Novell to Make Linux Robust and Reliable

An anonymous coward writes: "It seems the folks over at Novell have the answer to making the "immature" Linux OS more "robust, reliable and scaleable" according to this Computer Weekly article. We have a lot more problems to use and keep running our NetWare 5 and 6 servers at our University than we've ever had with any of our Linux servers. I can't wait for Novell to help us out here."

Comments

Overstated but could be beneficial to Linux

[dtolton]

"It hasn't had somebody like Novell worrying about making it
robust, reliable and scalable. We think we can bring that to the
Linux kernel."

I guess IBM, HP and the like are peanuts compared to Novell.

While his comments are certainly brash, and probably overly
self-important, Netware really did make a good system.
Ultimately they just got crushed under the Microsoft marketing
machine. I've run both Microsoft and Novell networks and I
definitely thought Netware was by far the superior product. As
we've consistently seen in the IT world though, a good product
isn't the only thing you need.

In a sense he has a point about Linux being an immature
operating system, although that point seems a bit overstated.
Personally though, I'd love to see Novell contributing to Linux.
The beauty of Open Source and in this case the GPL, is that
Novell can contribute to the development of Linux, but they
can't hijack it. Having more good companies contribute to
making it reliable and scalable is a good thing. I can't see a
downside to having them make contributions to the project.

Ultimately the point is that Linux is catching on. Even
companies like Sun and Novell that have their own operating
systems are seeing the value and are beginning to support it.
With broad industry support, Linux could supplant Microsoft as
the dominant OS.

Re:Overstated but could be beneficial to Linux

[n1ywb]

In a sense he has a point about Linux being an immature
operating system

Immature how? Granted Linux isn't an ideal operating system, it has it's rough edges. But IMO it's rough edges are fewer and smoother than almost any other OS available today. Overall it's actually quite mature, compared to many many other OSes. Windows is still playing catchup to Linux in some areas (although Linux is trying to catch up to Windows in others, like GUI desktops). Anyway one of the nice things about Linux is that for the most part everybody is aware of and open about the rough areas, and they're on the task list to be eventually addressed.

I think that if you look at the 2.5 kernel from a OS theory standpoint, you see the most mature OS available. The scheduling improvements alone are really quite amazing, and IMO will catapult Linux far ahead of the competition.

Re:Overstated but could be beneficial to Linux

[evilviper]

Granted Linux isn't an ideal operating system, it has it's rough edges. But IMO it's rough edges are fewer and smoother than almost any other OS available today.

Let me guess, you've never used anything but Linux and Windows...

Other OSes available today smoother than Linux: FreeBSD!!!, Solaris, Tru64, OpenVMS, pretty much any commercial Unix today is far better than Linux in many ways. Granted, they all have their own flaws (excluding FreeBSD) but Linux couldn't hope to replace any one of them.

Re:Overstated but could be beneficial to Linux

[Herkum01]

I got Novell certification so I do speak from experience even though it not never my primary product that I supported.

Netware was incredibly stable but when it came to setup and configuration it was overly complicated. Windows took over the market not because it was a better product, but because it was more accessible. They concentrated too much on things people, who were casually trying to get involved with it, did not want to learn. MS basically proved that you don't need to be a genuis to set-up file and print sharing which is what Netware was geared for.

In many area's they were ahead of their time(Directory Services in 1994 is a great example), but if they had paid a little more attention to how people would like to work with computers instead of making it act like a mainframe they would not have been whipped so thoroughly in the market.

Re:Overstated but could be beneficial to Linux

[j-pimp]

Definitely. The fact that Microsoft added certain features that people want to their server OS has nothing to do with it. And we all know the only reason people use Apache is because it's free.

Perhaps not the only, but a major reason. The SMB protocol was originally written so linux machines could talk to DEC machines. Later MS embraced and extended the protocol and that spurred samba into becomming what it is today. How come samba (or what it was called back then) or DEC didn't instantly become heavy hitters in the file serving world. Well Samba did need some work and now is getting acceptance due to grassroots marketing and newer features, and DEC just never marketed a product as a server fro windows machines. Sure there would have to be new code written to add some spit and polish, but lack of marketing was why it never competed with MS.

Sure DEC probally never wanted to get in the business of making file servers for windows, but nonetheless it could be done. There probally were a few people that knew it could be done and did it on there own because they had old DEC machines lying around with hard drive space to spare. The point is yes being windows NT server was made to be a file server made it the best tool for the job at the time compared to every other SMB solution. However, it was arguably not the best file serving OS in general that could somehow be made to serve files to Windows clients. However, regardless of the quality o Novell MS marketdroids created the appearance of a superior product in NT and that sold. Even while most people concede that NT was better for fileserving to Windows machines than DEC it was definatly the total lack of marketing that prevented DEC from becoming a noteable contender in Windows file serving.

