[aclug-L] Re: Why Debian?

[Greg House <ghouse@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Thu, 12 Oct 2000, you wrote:
> On Thu, 12 Oct 2000, Greg House wrote:
> 
> > Guess I'll be the dissenting opinion. My personal opinion is that Debian is
> > probably great for systems you take a long time to very carefully set
> > up...tweak...tweak again...get it JUUUUST right, and then never touch again.
> > Provided systems that are using older hardware and don't need any of the
> > features or fixes of current software released...
> 
> This perfectly describes my personal Debian server and most of what we do
> here at Boeing as well.  We want to set it up and never touch it again.  
> When you've got nearly 100 HP-UX servers alone (not to mention the
> RS/6000, Sequents and Suns in the other groups) you want to set it up and
> mess with it as little as possible.

In that case, it sounds like you already have your argument for Debian pretty
much together.

> >  It has the steepest learning curve of any Linux distribution I've
> > seen. I can't possibly imagine recommending it to a new user. 
> 
> We're not recommending it to new users... it will be supported by
> professional Unix admins with years of experience.  I just need strong
> evidence to give to non-technical management about which distro they
> should choose. 

Your first message mentioned needing to convert some WinNT machines to Linux so
they could do a network load test. Based on that, I though you were also
converting NT admins to Linux admins. That was why I phrased the recommendation
the way I did.

> > If you want to see Linux adoption increase at your company, I think an
> > easier distribution is needed.
> 
> Adoption isn't a matter of getting people to use it, it's a matter of
> getting non-technical management to get over their fear of open-source
> software and accept that Linux is a stable operating system that can save
> them a lot of money.  We don't need to be running static-page web servers
> on HP-9000's that cost tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars when that
> same task could be handled by an Intel box running Linux. 

Ok, I'm with you now... I misunderstood the previous msg.

> You seem to be assuming that we're going to hand CD's to people and say,
> "Here, install it, give me a call if you can't figure it out."  That's not
> the way we work... we, Unix Technical Services, do the installs on all
> servers.  

For good or bad, that is the way most places work. They come in with a box and
say "Install this...and have it up and fully functional in 3 days".

> I don't need to read manuals or readmes to install
> Debian and my end-user isn't going to come close to installing
> it.  

Maybe your end-users won't, but your fellow sysadmins will have to.
Administering a Debian box (especially the installation) is far different then
an HP-UX box, or a Solaris box, or an Irix box. I'd say FreeBSD or Slackware
have more in common, administration wise, with commercial *nix's then Debian
does (or Red Hat, for that matter).

> The real-world expectations of Unix admins aren't the real-world
> expectations of users who buy nothing but Microsoft products.  

Exactly. And I thought you were talking about NT admins, my mistake.

Greg

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