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Using Debian in Commercial Environments?
sydb asks: "I am currently persuading my employer to try out Linux. We are heavily dependent on IBM software technologies just now, and it's a very conservative operations organization. As a challenge, I am trying to persuade them to use my preferred distro but there are hurdles: IBM doesn't officially support Debian as a platform, though I have anecdotal evidence that most of it can be persuaded to work (with alien etc). Does Slashdot have experience shoe-horning Debian into this kind of scenario? Most importantly, how have things gone getting IBM support? My rationale for pushing Debian boils down to its vast array of packages available to apt-get, easy upgrades, apt-get itself, and the overall quality and consistency of the system."
Imagine if you tried to introduce them to Gentoo! They'd probably faint.
Despite the fact that my employer has a software environment that they are comfortable with, and that I have very little to gain and everything to lose, I have moved my software evangelism to the workplace. Can you help?
I put Debian on my Thinkpad a20M, and it worked just fine, especially when I put in an eepro ethernet adapter. The windows driver I downloaded from the IBM site for Windows 2000 professional didn't work at all. Debian had the driver right there.
Ask them to read and point to Bruyce Perens previous papers and work.. he was the former head of Debian/GNU and now heads the UserLinux project..
:)
just goolge the name and you will find his website with the paper links..
Or the hard way.. start your own business and demand it as per your ceo status.. I went the hard way
Don't Tread on OpenSource
~~~
In general, you're buying IBM software because you can call them up, tell them "it don't work, nosirree" and your contract says they get to send out some engineer(s) and make it work.
If they support your environment.
The gains you might think you'll get by using Debian are absolutely not worth losing your service contract, which you've likely already paid for. There's nothing horribly wrong with SuSE or Redhat, both generally supported IBM environments. If you succeed in getting your boss to install Debian, you're on the process of going up a river without the proverbial paddle.
MORTAR COMBAT!
---- death to all fanatics
You want to put Debian on the systems because of the vast array of software available for it.
They want to run IBM solutions because they can trust that the few apps that they actually want to run on the system will run with no trouble.
The trouble here is that you want Debian on the systems for your own selfish reasons. They want to run their systems as reliably as possible. Since this is a business and not a college dorm room, the business case will always win out.
Debian is a fine distribution. But no company in their right mind would go through a migration just so you can install the latest and greatest software via apt-get. You see, they've already got the software they need running on the system.
I cannot speak about the IBM support, but I can speak about using a less main-stream Linux distro, such as Debian in a serious, commercial software development shop. What I found was that a lot of time was wasted on getting some of the more complex applications to work on it (e.g. Oracle 9i), while getting the same sw to run on something more 'standard', such as RedHat, was a bit easier. In fast-paced environments where every developer's day counts, this does matter. This experience is a bit over 1 year old, so maybe (hopefully!) things have changed since then.
Simpy
you focus on whats best for your company and ultimately your client by using the right tool for the right job instead of trying to hammer the proverbial square peg (Debian) into the round hole? Sorry to not really answer your question but hobbies and personal preference shouldnt take the place of a better solution (e.g. whatever distro of Linux IBM prefers for their hardware)
If I were you, I would find out what distro is acceptable to your Boss, and move to that distro first.
:)
And like others said before, once he's hooked, the rest is history
It's difficult enough as it is to convince PHB switching to Linux, and I wouldn't try jumping over two hurdles at once.
Uselessful technology (Air-Charged
Why not try Arch Linux? It has a similar package system to Debian.
Of course your boss wants to feel backed by a large company but with debian you have thousands of people working like you, working with things that just work and no marketing behind.
I went through this same discussion at my company, as Debian is my preferred distro as well. The thing is, beyond the distribution scheme, I really don't get to experience the true differences between the distros, as I'm usually running an unstable release anyways.
The link above also documents creating an apt RPM repository - we did this at my company, and to be honest, 99.9% of my gripes with RedHat went away completely.
I'd suggest looking into apt for RPM, it fixes a lot of the problems, and doesn't introduce those posed by a totally new distro on your production boxes.
Q: What do you think about American Culture?
A: I think it's a good idea.
(adapted from Gandhi)
Wouldn't that result in some kind of explosion?
I wish you the very best of luck, many times I have tried to get my employer to switch to Linux, every time failing by being told that it is too inconvient and that the entire company requires Microsoft for standardization issues, it does sort of tick me off. So again, I wish you the very best of luck.
I like suggestions, but I don't like contributing towards them.
I would say that what you want to to do is set up a technology demo. Put a server together doing a task using debian. The reasoning being that you have expertise in debian, so it reduces cost of the tech demo if you do and support what you know.
When it comes time to decide on an actual rollout they have to make a decision to go with a distro that they know is proven in their environment, or go with what IBM pitches.
But in either case, what you're doing is making the haters defend on two fronts: the vendors pushing for one linux and you pushing for another. With the debate being "which Linux" it stops being "why Linux". It's a win-win.
"Let him go, Ralph. He knows what he's doing." --Otto Mann (simpsons)
I don't think that Debian is the best choice in this situation. I know the whole subject is "Using Debian in Commercial Environments", but that's like asking "How To Fly From New York to London in My Volkswagen?". Debian is a pretty good distro, with a nice and fairly simple way of updating, but it is in fact too conservative for a corporate environment. Ideally, you want to be at the cutting edge of GUIs and the like, but Debian-stable (I can't imagine using Unstable in a business block) normally lags behind a bit; it's still on GNOME 2.4 and KDE 3.0.
So, what do I recommend? Predictable as it sounds, a corporate version of Red Hat like Red Carpet. It comes with groupware (Evolution), a decent browser (Firefox) and more updates than you can shake a stick at via up2date. You can make a profile to mass-install it on a batch of machines, and they guarantee corporate support against copyright lawsuits to the tune of three million dollars.
Even so, it's still cheaper than Windows, and far far harder to get infected with viruses, trojans and spyware. Everything on it but the Red Hat logos is open source, plus you won't get wormed in the process of installing it. You'll be essentially invulnerable to hacking attempts and the like, and will be able to more easily roll out updates than on Windows.
This should provide the kind of reassurance your employers need.
PS: No, I am not an HP employee.
You can use apt for RedHat, Fedora, and Mandrake distros too. If that's your only reason for using debian, then you might consider a compromise.
See atrpms for more info.
Ok, I love Linux. I use it at work. I work in a really big, international company.
..
Here's my take .
If it's not supported/approved by IBM and you are dealing with IBM then find out what they support and use that.
Why?
Because 1) it's easier, and 2) you want to succeed.
Your job is not to move the organization. Your job is to make your boss look good. IBM is very very talented at making their customers look good at very reasonable prices. You will make your boss look better with IBM's willing help than by trying to fly it yourself.
Apt-get is nice and all, but frankly, support is nicer. If you don't understand that, btw, then you are not experienced enough to be making the decission on what to move forward with. I'm not saying this to be an ass . . . but simply because it's true. Moving them to Linux is smart, but moving them to something the hardware vendor doesn't support is stupid
Everybody get your fire-retardant suits on for the ensuing flamewar...
The core differences between distros are package management, the version of the kernel, and the version of libc. Debian might work fine for what you want it to do, but a subtle problem might occur that you didn't catch during testing, due to a version difference. I've found that shoehorning, as you mentioned, is generally a bad idea. Shoehorn too much, and your feet will hurt.
Given your conservative environment, I think RedHat's Enterprise Linux product line is more appropriate. RedHat can sell you a commercial support contract, and they promise software updates for 5 years. Also, future Linux admins are more likely to be familiar with RedHat, which avoids needing to learn Debian's quirks. Also, IBM or other commercial software (like Oracle) is more likely to be supported on RedHat.
IBM? Support? Ha! My company (a large multinational financial corp) made the mistake of outsourcing all the technologies through IBM. Some of the stuff works, but their websphere Host-On-Demand system for terminal emulation is crap. The support angle of it is absolutely awful. I have a job thanks to their miserable support of anything they don't provide to us at astronomical costs. My team supports everything they don't. Their policy is, "If we didn't provide it then 1) we don't give a damn about it, and 2) we won't even attempt to help you integrate it into the environment we provided for you." Good luck. It took us years of badgering them before they would clear the way for installling Apache on a workstation to provide automatic updates of image processing. And on top of that, they didn't even try to give us a solution - it was just plain no. When we want to do something now, we just do it. Then hell with 'em. If you can wean your company off of their teat, then my hat is not only off to you, but also covered in mustard as I will be happy to eat it.
I also reply below your current threshold.
We're running Debian on several xSeries systems. At first, we were having problems with server lockups. While it turned out to be a problem with the XFS file system, IBM supported us by swapping out just about the entire server.
They won't support the software, but they will support their hardware running it.
I've had the same conversation in my workplace, when deciding upon a distro to standerise on. It was a tossup between SuSE and Debian.
It eventually boiled down to a single point: SuSE had commercial backing from Novell. Debian is purely a community-maintained distro. If we built a server for a customer, and then that customer decided they wanted to buy support for it, the only safe answer was to use SuSE or Redhat... and frankly, none of us (including the management) liked Redhat a whole lot.
At the end of the day, you need to ask yourself a few questions:
1) Are you happy supporting %DISTRO linux?
2) Are your management types going to be happy with it?
3) Are your customers going to be content with it?
4) Is it compatible with commercial packages? (Really important... although you might be able to shoehorn say, Chilisoft onto Debian, do you really wanna do that across a couple of hundred servers, and then end being responsable for manual updates or whatever?)