Re:Overstated but could be beneficial to Linux

[jedidiah]

Note how Netware is conspicously absent from that list.

However, you are grossly underestimating Linux. Linux is certainly quite capable of replacing Solaris in many deployments and has been so capable for some years now. Immaturity of Intel hardware is far more likely to be a probem than the 'immaturity' Linux.

Re:Overstated but could be beneficial to Linux

[TheOrquithVagrant]

"No attempt" indeed. I guess you are right, but only because IBM hasn't "attempted" to give Linux missing enterprise features, but rather simply DONE it.

Or did we all just hallucinate EVMS, the port of jfs, and the work IBM have done to help better SMP scalability on large systems? Sheesh.

There are VERY few "enterprise features" that commercial UNIX's have which linux doesn't, by now. Massive SSI multiprocessor scalability still isn't competitive with Irix or Solaris. AFAIK, there is still no support for hot-swapping memory in linux, even on hardware that supports that featre. But apart from that, I really can't think of much in the OS itself. Maturity of _documentation_ on the other hand is an area where some catching up is needed.

Re:Overstated but could be beneficial to Linux

[ibpooks]

In many area's they were ahead of their time(Directory Services in 1994 is a great example)

There were a lot of ways Novell was behind the times too. They were very slow to support IP, and even slower to support IP server applications like proxy and web servers. None of that was stable until at least Netware 5. And BorderManager? That thing was AWFUL! It crashed constantly and was way outperformed by squid and even MS proxy.

Work on desktop usability instead

[Jason1729]

Linux already is very rubust and stable. Where it's weak is in how difficult it is to set up to do anything; like set up a printer driver, offload pictures from a digital camera, get samba to work right. It seems like anything you want to do takes days of painful work.

I still use linux on my servers, but that's why I switched back to windows after having linux on my desktop for over 2 years. I can install something in 10 minutes and then be enjoying using it for the next few day. The one time I couldn't get a piece of hardware to work in windows, I just had to call up the hardware vendor and they solved the problem in under an hour. If I were trying to get it to work in Linux, there's nobody to call.

Jason
ProfQuotes

Buzzwords

[Nikkos]

This sounds like Novell is replying to it's customers concerns by:

A. Using buzzwords like "robust" "reliable" and "scalable" - the things Novell customers are concerned about,

B. Using the hottest buzzword in computers today "Linux" - The platform Novell probably the most worried about losing it's customers to.

Methinks Novell's focus is trying to keep it's customer base, not linux philanthropy.

Nikkos

Re:Buzzwords

[Sentry21]

B. Using the hottest buzzword in computers today "Linux" - The platform Novell probably the most worried about losing it's customers to.

I don't know if this is necessarily the case. I've been working on developing a solution for a problem that I've been having - distributed logons - with Linux, and have so far come away delightfully unimpressed.

First, we installed Samba, and got that working as a PDC with our W2K machines. Then, we got it working together with roaming profiles. Ok, fine, but then we went to Samba-TNG so we could use an LDAP directory backend. That'd be great, if there were any decent LDAP HOWTOs for Linux. The ones that there are are horrid, and you have to assemble them all in your head to make any sense of it. Once that was done (with the poor LDAP browsers available), we tried to move other services to it, which is a nightmare. Most of the LDAP-authenticating software we have (proftpd-ldap, etc.) just plain breaks, or doesn't work, or 'works' but doesn't (fails silently), or a myriad of other things. Figuring out how to do any of this stuff in the first place was a nightmare, and then trying to figure out what's wrong without having to source-dive is just a waste of my time. Once I finally got PAM working with LDAP, we have the problem of it asks for passwords twice, instead of automatically falling back. PITA. Then, if we wanted other systems to authenticate, we'd have a whole new bag of worms.

People say Novell is a bitch to configure. They say it's hard to learn. Yeah, but you know what? There's ways to learn. There's documentation. There's manuals. There's courses. There's books. When it comes down to it, there's $150/hr freelance CNEs or the consultants that installed your network in the first place. When customers move to Linux and try to do anything that's great about Linux (i.e. assembling their own solution) they quickly find that it may be cheaper, and it may give you more of a sense of satisfaction, but when you have to manage an entire corporate network, you don't have time to migrate everyone to Linux just because 'it's cheaper'. It's not. For the price of my time as a Linux admin, setting all this up, testing it, re-testing it, making damn sure it's not going to blow up in my face, I would suggest a Novell solution, because I know that if I set it up properly, it's going to freaking work, and if it doesn't, I don't have to worry about my boss bringing the hounds of hell down on me, because there's a support contract.

