[nflug] Red Hat vs. SUSE on Servers

Jesse Jarzynka denisesballs at thecybersource.com
Wed Jun 13 13:32:57 EDT 2007


Thanks a ton guys, and keep it coming! Nice to get someone on the SUSE
side to add to the training.

> I migrated ALL of Cognigen's RedHat/BSD and a number of Solaris systems
> to SuSE Linux 4 or 5 years ago and I still feel it was a very good
> decision.
>
> Initially the main catalyst for this move was RedHat dropping the
> "RedHat Linux" line in favor of their Enterprise line for customers and
> making Fedora the community disto. RedHat stated that Fedora was their
> "test bed" for moving things into RHEL which to me meant it's all
> bleeding edge vaporware which I don't want in my computer center. I also
> wasn't a fan with the lack of packages that shipped with RedHat at the
> time, my time can be better spent then build software from source.
> System upgrades then were a shot in the dark! You were better off nuking
> the existing installation and recreating the system, which is a  huge
> waste of time. Management tools for RedHat are have always been
> inconsistent IMHO, it's either some GUI app or vi'ing files from the
> command line.
>
> SuSE is the #2 distro in the US and #1 in Europe and shortly thereafter
> Novell purchased them. Say what you will about Novell but the SuSE
> acquisition was huge and really opened up many doors for both companies
> that may have taken years to garner. Global support, sales, deep
> pockets, existing relationships with established companies like Oracle,
> IBM, etc.
>
> SuSE was the first distro that I'd ever used where every package I
> needed was part of the distribution and they provide patches as well. If
> something wasn't available, very rare, I could usually find them in
> another repository or I could easily setup my own. From desktop to
> servers it's available and very up to date.
>
> With the exception of Debian, SuSE was the first *NIX where upgrading
> from version to version has been flawless. I can jump from SuSE 9.0 to
> 10.2 and not have to be concerned about things breaking. I preform
> server upgrades in under 30 minutes now instead of a day or two.
>
> While vi will always be a close friend, 'yast' is now my best friend for
> managing SuSE servers. Whether I'm on a console or a full desktop the
> 'yast' interface is the same and it touches nearly everything I need it
> to. I will say that SuSEconfig took a little while to get use to but now
> it's second nature. When you modify files in /etc/sysconfig you run
> SuSEconfig and it modifies/creates various configuration files.
>
> The Novell/M$/whoever partnership will give businesses the warm fuzzes
> but I could care less. When this was being crafted I don't believe the
> "business" people at Novell got any or much feedback from the SuSE side
> of the house, all one need to do is look at the SuSE people who left. It
> certainly hasn't pushed me away from SuSE and it's not going to, I
> prefer to rely on SuSE for it's technical merits.
>
> That was a mouthful!
>
> Jesse Jarzynka wrote:
>> Last night I talked to Dave for a while getting his opinions on
>> administering Red Hat and SUSE in the enterprise realm. I wanted to get
>> everyone else's opinions as well. This is for a presentation/training
>> I'm
>> doing on Linux here at Ingram. If anyone has any thoughts or experience
>> with the two distros in the enterprise please let me know. Some areas of
>> concern are:
>>
>> Which do you prefer and why?
>> Any benefits you feel one has over the other.
>> Do you feel SUSE is growing at all compared to Red Hat?
>> Do you think Novell's Microsoft deal will inspire more companies to
>> adopt
>> for interoperability and safety or are companies less likely to use it
>> since it is kind of against the spirit of the GPL and Open Source in
>> general?
>> Other distros you feel are growing (CentOS/Ubuntu) etc.
>>
>> Any input is greatly appreciated. -Jesse
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>
> --
> Darin Perusich
> Unix Systems Administrator
> Cognigen Corporation
> 395 Youngs Rd.
> Williamsville, NY 14221
> Phone: 716-633-3463
> Email: darinper at cognigencorp.com
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