Fuhgeddaboudit!!! I prefer a known installation with a
install-tune-and-go, where I can go from computer-qua-vegetable to
server-in-production in about a half-hour.  That simply hasn't happened with
any other release of Linux I've tried so far.  Up time in the web and data
warehousing business is your lifeblood.  One simply cannot take the risk to
use ANYTHING but road-tested-and-proven-worthy products.

I don't have time to c**k around with unravelling annoying mysteries in SuSe
or any of the others, like why routes don't work right, how to add extra IP
addresses to NICs, where and what did they call whatever.conf, and a host of
other irritating issues.  And whyinhell do I want all the useless, extra
CRAP software that gets installed with it?  I just want a server that
serves, not a Fisher-Price BusyBox.

I'm taking care of about 25 servers by myself, with the help of a LOT of
crafty scripting to make each machine administer itself AND its neighbours.
Try THAT with M$.  Simple answer:  you can't.  I know that SuSe "COULD" and
would probably do as admirable a job, but I don't have days to bring a
machine up to speed, spend hours struggling with the bizarre configs,
weeding out useless crap, etc etc, each and every time.

In my book, that makes SuSe a good candidate for developers, hackers,
trend-setters, and back-office machines that can tolerate the amount of
fiddling required.  NOT on a production floor.  My machines need to be
productive NOW, not tomorrow or the next day.

And God love Mandrake, but if I'm going to be buying RH anyway, I may as
well get it right from the source.  WITH the correct support, thank you.

Caldera will probably never get it just right, though they do try.  They're
simply too small and perennially underfunded for me to bet my business on.
There again, an excellent candidate for desktop or app development use, but
not on a server production floor.

What forms my opinions? I've had about 20 years experience with *nix, plus
every OS that IBM ever came out with from PC to mainframe.  I've installed
and maintained *nix and *nix-like systems since System III (yeah, I'm
THOROUGHLY dated now!), including WE, Xenix, Dec/UX, HP/UX, DG/UX, UnixWare,
SCO, Berserkley, and a score of others so obscure even _I_ don't remember
all their names.  But I do think I'm qualified to ascertain what will work
best in my own shop.  Just as you are in yours.

I've also worked in Very Large Blue shops, installing and maintaining MVS
and VM systems.  Working in large IBM shops did change my outlook on
software products--now, when I buy a package, I expect it to work as
advertised and expect full support behind it.  By golly, it appears that the
management of RH have actually read former IBM CEO Buck Rogers' book
entitled _The IBM Way_ which speaks about treating customers (and employees,
I hope) right.  

Answering the phone, returning calls, returning emails, "the little things
that make a house a home"; that's my experience with RH.  A damnsight more
than I've gotten from other vendors, whose typical answer is "sift through
the website when you have hours and hours and you MIGHT find what you're
looking for.  Otherwise, you're on your own."  Rain on that: I can get that
treatment from M$ for even more money out the door.

No way to run a business, my friends.  I'm in business to make money to feed
my family, not to fart around with toys and experimental whatsits.  I'd
*LOVE* the luxury of being able to play, buuuuut, duty calls...

I've stuck by RH since shortly before rel 5.  Each release I've tried has
gotten better each time, save for 7.0.  Big Deal.  One bad apple don't spoil
the whole barrel.  Come to think of it, 6.0 wasn't all-that, either.  The
communications I've been reading on various lists and emails between
collegues smack of some (proper) contritition on RH's part.  Given my
personal experience with RH, I can easily forgive a nasty release.  It WILL
be better the next go...there's proven history.  I knew when I bought 7.0
that it wouldn't be going into production, but let's face it:  at the price,
why not have a play with it?  I don't see folks flocking to pay thousands of
dollars to find out that Win2K ain't all-that, either.  A stable,
inexpensive, reliable OS is all that's required, here.

And who puts ANYBODY's x.0 release into production?  Not if you treasure
your business, you don't.  Ever.  One gets an x.0 release to see what's
going to be in it when it grows up.  I like what I saw in 7.0 (just please,
heavens, let them figure out the xinetd weirdness I wrote about before) and
am just waiting for things to sort out a bit. 7.1 may be "it".