Linux is only a challenger in small business, and Novell's offering their small business starter pack for free (contact your local CNS for details). Larger business will go for solutions that they don't have to worry about. You pay for some staff to get their certification, keep them up to date, and that's it. With Linux, you only have their word that they know what they're doing, and when things explode or you have to find someone else, they have to figure out what's going on, and when the system's a melange of PHP sites calling perl scripts to manage LDAP databases of user data for the patched daemons running on colocated servers, better men than I have threw in the towel on the first day. Businesses are finding this important point out: anyone can learn 'Linux' - you can train a kitten to play with the keyboard and administer a Linux system - but when it comes down to the crunch and you need to build your own system, unless you keep excellent, centralized, readable, updated documentation, you can't just hire some Linux admin off the street - you need the guy that worked there before, and hopefully he left on good terms.

Microsoft and Novell are not out there because they're corporate whores. They're not popular because they lock people in. They're not even popular because managers have heard of them. They're popular because if I'm Novell certified in the relevant products, I can walk into any Novell business and sit down and administer the network. It's consistant. It's coherant. It's easier to just get to work, because if you know it you know it. Until Linux gets this, it won't be popular.

--Dan

An operating system != operating system

[On Lawn]

It might be a good time to remind that although here on slashdot we know what an operating system is, many people out there still have different notions of it. I think he's more talking about network operating systems (an old 80's term) more then computer operating systems which we more identify as Linux.

Most of what Novell does is rather mature on that level. Much more so then Linux, but probably not as much as he thinks. It has great directory, authentication and network file systems. A good AFS, LDAP, Kerberos run Linux domain is perhaps less of a polished product then Novell, but it is not far behind.

But thats only a part of what a NOS does. Consider Groupwise, ZenWorks and other products inherent to a Novell network and you'll quickly realize that there is nothing near as mature on Linux right now. (note: Ximian just recently put out Enterprise Red Carpet, which I haven't evaluated.)

So while I may agree that I wouldn't have chosen his terms, its still important to understand his use of them before critisizing them

Re:An operating system != operating system

[Anonymous Coward]

A good AFS, LDAP, Kerberos run Linux domain is perhaps less of a polished product then Novell, but it is not far behind

"Less polished" has to be the understatment of the year. A bunch of tarballs and FAQs/HOWTOs floating around the internet isn't even in the dimension as Novell or MS's directory services stuff.

In a lot of ways, Linus isn't really a NOS (in the 80s sense) -- it's more Internet server platform. Or at least that's how it's packaged and marketed -- the closest thing to NOS features out-of-box is almost NT4.0-comaptible networking, and legacy crapola like NFS/NIS.

I'd love to see "RedHat Enterprise Network Linux" with all of the directory, file/print, and management goodies. But I don't see it happening for a long time.

Re:An operating system != operating system

[dublin]

Most of what Novell does is rather mature on that level. Much more so then Linux, but probably not as much as he thinks. It has great directory, authentication and network file systems. A good AFS, LDAP, Kerberos run Linux domain is perhaps less of a polished product then Novell, but it is not far behind.

Sorry, but Linux isn't even in the same league when it comes to network services. NetWare has its warts, but so far as NOS capabilities they are in a class of one. (Although Banyan was interesting, are they still around?)

The fine granularity of file permissions in NetWare is an absolute dream, and matches and supports real-world needs *far* better than those of Windows, or especially Unix-derived servers. (I've been dealing with the brain-dead Unix file permissions for 18 years now, and the whole system is a major dog's breakfast.)

ACLs have been grafted onto various network filesystems in myriad incompatible, incomprehensible, and unmanageable ways, but that's really no substitute for a just having a reasonable set of permissions capabilities in the first place.

Further, NDS is far and away the best directory service available today - it's really a shame it hasn't taken hold in the Unix/Linux world, as we need it badly if there is ever to be any hope of holding AD at bay. (Those that don't do serious enterprise work fail to comprehend that it's AD that makes it virtually impossible to pull Windows out of an organization - this is the *real* Kool-Aid, and if your organization has drunk a long draft of it, you're poisoned, bucko... Raw LDAP is not really an option in most environments, as the staffing required to manage it that way exceeds the available talented labor pool in most places...)

You're right that all the apps built on these network services have no real equivalent at all in the Unix/Linux world, and only shabby imitators in the Windows world, but even at the server-only level, NetWare in unequalled. I hate the way you administer it, (it's intentionally obtuse to encourage CNE certification), and it has some weaknesses as an application server, but it works and works well.

It's well-engineered, too: As a protocol jock, I say that with real knowledge - compare the rock-solid reliability, wide area bandwidth efficiency, and latency insensitivity, not to mention advanced features and security of NCP to *anything* else, and I think it will come out *way* ahead. I've built worldwide remote site networks that have to have transparent file access back to civilization via a satellite telephone, (the worst latency environment within three planetary diameters) and only NetWare and NCP are capable of operating in such an environment. Nothing else is - not NFS, not SMB, not whatever, just NCP.

