[HPADM] RE: OT: Thoughts on Linux, Future? or not?
From: Illgen Steve 448 (steve.illgen_at_crackerbarrel.com)
Date: 07/19/04
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To: "'Ayson, Alison {Info~Palo Alto}'" <alison.ayson@ROCHE.COM>
Date: Mon, 19 Jul 2004 08:38:55 -0500
This is an interesting post and one worth responding to--even if it is
O.T....
I agree with you that Linux is not the "all-encompassing solution." No O.S.
is (despite vendor's claims). Overall, I believe Linux is a great platform
with a lot of potential. It still has a way to go before I would feel
comfortable using it on our key systems (where OS'es like HP-UX shines), but
it is more than adequate for providing small- and medium-scale services. We
have applications running on Redhat 7.3, 8.0 and 9.0 (If it works, don't
break it...). Linux is also "slowly" beginning to making inroads as a
desktop platform (I am using Fedora Core 1 on a Pentium II-266 w/192 MB RAM
as my primary "administrator" desktop with Windows NT as a "backup.". I am
also using Mandrake 10 at home). Overall, Linux is proving to be a very
stable and reliable platform and seems to be improving with each new
release.
There are areas were Linux needs improvement, especially in the area of
hardware drivers. These problems also tend to vary with each distribution
(i.e. Redhat, Mandrake, SUSE, etc.) and each release (e.g. Redhat 8.0, 9.0,
AS3.1, etc.) which also tends to complicate matters..And, while desktop apps
are improving significantly, they still need to be "tweaked" a little more
before they are ready for distribution to most end-users.
For the most part, once Linux has been installed and is running, it is fine.
While I don't believe Linux will ever be like HP-UX, I will continue to
recommend it for many projects based on my experiences with it---especially
if Microsoft is one of the options :-) .
Have a great day,
Steve Illgen
UNIX Systems Administrator
Cracker Barrel Old Country Store, Inc.
"Pass the biscuits, please!"
-----Original Message-----
From: Ayson, Alison {Info~Palo Alto} [mailto:alison.ayson@ROCHE.COM]
Sent: Friday, July 16, 2004 6:05 PM
To: hpux-admin@DutchWorks.nl
Subject: [HPADM] OT: Thoughts on Linux, Future? or not?
I haven't posted in awhile so I hope "OT" is still the right symbol for "Off
Topic"
I've been an HP-UX administrator for over 10 years (some Solaris and SGI
too, but mostly HP-UX). Lately there has been a big push within our company
to look at Linux, specifically RedHat (AS 3.0 and 2.1). It seems that
everyone wants to jump on the Linux bandwagon, but I'm not convinced Linux
is the all-encompassing solution that so many seem to think it is.
The biggest motivation for moving to Linux is financial (from the "higher
ups" that is). The hardware is cheaper and so is the OS. However, it's
been my experience--so far at least--that what you save in hardware and
software you quickly use up in Sys Admin time. I have spent so many hours
trying to get a particular driver to load, or a piece of "freeware" software
to compile; something that would have taken minutes on an HP-UX server. And
support from RedHat is a joke! The quickest response I've gotten so far to
a reported problem was 72 hours (usually it's 2 weeks, one question has been
pending for 3 months no with no response). Luckily we bought 1 year of
support from HP for one of our Linux servers; I can get an answer from HP
fairly quickly. So far we have very few Linux servers so I haven't gotten
overwhelmed----yet. However if I had 20 or so linux servers to maintain,
and everytime I had to make some sort of change to that server I had to
spend hours recompiling the kernel or whatever...the situation could quickly
become a nightmare.
I wondered what some of the other HP Sys Admins out there think about Linux?
Have your experiences been positive or have you experienced some of the same
difficulties.
Thanks for any feedback.
-- Alison Ayson
Roche Bioscience
Palo Alto, CA
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