In all seriousness, go with Red Hat, you won't regret it. They have the best support I've ever had to deal with and their enterprise line is the most consistent, stable, and feature filled distro that I've seen for the enterprise. I use Debian on personal servers, and while it's a great distro, and Debian stable is *extremely* stable, it is not anymore stable then Red Hat. Also, most enterprise applications are geared towards Red Hat. Alien is a nice utility, but sometimes craps out on me. You'll have no trouble finding RPMs of any major application on linux. Also, I love apt-get as much as you do, but yum is great, up2date is nice(although I rarely use it), and apt for rpm is awesome, although I'm not sure what its like on RH's servers, i've only used it on Fedora. Apt-get should not be a major point in your decision considering that once a server is up and running, you should rarely ever have to install or modify many things (other then security update, which RH handles nicely). IBM can't support Debian's repositories anyway because they have no clue what is in them and they have no jurisdiction over their distribution. Just spend the money on a good corporate server and I assure you that you won't regret it. It will also keep the higher ups happy, and if the shit ever hits the fan you can just toss the problem to Red Hat, who are btw very good and very quick at solving damn near any problem in the world.
Regards,
Steve
Of course I'm generalizing on the "ease of use" of a Debian system opposed to a Redhat system, but i think you can see my point.
you might get it to work, but bottom line, if IBM doesn't support it, and something goes wrong, they'll tell you to get Red Hat/Fedora, which is the Linux distro that they officially support AFAIK. You'll be going out on a limb if you go Debian. (ironic b/c Debian is the most stable, has the most packages, etc.) I'm a Debian user myself.
"The latest greatest software via apt-get"
Since when has Debian ever had the "latest greatest" anything? (responding to another post)
There are advantages of Debian, but being up to date on the latest software isn't one of them.
Debian offers easy upgrades with few problems, and great stability. If the company can get IBM or another company support Debian, then they should switch, if the switch-over costs aren't larger than the gains, compensating for time-preference (the present value of the future benefits of switching to Debian, compared to the present cost of switching over to Debian).
Whatever money the company has sunken into support for RedHat is irrelevant. People here saying that the company should make a decision based on that don't understand economics. Past costs are already sunken, and are a given. The only relevant thing is which course of action is going to be the most beneficial into the future.
If the benefits of switching over to Debian -- minus the costs of switching over, and the cost of getting support for Debian -- exceed the benefits of staying with RedHat (for which we must consider the support to be a "part of it"), then the switch should be made. Otherwise, it shouldn't.
If the switch shouldn't be made now, then it will probably be something that will be worth pursuing when the support contract runs out, if there are reputable companies offering good support for Debian.
social sciences can never use experience to verify their statemen
... As a challenge, I am trying to persuade them to use my preferred distro but there are hurdles: IBM doesn't officially support Debian as a platform, though I have anecdotal evidence that most of it can be persuaded to work (with alien etc). Does Slashdot have experience shoe-horning Debian into this kind of scenario? Most importantly, how havw,,
If you ever have read a EULA agreement? You will see there isn't much support in anything anyone sells, IBM is no different. EULA is just a very long way of saying no support. So claiming "supported" is usually limp at best.
Ultimately any organization has their best support in their own people. Some monkey sales type will of course disagree - as they want their staff in on the cake. They usually play management like a piano with FUD. Hope you win as where management isn't F'CKed with FUD the environment is good for everyone, including employees and shareholders.
Any distro that works and adds to your business needs shoudl be used.
make a sandbox running Deb on your network to start showing them what it can do. this is what I did at my work, and it worked. Currently CVS and the Build machine are running my Linux distro of choice; Gentoo, for mainly the same reasons you mention.
RHCE's aren't going to do what we can do with *our* distro's, it's more than just LInux to us.
CB
free ipod and free gmail!
So, you need to ask these questions to yourself and your co-workers:
If you have a stable working enviroment, why change?
Is this move going to be cost effective?
Is the distro I use going to be the proper one?
Why am I really using this distro? If you say, because it is the one I use at home, then you need stop this project right in its tracks.
How easy is it to manage this distro in my enviroment. Running "apt-get upgrade" on 500 servers is not do-able.
Is there proper management software out there for my distro/platform of choice?
Does my software I need even run on my distro/platform of choice?
What about support for my software on my distro/platform of choice?
Can I keep my system software in sync across all servers?
Can I easily manage the distro install process?
Can I trim down the install time?
Can I make the install process automated?
These are just the basic questions you need ask. Don't get stuck on one distro. Be flexable and look around. Redhat or Gentoo or something might be better choices.
Linux O Muerte!
I used to work for IBM in the division that developed DB2 for Windows, OS/2, Linux, and various Unicies (but not OS/400 or other "big iron" systems) three years ago, and worked on code for DB2 v6 through to v8.
At that time, our Linux testing was primarily against Red Hat and a few others (from hazy memory, Turbo Linux, Red Flag, and one other I don't recall at the moment). Debian was not tested at all for any of their products. Red Hat was their primary focus, and seemed to be the Linux platform most of the developers ha on their desktop systems (although a lot of the Unix development was actually done through AIX-based systems).
Things may have changed since this time, but I haven't seen any outside evidence of this. Do you really want to try running these applications on platforms and with packages that the original vendor hasn't done any testing with? The IBM products you mention are not cheap -- why risk having them break by running them on an unsupported platform?
If you're a big account, talk to your IBM account rep and tell them you'd like to move to Debian. You'd be suprised how much IBM will do for a big account (or, at least, would do when I was there).
Yaz.
about Debian is the ease of upgrades.
An apt-get update;apt-get upgrade will most of the time do everything you need to update your machine to the "latest" version of whatever you have installed. Of course "latest" depending on whether you're running stable, unstable or testing.
There is really little necessity to go through the old windows-esque way of reinstalling every time a new release of your distro comes out (or take your life in your hands and attempt an 'upgrade'). I guess it's just a change in mindset for how to upgrade a system.
Having said that, I would still love to see some decent management tools like chkconfig appear in debian.
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
I've recently developed several cable modem network applications that run off a Sparc box loaded with Debian with PHP and mySQL. They connect into the cisco 7200 and 10k series uBR chassis and allow our field techs to resolve the hybrid fiber coaxial mac address on the modem to it's internal 10.x.x.x ip address. This allows them to pull snmp data from the modem, such as RF levels, bandwidth, errors, etc.
Now getting back to the topic, the reason I went with Debian is that it allows me to easily install what I need knowing that it's going to work without any trouble. I can dedicate my time to development rather than trying to figure out why line 5234 in blah.h is giving me some error.
Incidently, the combination of my software and my Debian server got me a presentation in front of the company president. That's really saying something when there's 16,000 employees. As a side note if there's interest I'm considering creating a sourceforge project for my work (assuming it gets approval from my boss.)
Stick with the supported platforms, son. Dink around with your favorite distro on your own box(es). I've gone one dedicated FreeBSD 5.1 box and one dual boot windows/Debian testing box. I wouldn't think of pushing Debian branded linux in favor of something like RedHat. With RedHat or SuSE you've got a substantial corporation behind you. Not just the distros but the companies who support those platforms as well.
There's plenty of help on the internet at large, but they arent paid to have an answer to you in any amount of time. They don't even have to answer your questions at all. In fact they could simply call you a tart and a fop and go frig yourself or something strange like that instead.
Evangelize Linux, to be sure. But stick with what's supported. You'd rather have IBM or RedHat to point a finger at when it doesn't work rather than sitting on your thumbs and trying to explain to your boss once again why Debian was the superior choice.
Or just use apt-get on another distro like Redhat.
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
I mean, if you're going to fight the system and go with a distro that your contracts won't support, you'll end up being THE SUPPORT for the Debian users. Been there done that!
So why not at least pick the best distro?
Of course, you really have an ice-cube's chance in hell of getting them to adopt Debian so, this is really a moot point and I might as well use this moment to annoyingly tell everyone which distro I like best-
{{{{{SLACKWARE}}}}}
Found where better OSes are sold.
-----end shameless plug----
Your thin skin doesn't make me a troll
Don't turn your companies first encounter with Linux into a science project with your favourite distro. Even if you've heard it can be 'persuaded' to work. You're on a salary as are others, keep it sweet & simple and don't waste your own time, because that creates an impression too.
Go with a flavor of Linux that IBM supports, then later when you're feeling adventurous introduce a Debian box or two. Making the Linux transition any more difficult than it has to be seems utterly pointless, especially inside a conservative organization. Make sure they take the right lessons away from this, not some ambiguous point confused by distro issues.
Muddying the waters with unsupported distro complications is just bad judgement.
The fact that you're talking about "shoehorning" Debian in, using "anecdotal evidence that most of it can be persuaded to work" should answer your question.
This isn't a PHB issue, either. Anyone with a real production system should be scared off by language like that.
Your scenario is a bit vague.
What would Linux be used for? desktop or server room? Debian makes more sense for the latter (stability, consistency and good response time to security issues) than for the former (unease of install, antiquated desktop on Debian Stable, lots of work needed to maintain essentially your own desktop-ready distribution, obvious support issues with IBM, look on the management people face when you tell them your wonderful distro is based on "Debian Unstable", etc).
Maybe you can make the pill easier to swallow if you go to a more commercial version of Linux first, e.g. SuSE or RedHat? This way you only have to clear the first hurdle of making Linux acceptable in your company. It will still come with support contracts, releases, and other things management can cope with. Not to mention that these distros and others have to some extent caught up with Debian, using apt themselves or yum.
