Re: Is Red Hat heading down the wrong road?

[ABrady <kcsmart kc rr com>]

On Sat, 20 Oct 2001 08:31:22 -0600 Clint Tinsley <cttinsley qwest net>
imparted to us:
> Don't want to start a flame but here goes...
> 
> </flameon>
> 
> I really don't care for folks who flame Windows and then comment how 
> reliable their version of Linux is in that it has been up since dawn
> of 
> time.  I see just as many "crashes" in Linux as Windows where 
> applications mysteriously quit working and have to be restarted or 
> whatever and I have seen where one has had to force a Linux box down 
> (Redhat included).
> 
> My main "production" computer is a Windows98 SE machine because it is 
> the one that works and runs all my software and I emphasize all.  It 
> rarely crashes and this computer has been continuously upgraded since 
> it's incarnation as a DOS/Windows 3.1 machine, ie, DOS/Windows 
> 3.11->Windows95->Windows98->Windows98SE, never a nuke and pave for any
> reason including power outages, and started out life about 1995 
> (verifiable by checking the file dates).  It has also been through 
> serveral system board and hard drive upgrades over those 6+ years and 
> currently is running on an Athlon 800 and a 40 gig drive.  Also, I
> have 
> a life and I don't have to spend it fixing Linux but I do spend a lot
> of 
> time learning how to fix Linux...
> 
> Don't get me wrong, I use Linux and I even Like Ximian 1.4 on Redhat
> 7.1 
> where it is running well (haven't crashed it ... yet).  At work, we
> run 
> all our critical web services on RH Linux - Web, DNS, Qmail, Squid,
> NTP, 
> LDAP, MySQL but we have watchdog scripts monitoring each service so as
> to automatically restart them when they fail, for whatever reason. 
> Our 
> 20,000+ user with over 7,000 Windows desktops run on a Novll network
> and 
> those servers never go down except for extended power outages and then
> I 
> don't have to worry about rebuilding them (nuke & pave) or having to
> run 
> even vrepair. There are reports of Novell servers getting lost, walled
> in, running for over 8 years, and when finally something happens, they
> have to pull on the end of the wire to find where the server is. :-) 
> We 
> have maybe 4 Linux desktops on the network and I have 2 of them.  I
> have 
> 3 desktop computers occuping my office desktop for administrative 
> purposes at the office - Win2K, Windows 98SE and a Caldera Linux box. 
>  I'll leave you to speculate which one I use the most.
> 
> My final point is that beating up or complaining about Windows does
> not 
> make Linux any better.
> 
> </flameoff>

No flame.

With linux:

1. I haven't HAD to reboot when installing anything except when
installing a new kernel or new hardware. I work with mobile 'Doze-95 at
work where we have to switch them out regularly due to various errors on
hard drives or in software. They use IP addresses for radio
transmissions to a mainframe. Something as simple as changing an IP
address requires a reboot.

2. While I've had crashes of various programs that needed restarting,
I've only had entire system crashes due to bad hardware (lost a memory
module, had a zip drive with the 'click-of-death'). I've had some
programs that required me to telnet in to kill. Never have figured out
quite how to do that with 'Doze.

3. I have, in this room at home, a linux box, a 'Doze95 box, an NT
server and a MAC. They give me the greatest headaches in the following
order: NT, 95, MAC, linux. I qualify the linux "headaches" by saying
that it is trying to sort out configuration and stupid entries placed in
config files by some idiot from time to time.

4. When I want to find an upgrade to a piece of software in linux
(including those that don't come default with redhat installs) I can
generally go to a web homepage, a search engine or a mass listing (ala
freshmeat) and find what I need in minutes. With the M$ products I spend
several hours combing through obscure search engine results before
finding what might finally be what I'm looking for (usually is,
sometimes isn't). This just to get a "SECURITY" patch. I generally will
find myself doing similar things within a few days when some script
kiddie that can barely comprehend the book he's reading that instructs
him on how to make a worm turns out a new toy that trashes a few hundred
thousand servers and starts attacking mine. In addition, with redhat, I
get notification (and do so with many other things I install
separately). With M$, I have to hear it word-of-mouth or read about the
new patch someplace on a newspage. Or pay them extra just to maybe
remember to tell me they have a new fix for an old bug. If I fail to
install the M$ patch, I'm at fault for not keeping up with the daily
security patches they have to release. They can't be at fault for
releasing buggy and easy to break software (and dare to call it
Professional). Nor can they be blamed for the fact I may not even know
they released a patch because they never tell anybody (except those
paying a fortune for the privilege of being told the server software is
broke again).

5. I have a life. I also have a hobby. If you want easy and not have to
worry about it, get M$ and AOL and move on. If you want to protect
yourself, M$ is not the way that will get you there. I like learning. I
also like the ability to know that someone has been trying to get my
personal infromation off of my PC or over my server, and that I had the
ability to stop them before they accomplished it. Linux gives me these.
I have yet to see the NT machine prove it can come even close.

-- 
Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day;
teach him to use the Net and he won't bother you for weeks.