Gee, this sounds like a Novell ad - It's not, I haven't even touched the product in two years, but what they do, they do well.

Re:An operating system != operating system

[opkool]

NDS/eDirectory is based on LDAP. It's not OpenLDAP.

GNU/Linux ships OpenLDAP, an open implementation of the LDAP protocol implementation. It's still very rough, though.

On the other hand, Novell ships eDirectory, which is a much improved, time-tested implementation of LDAP protocol.

Believe it or not, NDS/eDirectory is much better than OpenLDAP. Work with both, for at least a year, with scores of hundreds of users... and then, you tell me.

As for what can Novell bring to GNU/Linux... well, IBM has helped improve GNU/Linux. Sun has helped improve GNU/Linux. Oracle has helped improve GNU/Linux. HP has helped improve GNU/Linux. SGI has helped improve GNU/Linux...

We cannot know for sure, that's right. But a reasonable assumption, with the knowledge in hand of what has already happened, there's a good chance that GNU/Linux will benefit from Novell.

Why some people are affraid of companies investing in Linux?

Novell had a lot of things going for it

[SuperBanana]

Netware really did make a good system.

I agree, but realize Novell had a lot of things going for it:

• They tightly controlled what was Novell certified, and what wasn't. Admins didn't buy hardware unless it had that little red sticker on it that said "Novell Certified". When you limit the subset of hardware and software, you make QA infinitely easier, and your operating system's reputation isn't tarnished by some guy selling video cards out of the back of his truck that cause novell servers to die(people constantly confuse OS reliability with hardware stability). It isn't just simplifying your hardware/software base though- Apple had(well, ok, still does, to some extent) this theory, except that the quality of code and QA -before releases went out the door- was piss-poor; even today it's pretty bad; case and point would be 10.2.5, which is reputed to be causing a lot of kernel panics related to USB. They have the same problem with hardware- almost everything they ship is defective in at least a half dozen ways(some of them minor, some of them very much not so.)
• Novell never had to worry about making a desktop OS; in the server world, #1 priority is reliability, and so you don't have to worry about adding the latest this-or-that. Servers are simpler than desktops; they're asked to do a limited number of things, comparatively, but just do it on a big scale. It's like the difference between -most- Linux distros, and OS's like OpenBSD; do one thing(network/serving) and do it well. The big boys(and even the little guys) only cared about keeping their fileserver up 24x7x365. Novell could do that exceptionally well. Remember, you can't make everyone happy all of the time, so why bother trying? I wish linux distros would grow up and find their market segments instead of trying for everything. Even Apple has recognized the need for separate desktop and server "distros".
• Network services back in Novell's hayday were a hell of a lot simpler than they are today. It used to be all you really had to handle was logins to the network from a workstation, printing, and filesharing, and chances are you could do it with a limited amount of hardware. That was it. Nowadays, networks are far, far more complicated and decentralized, AND at the same time you've got people who want to run a NATing gateway, print server, SMB, mail, web...and slice their veggies, all with one box.

NDS

[WCMI92]

The one thing that Novell could REALLY bring to Linux that'd revolutionize it would be NDS.

Of all the network directory services, I FAR prefer dealing with Novell NDS than I do Active Directory (a poor MS clone of NDS hacked onto NT 4's way of doing things that debuted with Win 2K server). An open source implimentaion of NDS on Linux would make Linux THE file server of choice...

The underlying Netware OS is horribly obsolete, still a DOS relic of the 1980's, but Novell Directory Services is the REAL gem Novell has left.

Have you even tried it?

[cpthowdy]

OK, I really think that anyone here that is bad-mouthing Novell has yet to actually sit down and play with a NetWare server. Wait, make that a PROPERLY CONFIGURED NetWare server. If that could happen BEFORE the flame-fest, I think that we would only be seeing half of the comments in this thread.

Yeah, I guess it's better...

[fireboy1919]

As long as you don't want your system to be nifty (what I would call elegant) in any way.

Forget having modern extensions and X11R6 applications. You can't have them.

And color terminals? Add them yourself! And forget about user support! You'll pay them good money if you want support!

What about advancing the gnu tools to the current level? You want recursive grepping? Color "ls"? Tar support for bzip2 and gzip? These are only the common ones that I've noticed are subpar compared to linux - I'm sure there are many others that I don't use. Wait until the next version of Solaris and maybe it'll get added.

The hardware will be great, though - for only ten times what you pay for commodity hardware you get reliability (just ignore the fact that if you buy quality hardware for PCs that cost about twice that amount you'll get the same level of quality).

I've yet to see that Solaris is elegant. It works, but it sure ain't pretty - not even compared to Linux. What they offer is reliability that comes from good hardware.

And don't give me any stuff about not rebooting for 4 years - you can do the same with flavors of Linux designed for that. There's more to it than software stability now.