If your setup is Linux for the desktop, how much experience do you have with managing more than a handfull of machines and a couple of users under Debian Linux ? Debian currently makes a fine meta-distribution but don't make the mistake of assuming it will be as easy to maintain as your own machine. You'll have to cope with more user demands than just your own and a wider array of hardware.
What do you mean by "doing everything the Debian way"? Are you saying Debian doesn't adhere to the FHS? Or are you just saying that -- while complying with standards relevant to a *nix -- it does things differently than RedHat or SuSe?
If you're simply saying that it does things differently from RedHat, then who says that the way RedHat does things is "the standard"? As for "special config tools", etc, why are Debian's config tools "special Debian config tools", and RedHat's config tools not "special RedHat config tools"?
It seems to me that your either saying that Debian doesn't adhere to standards (such as FHS), which would be a good criticism (even though sometimes standards are wrong), but in which case I'd want some examples; or you're saying that it doesn't do things the "RedHat" way, which is like complaining about it because all of its programs aren't in C:\Program Files.
PS: Personally, I use Gentoo.
social sciences can never use experience to verify their statemen
I just busted a gut, thanks.
Our department (Computer Science and Engineering) recently charged our unix sysadmin team to create a new linux server for software development, grading and homework for all students. We ended up choosing Debian over SuSE and Redhat "Enterprise" products. Redhat did not have the polish and maturity of an enterprise-quality product, and SuSE, while it was extremely polished, did not seem flexible enough (overdependancy on LDAP).
;) But one cannot discount the ease of maintainance and consistancy of Debian. It was natural that it finally won out on merit alone.
We chose the Debian "Sarge" release and have not looked back. It has been nothing but a pleasure to administer and maintain. We run it on a Dell Poweredge.
My boss was jittery at first about using a distribution with no marketing department behind it
c. thomas
CSCE dept, University of Arkansas at Fayetteville
When they need something that isn't installed, introduce them to APT.
Once my fellow engineers were able to witness just how well debian works, the whole lab was converted to debian (and a few desktops as well).
-kev
that brooce perens is the goatse guy...is this true?
What other posters say is true, don't put your job at risk if you have to install Oracle or other Redhat only things.
But I hope debian will be better supported in the future, it's really better serverside. It seems big players know this, but only support what PHBs want. For example I have read in numerous places that HP uses debian internally. But their server tools can be only installed on redhat or suse, even if they probably have an internal debian version. But it seems things are starting to move slowlyn as more and more users are installing debian anyway when it is possible and stating it in the forums.
Doing something like this is just like trying to use Perl or Python (or Java or whatever) in an all-C/C++ shop for the first time. It may be the best solution for the problem you happen to be solving. But if the company doesn't consciously maintain a knowledge base in the "new" technology, any of the new work is essentially dead once the author leaves. Same thing applies to a new OS, a new third-party app, or whatever.
The best technology solutions are maintainable, extendable, and reusable. And the most common error is to overlook maintainability.
to run debian so he can directly have an effect on the size of his e-penis. Getting your corporate office to run a hobby OS increases your e-penis by +3.
And please, windows gimps with no linux experience need not moderate nor reply, because you don't know what you're talking about.
It is true that Debian does not have much commercial support, beyond Progeny and a few others.
However, it is the easiest linux distro to support, hands down. It is far more deterministic, more polite to it's user base, and far easier to support your commercial software on that anything else (provided you do it right). Why debian is not more popular with big houses is a topic up for grabs, but it has more to do with psychology, intertia and plain ignorance than anything else.
and to those who are saying "shut up and go with what's there" I might remind you that the reason they're using linux in the first place is because users (in this case admins) wanted to use it. The demand came before the supply, OK?
I believe Debian is so far superior to the other distros that wide support for it is inevitable. It makes too much sense. I think partly the reason is isn't widely commercially supported is because Debian spent the first years of it's existence more concerned with infrastructural matters than anything else, without much concern for usability. Now that they are very actively working on usability issues and other assorted superficialities, look out. they have a solid, modular architecture supported by well designed political process.
Lastly I might add Debian is not a company that can be bought or influenced by money; it is a non-profit with protected legal status. It is very politically stable and is the only software producing organization I know of that has a social contract with it users. Gentoo or FreeBSD (both being somewhat "cathedral like" in their organization) may have the quality of Debian, but they can't match the political stability, and neither can any commercial company.
I, for one, am proud to be second to this flamewar.
If you've got balls, go Gentoo!
{{{{{GENTOO}}}}}
Found where better OSes are downloaded and compiled
Wow all I can say is I work closely with IBM and Linux and if you actually get your boss to go with Debian you are gonna regret it. IBM will not support it and what is your rationale anyways?? what is wrong with RedHat?? I understand that you are confortable with Debian and I know its a fine distro but the costs to you (your job) far outway the gains here.
Run your critical application on Debian. But make sure that if and when something goes wrong, you can reproduce the problem on a supported distro (Redhat, I guess).
If you introduced them to GoboLinux, they would have several spasms before collapsing in a dead heap.
Karma: It's all a bunch of tree-huggin' hippy crap!
We have had a government contract that required Oracle 8i for odd reasons. Debian still has available the older libc versions needed for Oracle 8i. I don't if any current versions of RHEL or SLES support 8i, but I know Debian + the older 1.1.8 JDK allowed the Oracle installer to run and work with minimal shoe-horning.
The other Debian box we built for this application was for running Tomcat with the Sun JDK pushing a web-based reporting tool. We were able to demonstrate how Debian supported removing all unrelated packages (including compilers) and lowered the security profile lower than their Solaris boxes. (They still used telnet, God help them) The demonstration worked and the server is running Debian in production on the [redacted] government network.
Don't push it. We recommend Debian because of access to the build/distribution system and the ability to craft custom loads for specific purposes (point-of-sale, thin client, rich client, etc.). Controlling the build/distribution environment is a bigger issue than many people realize. But we really support anything because after a certain point, Linux is just Linux.
Comment on DebianPlanet about how we do it
We use it in our business and support it for our customers. No problems here! Go Debian!
My God! It's full of Voids!
Moving them to Linux is smart, but moving them to something the hardware vendor doesn't support is stupid.
Should read:
Moving them to linux is smart, but moving them to something the hardware vendor doesn't support is suicide, for you, your boss, and possibly the company in some cases. Improper changes like this can make or break a lot of places, and looks bad on your resume too..
The reasons you cite for using Debian are contradicted by your stated approach. The reason that apt-get and dpkg are strong is the features they have vs rpm--using alien squanders any advantage you may have gained by going with .deb .
You find yourself using terms like shoe-horn, this should be an indication to you that the shoe doesn't fit.
I have a saying for this. "You can't force someone to take the red pill". It goes for alternative operating systems, and many things in general. If they aren't ready, giving it to them isn't going to help.
I, too, am in a heavy IBM Websphere and DB2 environment and when we bought new hardware I looked into upgrading the distro from Red Hat 7.3.
First, the install on Debian isn't smooth. I tried the latest stable Debian as well as some updated packages that I knew I'd need. I installed Websphere and had some problems. Stuff worked, eventually, but it was a pain that I wasn't willing to deal with on an ongoing basis (fixpacks and such). Java GUIs were particularly troublesome, although the web console is really all you ever need. Java problems worried me a lot.
I tried Suse and Red Hat's enterprise offerings, which I had been given demo disks for, as well as their free counterparts. One major hurdle with Red Hat was that there are some major Java threading issues with RHEL 3.0 and Red Hat 9 and above, so I'd be stuck with RHEL 2.1 or RH 8. I decided to go with Suse 8.2, which is supported as a development platform (no free Linux is supported for production use).
What I found on my distro adventures is that IBM supports anything, but they do complain about it. For instance, even our old environment had RH 7.3 while only 7.2 is supported. During my Debian install it was IBM who helped me get it working. When supporting these distros they constantly question the Java version and go through a checklist of software versions to make sure everything's ok. But like I said, they will support it.
While I have gotten bad support from IBM before, overall they are much better than any other company I've had to deal with on an ongoing basis. They really do try to help out. A couple times I've had some idiot at their help desk so I asked to be transfered to someone else, but other than that they've been great.
The global economy is a great thing until you feel it locally.
If you have a support contract with IBM for the applications your company has purchased then you might not want to change the underlying OS .. cause IBM could quite easily turn around and tell you to bugger off and fix it yourself if you have a problem (because you will be running an unsupported configuration).
In that case, it is not correct to say that Debian is a "non-standard distribution". It simply isn't supported by Oracle and IBM. This really shouldn't be much of a problem if the distros supported by Oracle and IBM and Debian adhere strongly to standards (like FHS).
As noted in the above message, I don't use Debian, but Gentoo (and I probably wouldn't recommend Gentoo to a corporation, due to lack of big-company support, unless there were special circumstances that hyperbolized the benefits of Gentoo).
I'm not "defensive about my operating system". I'm just curious by what the person meant when they were talking about "non-standard". RedHat is not a "standard", nor is Gentoo, or any other distribution. They are simply implementations. It is simply one among many distributions of GNU/Linux. FHS, on the other hand, is a standard. Thus, any Linux that doesn't adhere to FHS (such as GoboLinux) is non-standard.
social sciences can never use experience to verify their statemen
Many of us inside IBM would like to see at least one free distribution supported. However, IBM won't support Debian unless there's customer demand. You're a customer, so demand it. Keep demanding it.
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
Thanks.
