Poll of sorts-

[Cyber Source]

Dave Yearke wrote:

>>I'm curious about something--
>>
>>How do you all use Linux? Are there many people on the list that use it in a
>>corporate/enterprise environment or is it more for desktop/home use?
>>    
>>
>
>We use it widely here in UB's Science and Engineering Node. We have several 
>large labs of Linux workstations, plus several moderately-sized compute 
>clusters. We don't have very many Linux servers at present; our servers tend to 
>still be mostly Sun Enterprise systems running Solaris, as they have proven to 
>be stable and robust (some are almost seven years old, and still performing 
>their jobs adequately). Another person on the NFLUG list, Jason Lasker, has 
>built a full KickStart infrastructure, so we can install and upgrade systems 
>quickly, efficiently, and consistently, and has customized RHEL3 in many clever 
>ways to meet our particular needs. I've done quite a bit with hands-off and 
>networked-based administration, using home-brewed scripts and utilities, and 
>active maintenance on these systems is pretty low.
>
>Truthfully, our client/server environment has illuminated, at least to me, one 
>of the few weaknesses of Linux: Some network services are not as well-developed 
>as they are on other Unix-like operating systems. For example, the Linux 
>automounter does not support direct mounts well or host-based mounts at all, and 
>other network services will spontaneously stop responding. I suspect that this 
>is because the focus of Linux development has been either on (a) standalone 
>desktop systems, or (b) standalone servers doing things like serving web sites. 
>I could be completely wrong, here, but that's my guess.
>
>  
>
>>I've only been to a couple of meetings, but they seem to center more around
>>'Linux as a Windows desktop replacement', which is great since Windows sucks,
>>but I'd like to see more meeting topics revolving around things like
>>high-volume system administration, tuning for performance and uptime, and
>>Linux in the enterprise. Anybody else that would like to do things like this?
>>    
>>
>
>Jason and I would be happy to demonstrate some of the procedures and practices 
>we use. We won't claim that they are necessarily the "best" ways, but they work 
>well for us. Sometimes, we use surprisingly low-tech approaches to 
>administration, because often times simple is better.
>
>By the way, I guess I'm _way_ in the minority on this list, but I don't think 
>Windows "sucks" (please understand, I'm not singling you out, but I see a lot of 
>comments like this on this list). I've been using and administering it for 
>years, and despite its problems, it meets certain needs very well. In fact, we 
>have a strong focus here on making Linux, Solaris, Windows, MacOS, and other 
>operating systems play nice together, because they all meet certain needs and 
>accomplish certain goals. We'd be happy to provide examples on some of this as 
>well, if there's interest. For the last few months, for example, I've been using 
>Cygwin on my Windows XP laptop, which gives a full Unix-like environment under 
>Windows, complete with a full X Window environment (and GNOME on the way).
>
>  
>
I gotta chime in on the "windows sucks" thing, and this is just a 
general observation, not directed at you specifically.
I think I can safely speak for a few people that the term "windows 
sucks" can and does mean way more that the operating system itself.
I myself try not to use such generalizations but I have, in my 
frustration of "trying to make different os's play nice", been know to 
blurt out such things, as well as a few expletives, lol. And it's ALWAYS 
the attitude and resulting products of M$ that manage to purposely not 
play nice.
As a publicly traded company, M$ has an obligation to earn a profit but 
the methods are certainly questionable, I don't need to go on about 
this, you all know this.
I just wanted to point out the practices of another publicly traded 
company, RedHat. How ingenious was there Fedora project and concept?! 
They too have an obligation to earn a profit for there share holders and 
with a public beta like Fedora, they can use the public at large to put 
new ideas and code to test, pulling out proven methods for there sold 
software. If you want something polished, you pay for it and they back 
it up with support.
Fedora is now always between the top 2 Linux distros and is a great 
distro to stay on top of the newest stuff.
Someday someone will come up with a way to use copyrights in the 21st 
century on music, etc., they old ways no longer apply, i.e. the days of 
col parkers are over.
I see RedHat as taking a huge stride forward in the way software is 
dealt with in the 21st century, I think it will be a model to follow, 
we'll see.
Just my 2cents..

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