If RH were all as bad as they've been made out, I probably WOULD be running
SuSe.  As a close-second-best, it's at least stable enough to put into
production.  But that would mean a LOT of re-engineering and right now I
just don't have enough hands to entertain the notion.  Plus my
admin/maintenance burden would increase due to SuSe's weird ideas about
configurations.  Definitely cute and sometimes handy IF AND WHEN you can
figure them out, but not at all *nixlike.  More like SCO or UnixWare or
something else with a weirdass twist on it.

My plan:  listen to this list and see what other people think of 7.1.  If it
sounds tasty, I'll probably do what I normally do and go buy the biggest Big
Box Set (as I always do) and migrate into the new release.  Then I'll smash
all my impressions together and see if it goes into production or not at
THAT moment.

For now, 6.2 with the updates work' fine, las' longtime.  At least one can
GET updates!  Try that with M$, either.  I've been the victim of M$'s
"updates" more than once, thank you.  I'll put my faith and my business in
the hands of a company who've proven that they can bring something to market
which actually works and is stable enough upon which to run an enterprise.
That, and a lot of other very large reasons my partner & I threw M$ out
bodily.

If you're happy with Mandrake, Suse, Caldera, or any of the
also-out-there's, God be with you.  Be happy with what makes you happy.  I'm
personally glad that there are people who have the time and resources to be
experimental.  That's how trails get blazed and new products arise (just ask
Mr. Torvalds).  When the new toys are stable, the rest of us will have a
chance to play, too.  But not a split-second before then.

Just because you have a personal preference for a particular product doesn't
mean that all other products are Bad Ideas, and that the people who use them
are all w*nkers.  I find that notion to be just a bit offencive.  A lot of
us have preferences based on solid business reasons and nothing more.

Live 'n' let live, guys and gals.

Peace,
Bill


-----Original Message-----
From: Kalum / Grendel [mailto:kalum lintux cx]
Sent: Monday, April 16, 2001 8:57 PM
To: Nabeel S. Kandah
Cc: redhat-install-list redhat com
Subject: Re: 7.1 is out soon 


On  Mon, 16 Apr 2001, Nabeel S. Kandah commented thusly,

> Oh no what's a linux fan to do? Redhat finally releases (April 24) 7.1
> after I slap Suse 7.1 on my machine, complete with kernel 2.4, XFree86
> 4.0.2, kde 2.0.1, and assorted toys and trinkets.
 
> should I return to Redhat or hang with the Teutonic Linux Distro? Suse

Please dont even consider installing redhats beta software on your system,
we all know how their 7.x release suck, so my advice would be to stick
with a trouble free distro, like the one you have, or mandrake.

> is quite awesome, I might add, no complaints of the major variety. For

Indeed, unlike Rh 7.x, which seems to be more buggy than windoze, infact I
am sure it is, its just that there is no way of quantifying this by using
the bug number, becuase more bugs would have been discovered in windoze
becuase of the very very large user base.

> now Suse is my Linux, but I do have a soft spot for the Redhatters,
> whose version 5.2 introduced me to a non-windoze world.

So do I, but there (RH) latest distros suck badly, and they have become
havily commercialised, so it would be highliy advisable to stay well away
from any new releases, just the same way that you would stay away from any
software that M$ release..
 
> RedHat 7.1 - I bet it's a major improvement over 7.0. The *.1 series are
> generally of higher quality.

Redhat 7.x arent particularly known for there quality or well plannedness
are they? They certainly are known for there overwhelming preference for
satisfying commercial requests than prudence so this might suck even
more...since they are becoming more and more commercialised day by day.

> What's a Linux Fan to do?

For a distro, the major options worth considering are Mandrake, Suse and
Debian. Since you have Suse, pelase stick with it, it sounds you are very
happy.

> Long Live Linux 

Long live Debian, Mandrake, and Suse :)

Best Wishes,
Grendel


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