You know the right answer. The fact that you're even asking here means you already know deep down that the best thing to do is RedHat or SuSE.
With that said, use SuSE. The last thing we need is more RedHat customers. Competition is vital to keep Linux from turning into a RedHat-only proposition (in the enterprise). Support SuSE, at least keep it a duopoly between Novell and RedHat - they'll beat each other up and keep things fair.
Off-topic, I know, but most people's job is actually to make themselves look good. There's no point working your arse off if the only person who gets the benefit is the boss. :-)
Karma: It's all a bunch of tree-huggin' hippy crap!
I've picked Debian for an embedded systems project we're working on.
The problem with the distros out there is that some are updated 2-3 times per year (stable release to stable release) and then the old releases are supported for maybe another year.
We wanted something with a longer release cycle. Sure, we could have picked RHEL, but the client is cheap, and didn't want to pay big bucks for support.
So we're going with Debian Sarge. It should go stable well before the project has finished development, and with any luck (i.e. Debian again takes forever to push out another release), we'll still get security updates for 3 years or so.
But this is an embedded application without a lot of external software dependancies. We're using a free database, for example.
I've experimented with several distros, but I've stuck with Debian for our servers and workstations. Our main fileserver, for example, has never, never ever crashed. I'd have 4 years of continuous uptime if it wasn't for various office moves and OS upgrades. I attribute it to very solid, somewhat expensive hardware, a good UPS, and Debian. It first ran 2.2, and now runs 3.0. And in a few months, it will probably run sarge (3.1)... or be retired because it really doesn't have that much free disk space left. :-)
The pros were Debian's stability and backports for security.
The cons were mostly that most proprietary hardware vendors (i.e., Dell and a few others) at least semi-officially support Redhat and no other distro really. Matt Domsch's linux page (and later linux.dell.com) were helpful for those of us struggling to figure out how to get Openmanage working to do something seemingly simple like snmp monitor the dell hardware.
Alien also was key, for those who don't know, alien can convert .rpms to .debs, though not always perfectly, since most proprietary vendors make their rpms with all sorts of unnecessary dependencies on Redhat where something more generic could have been used as far as file locations and installation scripts.
We had another 3rd party vendor who I won't name that sells a PCI card with "Linux support", though it really means Redhat. To use it required patching Apache, Openssl, and mod_ssl. We had some problems getting it all to work, but since it was only officially supported on Redhat, I had to setup a Redhat box and replicate our problems on there. Lots of extra work, but it's all working in the end.
I guess the summary is that debian in a commercial environment is very feasible, especially from a maintenance (apt and apt-proxy rocks!) and a security point of view (not a lot of extra crap installed and running). The downside can be lack of support for non-Redhat style installs. A few years ago, we would have been lucky to have any Linux support at all!
... don't try to "shoehorn" an unsupported OS into a commercial application platform. That's crazy - much less converting some vendors rpms to debs with alien, which is insane.
I agree with you about Debian, but you need to advocate it where it's safe - infrastructure. If you're a developer, well, you're in a bind. If you're an admin, well, you can put it to use with DNS, mail, virus scanning, cvs, http, directories, samba (hint, hint) and a million other things. The app support will eventually come. You can get by without vendor hardware support most of the time, not a problem; we all know that at that level most distros are all the same. But for application server (e.g., weblogic, oracle, cad apps, etc) I would not even think of doing this.
It's truely free and fully open source, support is just about as good as Red Hat or Suse [again unless you're willing to paybig bucks], forward and backward releases are supported fully...no pressure to upgrade on a company's timetable, and software compatiblity is of the highest level... In a nutshell Debian IS Linux!
What's needed in the general OSS movement is to get more corperate interest in the grassroots OSS movements... Personally, I'm a Suse fan...because they have some great IBM hardware ports [like iSeries/AS400!] but realistically, distros like Gentoo and Debian are the future of software...companies like RH & Suse are attempts to strap "traditonal" lock-in software business to OSS/Linux... they are bound to fail...and leave you holding the bag. The beauty of Gentoo and Debian is that anybody can bolt anything they want on to the very stable bases...and when the base changes it's easy to work the changes into your custom software...they are DESIGNED to do just what most companies need!!!
As far as stability and compatibility, isn't it an open joke that the current version of Debian Stable is pushing 3 years old...I'd call that a pretty reliable standard base...better than ANY of the corperate Linuii.
I congratulate you on your recognition of the advantages of Debian. I'm a bit of a zealot there myself after spending a year on tour with every other distro I could reasonably find.
Now, about your case.
Companies have a philosophy that they want to have support from an organization rather than an individual. This makes RedHat and SuSE very appealing. Similarly this probably had some weight when they were selecting IBM for their IT contractor. This is also what appears to make Debian very un-appealing. Debian doesn't have the store-front appearance of being a big presence that won't go away and it super easy to manage.
Personally I can't imagine a more permenent presence than Debian considering the number of mirrors that they have and the difficulty it will be to put them out of business. But this will require a paradyme shift from the company.
I think there is some supporting arguements for Debian that you might be able to find from Perens and also from the fact that many companies (Lindows, Knoppix, Libranet...) base their product on the core that is Debian. This says a lot for Debian.
I think a lot of the arguement comes down to these elements:
You are embarking on a very progressive project here and their conservatism may be your biggest enemy.
I wish you luck!
or you'd never suggest migrating a working DB2 and websphere install to an untested, unsupported system.
Its one thing if you have an entire technology group backing you up and helping with any issues; but to take on the task of transferring a working system to something unproven is lunacy.
Besides what software do you want to install ?!?!
a server is a server; as long as it has the software that it needs to do the job what else do you need to install ? and apt-get as nice as it is is not going to get you the latest copy of DB2 or WebSphere.
Note to the mods: how is this an Ask Slashdot question ? Slashdot shouldnt take the place of software support forums or a quick phone call to IBM's tech support...
I've managed to get DB2 UDB 8.1 EEE working in Debian, and Websphere Application Server. There isn't really anything ditribution-specific in any of IBM's software, at least not in my experience. The only issue you may run into is that if you call a tech at IBM, they might not be able to help you if you're running in an environment other than what they're trained in. Of course, decent techs should be able to adapt, but since the support is not officially there, it's something to be concerned about, particularly for a business.
I've only used this software for personal use (playing around with $20K toys, mostly), but at no point did I ever run into a problem that was a result of running it in a distribution other than Redhat. More often, my problems were related to a lack of experience with IBM's configuration tools, and an improperly prepared environment. (Java sure is picky.)
You Debian guys are as bad as the Mac crowd.
Let's take a look at this. Your employer already has a relationship with IBM. IBM has been pushing Linux for the last two years. If you wanted Linux to be adopted in your company, wouldn't it be logical to go with an IBM-supported distro?
Mindless, empty-headed zealot. If it was just affected yourself I wouldn't care, but people like you are giving us all a bad name.
Why not move to Sun, you can use their linux distro and when you need it to scale you can move to Solaris, which is so sensibly priced it;'s not funny.
Its one damn thing before another. (Dick Bird 1999)
Debian is great as a platform (especially the latest sarge net-install CD... wow). I love it especially if I need a platform so run some kind of open source software on it for a particular occasion. Apt-get allows me to create it with a very small footprint.... small enough to fit on a 512MB compact flash if need be. The updates are nice too. Problem is, the suits want to have their vendor support... so companies like RedHat and Novell stand to benefit here. Not that there's anything bad with vendor support at all. RedHat creates a distro which is comparable to the offering Microsoft does with their windows server (with the obvious difference being that Linux is far superior). Great for all the typical tasks, but as a development platform, RedHat can be a pain to upgrade and manage... and then you have a bit of system bloat to deal with on occasions. So two different distros for two different occasions.
READY.
PRINT ""+-0
Is it not enough for you that they're willing to get with the times and switch to Linux in general? Find out which distros are supported by all of the software you have to run, and which are supported by whatever hardware vendor you like, and choose from the intersection of those sets. Since your app/db software seems to be all IBM, and IBM happens to be a big Linux pusher, I'm sure they'd be more than happy to architect the whole thing for you on IBM hardware running RedHat or SuSE
11*43+456^2
Shh. Dont tell anybody, but I regulary use Debian at work as an IBM employee. I use it a development OS and as apt-get source for prototype embedded code.
I spent several months looking at a sole successor for our set of 150 linux (mostly Debian, some RH), Solaris, and Windows systems. We had been running backups with a hard to manage mash of rsync's, Amanda, Legato Networker, and Veritas Netbackup.
At the end of the day, Tivoli Storage Manager bested out Veritas NetBackup. In testing, I knew that I could run the tivoli code under Debian. But when you're considering a mass Debian deployment of code designed for RedHat/SuSe, you drop any thoughts of using Alien other than for quick tests. You have to find an IBM support team that will work with you should you run into trouble with a non-supported distribution such a Debian, but you also have to realize that at the end of the day, they will run on best effort because they have not tested their code on Debian.
So far, things are working well with Debian/stable systems. There was a bug in the initscripts package that caused a bit of heck on the very few Debian/testing systems that I was running, but it was overcome with 30 minutes worth of work.
Still, the bottom line is to do what's best for your business, not what's best for you. We chose Debian because it's very stable, and relatively easy to support. The only problem with it is explaining to vendors why we don't use RedHat Enterprise or SuSe Enterprise (namely, dollars). The IBM people are very comfortable with SuSe and RedHat - which means your troubles will be resolved quickly. You will find some very intelligent IBM people that will help you out with non-standards such as Debian, but you will pay for it in time-to-restoration if you aren't fully on the ball.
For most companies, software is a tool which supports the generation of revenue. Zero cost software is of no use to them if downtime/support wastes more money than commercial software, subscriptions (RH/SuSe), or support contracts would.
In your case, it seems that you're currently running an enviroment that IBM fully supports, and is supported by your linux distributor/vendor. Don't be dumb, stick to what you've got.
We work with what's supported when it comes to commercial applications. If I'm paying for support on particular distributions, those are what I will use for production systems. If you worked for me, I'd be telling you to forget it unless you were able to get my current support contract modified to support, as fully as the currently supported distributions, whatever you wanted to run, without additional cost.
As a manager, there is no amount of arguing you could do to convince me to use anything but the supported operating systems. The reason is simple: I don't want a vendor to be able to shift the blame for their software breaking to my tech staff and tell us to support it ourselves.
That being said, have you checked out apt-rpm? I've used it in several RedHat shops and I have to say, I really like it.
There's so little difference between politics and jihad lately...
As soon as you have a problem, you get the following conflicting and impossible solutions:
Debian Philosophy says: "Just recompile your app from source"
Commercial interests says: "Just use a supported distribution for our application"
The best thing you can do is keep the Debian box all stuff that complies with the Debian Free Software Guidelines (DFSG) and you'll be fine. If you need something that's no in Stable or not a late enough version in Stable, check out http://backports.org for expanded/updated packages. My last job used an old dual proc P3 running Woody to host our development "all-in-wonder" box - CVS, Bugzilla, CVSZilla, Wikki, development intranet web pages and some supporting tools. We used an rsync via ssh to a Solaris box w/ tape for nightly backups. It worked like a champ for a small team (4 devs, 1 manager & an occasional tester) without blinking. I'm sure would have scaled up at least 5 times that before the hardware we were running it on became the bottleneck.
*** Sigs are a stupid waste of bandwidth.
I really do. It's solid. It's flexible. It's convenient. It's really free. If you insist on it, you will fail. Get RedHat Enterprise Linux 3. Workstation will do. If you're going to knock their socks off with a proof of concept, use Fedora Core. That way they can see a clear relationship between what you're showing them and what they would accept in production. The RH stuff is good, AND, it provides the requirement for all serious businesses "Who can we call if something goes wrong, and who can we sue if it can't be fixed?". I don't like it. You don't like it. It's reality. Who knows? In a few years, once they're comfortable, maybe you can use the prestige you gain in this endeavour to do something purer.
Soon I'll move into trying to migrate some Magic apps and we'll see how that works out. Apparently there is limited command-line support, but the gal who handles the Magic "programming" (drag-and-drop functionality control, apparently) isn't Linux-savvy and the details are quite vague
All told, I definitely think the final result will have great advantages over Windows; however, I certainly wish we could replace all of the hardware and install Mac OS X instead - it would be much easier to maintain and dramatically easier for the users to migrate.
Why try for Debian? You will fail. But you **MAY** win with Red Hat, and then move to Debian LATER.
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
I don't know what the status of this 'no-name-yet' thing is, but it sounds like it might be interesting if you're looking for a commercially supported Debian distro: http://www.no-name-yet.com/ Sounds like they have a bunch of Debian developers working on it: http://www.google.com/search?q=link%3Awww.no-name- yet.com
He's running Websphere, Tivoli, etc.
Proprietary apps that have support contracts that specify they need to run on a supported environment.
Which in practice means Red Hat or Suse Enterprise.
Our external mail relays are a pair of IBM X345s (behind a load balancer) running Debian Woody, with Sendmail, Clam AV, a trial of SpamAssassin on one of them, and Trend AV stuff.
The squid proxy I just ran up is Debian Sarge. It's an X345 that runs rings around the three load-balanced 1GHz boxes it's meant to supplement - and I have another one going in as soon as I can be bothered cloning it. DNS is served redundantly by the same load-balanced boxes, and managed with Sauron. This was set up by my predecessor (who, given the topic, will definitely read this so I'd better be polite - he'll know who I am, even posting as AC) and is a pretty cool set-up.
In a small shop (only a couple of people) supporting quite heavily used services, we don't have the resources to hand-roll everything down to the source level, or the money for commercial distros (although Suse is apparantly covered under our Novell licence now, and I may consider it in future). apt-get update, apt-get upgrade keeps us covered as security/bug issues become apparant, and since most of what we're using on these machines has debian packages available they're covered pretty quickly too.
If you want to use commercial software, and don't have the time or expertise to deal with the issues involved in getting something put together for [insert commerical distro name here] working on Debian, then by all means use that commercial distro - it'll make phone calls to the vendor's support monkeys a little less stressful as they'll have one less thing to blame the problem on and will have to look at what's wrong with their shitty software instead. If you want to run up a mail relay or a web proxy, though, compatibility with commercial software will probably be less of an issue - consider Debian.
"My rationale for pushing Debian boils down to its vast array of packages available to apt-get, easy upgrades, apt-get itself, and the overall quality and consistency of the system." Funny... that's my rationale for owning a Mac (s/apt-get/fink/).
*yawn*
Only I went all the way to Solaris/Sparc. Trying to setup an Oracle RAC on Linux (RHEL) was a nightmare, due to the lack of support for multipath failover on the SAN gear. I eventually caved and went with sparcs. They were WAAAAYY easier to setup, and the failover/back works like a charm.
I would do single instance Oracle setups on Linux, and, like you, I would stick to something that Oracle certifies, like RedHat, but I don't think that I will try another RAC for a while.
Besides, RedHat is a very small piece of the software cost, compared to the price of Oracle, its trivial. So why use Debian?
Debian's cool BTW, I use it at home!
Slackware-10 and go to http://www.linuxpackages.net/ and getting either swaret or slapt-get to keep it updated
...shoe-horning Debian...
What does shoe-horning mean? And would shoe-horning Longhorn be good or bad?
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
Automatic upgrades from an uncontrolled source are the last thing you want to do in a production environment. Set a standard image, then when updates come along, evaluate them in a test environment, then distribute exactly those updates to the production systems.
Stick to standards, and things you can duplicate exactly, or you're asking for a world of trouble.
-Todd
"The details of my life are quite inconsequential..."
It's very simple. If I buy application Foo with a $30,000 (or some other arbitrarily largish number) support contract, and the vendor says that it's certified on RedHat. If for some reason, I'm trying to decide between installing Gentoo, Debian, and RedHat, it's a no-brainer. You install RedHat. You can argue should work fine with Distro X, and standards, etc. It makes interesting smalltalk. But when you spend a lot of money on something, you stick with the product specification because it is the least hassle. You want to reduce the unknown variables and tweak as little as possible to try an minimize the chance of bugs, problems, and misc unknowns.
If something broke to the point that you needed to make use of your expensive support contract, then what do you do? "I decided to do a nonstandard install. Our vendor refuses to support us despite our expensive contract, and a critical system is broken. Meanwhile the company is losing money." I wouldn't want that on my shoulders.
I'm not a very good writer, so I'll try to keep this breif, but as an amzing coincidence, I've just been put into a similar situation.
My company uses mainly HP and Windows, and they've felt the pain of closed-source too many times to count. I'm getting them to code their new solution on linux and have just rolled out the first server running Debian. I looked at Redhat and SuSE which are both better supported, but niether distro "gets it," as it were. They both off piad subscriptions to at least some parts of their software... one reason I like linux on the server is that "many eyes make bugs shallow." Many eyes can't see what you have to pay for.
Or something, I'm no linguist.
Anyhow, After evaluating SuSE and Redhat and trying to pick a lesser of two evils, Debian seems perfect. I think Eric S Raymond would be proud of me. Woody is old, sure, but he's stable, right?
They test new packages and software to death before including it into the official version. The current official version of Debian is Woody, and it uses version 2.2 the Linux kernel. I mean really, you don't get more conservative than that. There is something to be said for using older well tested software. Debian is such a solid founation, it is the basis for many other distributions such as Knoppix, Libranet, Xandros etc.
Comparing Debian to Mandrake, Suse, Slackware or even RHEL I think you will find that Debian it the most cautious about adopting new versions of core libraries, graphics system or the kernel.
You guys are all saying that you shouldn't move to Debian because IBM won't support it (yet). However, if IBM won't support it, who will? Hint, hint...</egoistic bastard>
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
I work in a Windows shop. Well, okay, we have a whole IBM AIX side of the company that runs the Peoplesoft stuff, but for all the rest of the company it's Windows. We tie peoplesoft and pretty much everything else you can think of into Active Directory. It works.
But there's places where I can see Linux boxes excelling where other software falls short. One of them is our Spam "solution." It was very expensive and it doesn't work for shit. 80% accuracy, maybe. Lots of false positives. In 2002, it was really cool shit. But that's the problem - things change fast when it comes to certain things like Spam and when you pay $50,000 for a license to filter spam you don't want to upgrade or change softwares every six months.
Enter OSS - My (*gasp*) spamassassin+dspam+amavisd-new is easily doing 99.99% of the spam with extremely low occurances of false positives. Is it supported? Nope. Wait, yes it is. I SUPPORT IT.
Some companies are all about support, support, support. They don't trust their IT staff, they consider them expendable. I don't work at a company like that. They put weight in our abilities. If you can make a good case for an OSS solution, one where you can support it yourself and train others, it will be seriously considered. Apparently there's other companies like this too, since a lot of places are running Linux now and not all of them use RedHat Enterprise.
- It's not the Macs I hate. It's Digg users. -
Looking at what the community has (or rather, has *NOT*) done with Debian lately, you're digging a grave, a shallow one that'll be easy to fall in to. If you do want to look at Linux distros, which is probably a mistake in the first place, go with something supported by IBM(asochist)
Get your dick out of that Penguin!
One important thing to consider is that you may not always work for this company. Your skills that leave with you may put your current employer in a hole. If they can't go to IBM for support they're faced with a problem they'd rather not deal with especially if/when things go wrong.
Debian is a great distro but in this case "the greater good" is to address the business' requirement for continuity of support.
i am snow. fear me.
SUSE works fine with apt. Try Synaptic as a resource search
I love Debian, and I think Debian's package system beats the other Linux systems, Windows, and Macintosh hands down for software installs and maintenance.
But you are dealing with an organization with lots of people who are used to doing things one way, and it will take them time to learn. If you want to convert them over to Linux (and there are lots of good reasons for doing so, including cost and security), pick a distro with a feel as close to Windows as possible. I think (for better or for worse) SuSE meets that goal. RedHat is probably also pretty good in that regard. Both also have commercial support and companies behind them, which makes management happy (even if you don't actually need it).
Change organizations gradually, otherwise you will have a revolution on your hands.
If something goes wrong, make sure you can blame someone else.
Why do so many people stay with Microsoft? Here is your answer.
Your rationale for using Debian is fine. However if that is your rationale, then why are you not using FreeBSD? It would give you added security too.
Zero Sum (don't amount to much). [root@localhost]
Think of it this way--- if something goes wrong, and it's your vacation.... if your coworkers call IBM, and the discussion turns to "this isn't officially supported", how are you going to handle getting pulled back early from vacation?
On the other hand, if it's a system that isn't going to make your boss look bad if you're not around when it fails, go for it--- I've had to fight a coworker who *insisted* I install RH9 on a standalone Linux workstation at work last week...
Him: "But if something goes wrong, I can get support for RH9 from the people in my building."
Me: "That's nice. Can I call them, because 99% of my x86 UNIX experience is with Slackware and FreeBSD."
Him: "No."
Me: "Okay then, my workstation gets Slackware. SMILE."
Asking them to not only go with Linux but Debian also (one of the lesser known and lesser commercially supported distro's) is probably asking quite a lot of them. You could make a much better case for getting RedHat in there and would have a higher chance of success. Perhaps in a few years once they are cool with Linux you could introduce them to Debian. Baby steps...
You can install just about any software on just about any distribution, but there are a few things you should consider.
* Do you really have the resources to do it (Man hours/Experience).
* If you need unsupported packages you have to test/maintain them (this takes time, do you know how to make debian packages and test the software?).
* Anicdotal evidence is important but, in my experience, it tends to be of the sort, "we managed to unpack and run it". What you need is evidence of the sort "we have been running it 24x7 in a production environment without major incident".
* You also have to maintain all dependencies (Redhat and other comercial linux vendors tends to use bleading edge versions of libraries and features).
Is there really a strong argument for your employer to go with debian.
* Is there primary motive for changing to Linux, reduction in cost (if so then transitioning away from propriatry software and providers makes sense).
* What is the extent of there currently deployment of propriatry IBM software.
* Are they interested in moving away from there current IBM software. i.e. DB2 to mysql, postgress or firebird.
* Do they face any licensing constraints they would not if using non-propriatry software.
We've successfully moved from RedHat to Debian stable. We've documented our entire experience. We use all Dell Poweredge Servers.
Real-life Migration
It's supported on practically all hardware of IBM and you will have a lot less problems with it.
You can use Debian, if you want to run only OpenSource components.
Now, which of the applications you mention is OpenSource ?
[ ] DB2-Client
[ ] Websphere
[ ] TSM Client
Think !!
I can't believe how uneducated some people tackle this topic.
cheers,
Rainer
Windows 2000 - from the guys who brought us edlin
/If/ you decide on Debian, at least consider waiting a few months until the next stable release: the current one is ancient, and you'll enjoy better hardware support, an easier install, etc. by using 3.1. Don't even think about using the testing distro.
I work for a very small company that is currently running RedHat 8 and 7 on all the servers. I am soon taking over head responsibility of the servers. We have no support contracts and we use comodity hardware.
I would like to move all future servers to debian. My reasoning is that the current redhat disto's don't cut it anymore and support has been cut for 8 and 7. We have been manually patching program which is a huge hassle. My only concern is versioning and customization. Since we manually compile every program we have the ability to really get clean slim compiles of programs such as apache which has saved us from some security updates.
How have people running debian stable in the workplace found daily maintainance as well as version compatibility to a manual compile, suse, or redhat?
PS. I can't see myself running anything besides suse, debian, or slackware. Slackware just doesn't strike me as a good workplace distro.
There is or can be built a machine that can simulate any physical object. -Church-Turing principle
Consider what's important to you here: is it that your company's infrastructure change to Linux or that it change to your preferred brand of Linux. Then consider the alternative, meaning what would happen if the roll-out failed? You'll be supporting AIX until your 90, kid, am I right? I'd say let your company switch to Linux in the manner which gives them the greatest possible chance for success. Once they're Linux addicts, then foist your favorite distro on them!
"Don't matter how New Age you get, old age is gonna kick your ass." - Utah Phillips
Debian is a non-profit. Debian is the best at packaging the most packages. Any good sysadmin can get any software written for other Distros to run on Debian. Debian list support is phenomenal. Thanks, I've already been the Redhat way and I'll pass on Suse or Mandrake.
Nevertheless, if you have as strong (anecdotal?) reason as you say for wanting to try Debian, I'd agree with the guys who think you should talk your company into letting you build a few prototype systems before they throw all their eggs in one basket.
I'd also agree with the guys who say to talk with your IBM people, too.
Yeah, yeah, I know, I'm being too agreeable.
Sounds like "don't vote unless your candidate will win."
Pointless. Defeatist. Self defeating, and purile!
I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
If you get a chance to talk to anyone from IBM, make it clear that you'd really like Debian support. Then use a supported distro. Really, this is the best advice you're going to get.
I like and use Debian on all of my computers, including my company-provided T40 laptop. I do it because I like it and because I'm willing to put in the extra time it takes to make it all work. And it does all work, including DB/2 and Websphere and Lotus Notes and bunches of other stuff.
But I still wouldn't recommend it.
Why do I do it then? When I started using Linux on my laptop (my primary workstation), the only officially-supported desktop operating system in IBM was Windows 95. Given that there was no official IBM Linux distro, I picked what I liked, and I struggled through all of the issues to make it work. I stick with Debian because (a) I like it and (b) it's not clear that migrating to the internal (Red Hat) distro would save me any time, 'cause my system works great.
However, if I had to install a new Linux image for work right now (instead of just migrating my old Debian image), I'd go with the standard build, mainly so that I'd get support, and so that every non-Free app I have to install wouldn't be such a pain. I've always run unsupported desktops ever since I worked at IBM -- the OS/2 load they gave me when I started back in 1997 lasted two days -- but it has of late become more and more painful in direct proportion to the amount of internal Linux support, ironically enough.
So my current opinion is that if you're running commercial software on production systems, you should use a supported distro, which means Red Hat or SuSe, pretty much -- and not just with IBM software. Those are the platforms that are supported by all the vendors of commercial Linux software.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
I cannot speak to IBM hardware. We are currently researching IBM SMP servers for VMWare ESX. I use Compaq hardware (now HP). I find their warranty is good, though I still stock extra parts for all my servers. Debian installs pretty easy on compaq. The worst I ever had it was back in 2002 installing from a potato disc, I had to compile a smart array driver module for a 2.2 kernel on another machine. The installer has gotten better and better. Debian stable has its limitations, but works awesome for classic server roles you want to deploy and forget for a year or two. Email, DNS, Web, SQL, Netsaint/Nagios are easy to run on their own. I had to do quite a good amount of PHP coding against a MySQL db to produce a web gui w/ fully integrated and client delegable control of Email, DNS, and Web hosting. The Email system will tie to MySQL easily with Courier and Postfix. There are great howto's online just a google away. Bind and Apache in debian stable don't have any support for SQL virtual hosts. I had to write PHP to generate valid apache and bind config files then send the reload signal to the daemons. In order to get netsaint to properly page, I had to apt-get install ckermit, write a paging script and template plugin cfg file. You must remember to glance at debian.org every day for potential security updates. I don't suggest or trust automatic package updates on debian.
As a desktop OS I strongly suggest using testing. You probably want newer kernels and gnome/kde versions. I suggest Dell Inspirons for Debian Laptops. I have found the Inspiron 8200 a particular pleasure (everything works, including 1600x1200 NVidia AGP). Dell's Warranty is great. But in any HA scenario, I suggest keeping extra parts on hand and taking images of full OS and App installs. There are multiple open source products to accomplish this goal, as well as Ghost by Symantec. That way if an OS is ever having trouble you can restore from an image immediately using hardware that is already on site. Debian Testing moves fast. Having these images can allow you to preview updates before applying them on production hardware. When its release time (In approx 8 days) having test servers can come in quite handy. If you really want to cover your butt find a local debian consultant/contractor who can provide installation and tech support. My AIM SN is Judoka9999 IM me if I can provide further information.
As someone in an organization which has several hundred installed servers, we looked things over in the past year, and are choosing Debian as the next platform for us. Debian stable is the best choice in organizations that can control their application environment. We are lucky, in that most of our apps are in-house, and we have reasonable corporate memory and support in place.
The main attraction of redhat used to be that their software was newer than debian, and that their installation was easier. if you assume a reasonable level of expertise, the installation is a non-issue. Since we were standardized on redhat 7.x, we were having to backstitch things to just install the latest hardware, so the latest and greatest was not helping us at all.
We started to look longingly at Debian stable... 3 years since the last release, only updates in that time... free... decent kde via backports...
Remember what redhat did last year? Any clue how many corporations were running thousands of instances of free redhat 7.x, getting only patches from RH, who were suddenly SOL as of last December? Did you perchance notice a passing similarity between the plans for RHAS (5 year life cycle) and Debian stable (3 years so far)
apt-get wonderful not because of the ease of use of apt-get itself (which is wonderful nonetheless) but because there are tens of thousands of packages which are in the repositories, ready to go, far more packages than are available from any combination of dependency-hell + freshrpms.net + google. "redhat xx rpm" and far more simply installable.
Debian stable is what Redhat enterprise can only hope to become, but will never be, because they have priced themselves, slowly but surely, out of the market. Three things have happenned in the past year or two which will fundamentally alter things:
Within a year or two major ISV's will support debian (stable, at least), because the customers are going there.
And it ain't just me saying it and HP already does it from some telco's
It is just the right answer. All that said, if your shop is committed to binary-ware, and you favourite bit-vendor won't support your chosen environment, you are toast. Do not go there.
Talk, cajole, encourage, convince, or switch vendor or plain drop the binary ware if you can afford to do it, but do not use the commercial software on an unsupported platform. That is the worst of both worlds: The free people don't use your package X so they can't help you, and the paid people go through their menus and hit "we don't support that, click!"
"HP ranked #1 in outsourcing" ... ftp://ftp.hp.com/pub/services/spotlight/info/info_ week.pdf (PDF file)
I don't think I'd be advertising the fact about how good I am at outsourcing on a "please buy our support" page. It brings about bad visions of not being able to understand the person on the other end of the line.
I have a similar experience while using Slackware as my distro of choice. We have a Compaq shop and were/are leveraged heavily with MS products.
I gave our IS Director a no-nonsense example of how easy Slackware boots, installs, and runs by simply _doing_ a boot, install, and run on one of our rackmounted CPQ boxes. It worked flawlessly as I had advertised it would. Given the fact that it took all of about 10 minutes to lock it down once install, he was sold..."official support" or not. What exactly are you planning on getting out of "official support" from IBM regarding Debian? What exactly is IBM not going to do if you install it versus one of their "officially supported" distros? I mean there are loads of _very_ talented people out the who have written drivers and daemons to support IBM/SUN/CPQ/whatever hardware.
I could care less if Compaq (part of the new SUCKY HP!) "officially supports" Slackware on their boxes. You certainly aren't going to catch me calling them up asking why my Apache server won't start or why my custom-built app won't work right. Those are all questions I have to answer myself vis a vis Open Source computing. Freedom from cost and onerous licensing also means freedom from crappy software tech support.
When I call Compaq for help, it is because someone was sleeping on QC duty while they let a faulty p/s fan through the assembly line.
-PONA-
no snappy sig. no spellcheck. viva la revolution!
+that's funny...I don't FEEL tardy.+
Man, I'm sorry. You've managed to not only stir up the Linux distro debate--you've also managed to ask the dumbest question in ask slashdot history.
If nothing else, ask why you want to deal with the HOURS of migrating over from your previous OS. If nothing else, ask why you want to loosen your tie to hang yourself when you hit that snag, IBM doesn't support your OS, and every department in the building is calling for your head.
If nothing else, ask why you even care what your Company uses. It's not your money. It's your time, which you are paid for. Suggest the best product available within the situation, not the OS that's going to make you work more than you worked before.
Work smarter. Not harder.
You will have to depend on non-free in a business environment. Debian-legal doesn't even approve of the Mozilla license, so that should give you an idea of what you're in for. I used Debian for 9 years, together with FreeBSD. You would be better off with BSD because of Debian nit-picking. You will also be lucky ifyou find necessary firmware upgrades when you need them. If you believe that drivers are lacking in mainstream distros, you will be surprised at the Debian desert in that respect. If you still wish to impliment Debian, http://www.progeny.com/ is the answer. http://platform.progeny.com/componentized-linux/ Progeny Componentized Linux is the answer. The project is run by Ian Murdock, the founder of Debian.
This is one of the best karma whoring posts I have ever read!
Suggest a large company should support Debian? Check
Mention Gentoo even though the discussion has nothing to do with Gentoo? Check
Bag out Suse and RH for being commercial? Check
Babble on about OSS movement? Check
Talk about "lock in"? Check
However, for future whoring, I would suggest throwing in something about M$ Windoze INsecurity and proprietary software killing babies.
Short answer: Go with a supported distro instead.
Long answer: Despite the fact that Linux is Linux - you'll probably find that getting WebSphere to run on Debian could be nigh-impossible. DB2 might run ok, maybe the Tivoli thing too, as long as it's not using Java.
The big catch is Java ( well, DB2 also, but to a lesser extent than Java ) - JVMs dig pretty deep into the glibc libraries and kernel calls, and getting a JVM to run 100% correctly on any given kernel/glibc combination takes gobs and gobs and gobs of effort. Hence - companies only support specific distros at specific library levels.
By all means - contact your friendly IBM support person and let them know that you want to run that stuff on Debian. The only way it will ever happen is if enough folks pester them into doing it. I don't mean pester ie: Support Debian you bastards! Something more like: We want to run this list of products {a b c} on Debian. We would pay this { X } much money for the ability to do that.
But - IBM being the behemoth it is, such a change can take a long time even with persistant effort from the users.
Basically - IBM is not officially going to support you running on Debian. If you wave enough money under your IBM sales critter's nose, he/she may be able to work you a deal to get it up and running or something, but it will not be full Debian support nirvana.
So in the short term, use a supported distro if you want official support.
You think emacs is evil?! You've never used VM's XEDIT have you?!! That's evil, baby!
Posting as AC for obvious reasons -
I lead a custom application development group within IBM, and I've found it very difficult to use "non-supported" versions of Linux with IBM's flagship products (DB2 products, WebSphere family, etc.)
Most of our installers perform a "supported OS" test, and while it is possible to hack those, IBM thoroughly tests against the supported versions and sometimes takes advantage of things only available in those versions.
Yes, it causes me pain sometimes not to run the latest/coolest/most idealistic distro, but I've found the performance to be rock-solid on the supported distros.
Check out for more info.
Good Luck!
Just installed Debian Sarge on our x235 eServer. Woody (Stable) wouldn't install smoothly (we could have forced it), but Sarge went in slick as snot.
As for support, I'll take care of the OS etc. We aren't running any IBM apps. Just a small document imaging system that supports their software on Debian and RedHat.
Why did I choose Debian? We used to be a 100% RedHat shop. Once they priced themselves out of the market, we went Debian and haven't looked back since. It was amazing to see how easy the migrations went. (Yes, I'm aware the the various RHEL rebuilds. Even after using RedHat for 6 years, I like Debian better after 6 months).
As long as IBM is *ONLY* supporting the hardware, you shouldn't have much trouble maintaining the support contract. Sure, IBM can claim they can't diagnose the hardware problem because you don't have a supported OS on the box, but I'd claim bullshit. 99% of the hardware on the box has some sort of BIOS or pre-boot configuration screen.
*Condense fact from the vapor of nuance*
For what it may worth, and without entering into a religious war:
The organization for which I work (a governmental agency) uses Debian in all the Linux servers except one (running RH) including some that run Websphere and Tivoli; in all workstations running Linux; and in a partition of the z900 mainframe (under VM). Our Linux policy is , more or less: ``we run Debian. If you, dear vendor, don't support it, we don't want your stuff.''
Our Linux servers run lots of software: sendmail, Apache, CVS, JBoss, Tomcat, Nagios, PostgreSQL, MySQL...
Our decision was based on having better control on updates/upgrades through our own intranet Debian mirror and some nice home-developed tools for controlling the remote workstations. Of course, YMMV.
We're in a similar situation but the key here is support. IBM will NOT help you if you aren't running a supported distro. Try running an X445 with ql2300 cards in HA mode talking to a FastT SAN running DB2 with LifeKeeper for failover support.
Now contact all parties involved and tell them you need support. Oh yeah, my distro is Debian. Everyone from IBM hardware to IBM Software to SteelEye will tell you to go suck rocks and come back with a supported distro.
When we did our TSM install, we had an issue with RedHat 2.1 and the 3582 Tape Library Driver. We called IBM and they provided a driver but it only worked on RedHat 3.
What did we do? We upgraded the box. What good is our nice shiny infrastructure if there's no backup?
Now everyone will bitch and moan that you shouldn't lock yourself in like this or that you should just run whatever distro you want. We designed everything about our enterprise app to be portable. If we get tired of Websphere, we move to Tomcat which is our development platform anyway. If we get tired of DB2, we move to Oracle or Postgres or some other database. We aren't using any DB2 SQL.
But until that time, I like the fact that I can make one call and get the support I need. It's IBM hardware running IBM software. The only non-IBM stuff is the OS and SteelEye LifeKeeper. IBM actually worked with SteelEye for us on a DB2 issue with our SAN.
Having said all that, we do use a few unsupported configurations. Our app uses CUPS for server-side printing. Those boxes are Gentoo. Our datawarehouse is mysql running on Gentoo. The interesting part is that I've actually gone unsupported in one area and that's the warehouse. I had to do a bit of engineering to get Gentoo and my two Fiber Cards to recognize the SAN properly. That and I did a custom ebuild of TSM for backup purposes.
All of this leads me to say one thing, if you value your job, stay supported and keep distro zealotry out of the way. If the company is willing to spend on IBM hardware and software then the cost of a SELS or RHAS license is nothing. It will pay off the first time you call DB2 or WAS support about an issue that, while not having ANYTHING to do with the underlying OS (other than it's Linux), they won't help you because you decided to go unsupported. Explain that to your boss as you're being escorted out the door.
"Fighting the underpants gnomes since 1998!" "Bruce Schneier knows the state of schroedinger's cat"
I have managed to convince some at my company that we should use Debian in favor of other Linux distros. The secret, I think, is to focus on Debian's excellent packaging system. Focus on the fact that software installations, updates, and roll-backs are all done through a simple tool and are done over the Internet. (No dependencies, no hassle, and so on.) Once I demonstrated how straight-forward and convenient all of this was, I got the go-ahead to set up a web server and start using Debian on my workstation with future expansions planned. Many (good) system administrators will appreciate Debian's key features, so be sure to emphasize them. Quite often (unfortunately) in a corporate environment, factors such as security, stability, free(dom) and so on, are secondary to being quick to install and easy to maintain.
Why bother.
I think it is unwise to try to use an unsupported (newsgroups do not count) product like Debian, especially in a business/enterprise environment. (Yes, I know you can buy 3rd party support for almost anything. It isn't IBM, and this is a conservative organization).
I know this isn't going to be popular (so read fast, this will be -1 in seconds), but risk management is very important in the corporate IT world, because mistakes or screw ups get people fired and can make the company lose millions.
Not that Debian isn't up to the task--that isn't the point. If something does go wrong, it's your ass. If some of IBM's software dies, IBM gets to deal with management, and they aren't going to switch from IBM with such a large investment (especially when IBM makes many excellent products).
If your current stuff works, there is no great reason to change, as software licenses are a drop in the bucket compared to potential pitfalls.
If you have looked over the fact and believe Debian would be a good idea, I'd take it slowly. Mail server (or something) need more capacity? See what Qmail on a ReiserFS system can do, even on the same hardware. Need another file server? Set up a quickie and demo Debian/Samba3's performance in similar or weaker hardware. Nothing open-source can replace DB2, so show that it runs on Debian just fine, etc.
Good luck!
Computer Science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes. --E. W. Dijkstra
Not sure what the original poster wants to actual use the server for. But, I think that only SuSe and Redhat are security certified. And only SuSe and Redhat are certified to run Oracle.
It costs money to get those certifications, so I don't expect a totally free distro, like debian, to have those certs any time soon.
Being Yaz's former cow-orker, Mandrake and Slackware were nowhere near the list.
To see what is tested, check http://www.ibm.com/db2/linux/validate - it's all right there.
I totally share your problems with bureaucratic organizations as I am in one. My college takes pride in it's diversity of ethnicity from it's students, and it's great, no doubt. But to make it even better at diversity, I have decided to undertake the difficult task of convincing the IT department here that Linux is not only for idiot geeks that think only in their box and that concerns .1% of the computer park.
As I type they only support Dell computers running windows XP or Apple laptops running Mac OSX.
How I'm going to change that perspective I don't know, but I'm definitely not going to give up. I'll use whatever tools I can find, including every distribution to convince the IT guys that Linux actually works, and most of the time without the terrible headaches of viruses.
If I have one piece of advice to give it would be "don't try to change it all on your own". Try find people in the IT department that are open and receptive to your arguments. Then go forward when you have a willing group of people to make the possibility of a change. Unless of course you are in the IT department, then you'd better find someone in the finance department that would estimate how much you spend in licenses each year and a basic estimation of how much time and money it would cost to re-train employees...
Good luck, I'm backing you up.
---- I am certain of only one thing : I know nothing else.
It is true that organizations tend to punish their own individuals for doing something wrong, but often reward an organizaion that screws up with an even bigger contract to fix it.
That's not something to encourage, however. If American businesses are going to keep paying our salaries under competition from Chinese slave labor, they need to be smarter than that; they can't let other companies rip them off by saying "your SAP migration failed because you didn't spend enough", and they can't punish and individual who had a good idea that went wrong.
SuSe is the most polished Linux OS I have used. Personally I would suggest FreeBSD over anything, but bottom line is they will probably want commercial support options. SuSe/Novell is the way to go IMO.
I agree. Debian is wonderful, I use it at home, I use it at work. If your work is expecting to get Enterprise level support, you can get Enterprise level support for Debian with HP.
However, it sounds like your Enterprise has already standardized around IBM. As good as Debian is, I can't see how it's good enough to lose an enterprise support agreement, even if it's just a few machines.
Maybe you can threaten the sales people to go to HP if they don't amend the support contract to include Debian. They probably will know you're bluffing, but it might help.
----
Open mind, insert foot.
OK, I'm not. I've been admin'ing a few slackware boxes and a stray redhat and suse for about 4 years now. Some debian experience too. Just to declare.
However, it is the easiest linux distro to support, hands down.
Subjective - but even if granted, irrelevant. The problem is it's not supportED.
and to those who are saying "shut up and go with what's there" I might remind you that the reason they're using linux in the first place is because users (in this case admins) wanted to use it. The demand came before the supply, OK?
Not quite following this argument, but you seem to be implying that your company should stand up for your belief in Debian? Sorry, I'm sure the company doesn't care. You're an employee on company time, not an advocate.
I believe Debian is so far superior to the other distros that wide support for it is inevitable.
Well, that's not borne out so far. If anything, check back in 2 years and see if Deb's supported then. If so, give it a try.
Lastly I might add Debian is not a company that can be bought or influenced by money; it is a non-profit with protected legal status.
That includes all money, including support contracts. I don't know what "protected legal status" means, but I can guarantee that means nothing to your company's bottom line.
And for the most important reason your company doesn't want to go with Debian: If you die/quit/get fired, they just lost the only guy who admins the thing. Note that getting on the internet and asking advice from a bunch of morons screaming RTFM! doesn't count as support. Companies want and need support contracts. Debian isn't available with one. End of story. And if you with Deb and it screws up, probably end of your job.
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat
Fedora has yum and apt-get and it's effectively redhat. IBM & Dell support Redhat.
It's not the same thing as Debian, I know but maybe it's worth a look in? I've had success with it and Dell (we use them, not IBM) have been most accomodating..
This was the whole reason I left Debian for BSD, in fact-- if I need to upgrade one port in BSD, I can usually update just that one port, instead of having 150MB+ of fresh, questionable quality .deb's forced down my throat every week. (Linux users tend to boast of how easily they can upgrade every package in their system at once. That is a really stupid feat, though.)
PS my job uses Debian stable. I often have to build and installl packages manually from source, however, because Debian stable's versions of the prerequisites are too old (e.g. MySQL 3.23.x). So much for the benefits of package management.
Are you adequate?
In similar situations I observed a kind of "Ok, but when something breaks THEN ITS YOUR FAULT!" reaction.
You easily shift yourself in a position where you become responsible for about anything than can possibly go wrong.
-silence
Dyslectics of the world, untie!
Debian, frankly, is horrible at both I mean, Debian is horrible at balancing both.
Are you adequate?
he's the one.
He has Bank experience. Big bank that is.
Debian = Reverand Krusty.
Come on, if we're talking about stuff like perl, apache, etc, any of the distros will work. There is no real compelling, differentiating reason to use Debian for such mundane stuff. Or do you think that perl cannot run correctly on Red Hat?
Still have no idea why the guy would put so much at risk to run utterly mundane code on an OS that is barely differentiating for these tasks.
Okay...so maybe apt-rpm did not handle package blah. Are you installing blah at work? By your own explanation of what the box will do, this is unlikely, so why do you care? You seem to e predicating your argument on features you will by your own admission never use.
Disclaimer: I am a Red Hat employee.
I really love Debian, I really do. Half my machines at home are Debian. But, when it comes to having a Linux machine in an enteprise setting, it really doesn't cut it.
The reason is because it is important to know that you have a stable platform that will be supported over the years.
Red Hat provides support for up to 7 years. I'm not sure if Debian will do the same (will they support "stable" distributions for 7 years?). If there is a security hole, will the only option be to upgrade to the latest supported Debian stable? Or roll your own fix? In a large scale data center, this is just not an option.
When third parties port their applications to Linux, they want to choose a platform that they know they know will continue to work for years. Red Hat does a lot to make sure that APIs/ABIs are consistent within releases, yet still provide the latest and greatest 2.6 kernel features and libc/application bug fixes!
Red Hat also has a strong record of security and bug fixes, and an online management tool to see what updates are available on all of your machines.
12 months ago I had to make a choice...
Stick with RedHat and purchase the licenses or move to something w/out that "disability." In the end, we chose Debian. It's worked so well for us. We have a strong LDAP infrastructure on Dell servers and we've documented everything in our own TWiki.
FreeBSD - the power to serve. http://freebsd.org
--Paul
Unixpunx
I work for a USDOE research lab, and I spent the better part of last year shoehorning 64bit ppc into ppc32 debian. This includes time spent porting over scientific applications and testing everything to make sure it would work well in a production environment. The end result was a switch of 64 nodes of various hardware(dual Power3s to 8way power4+s) from AIX to Linux. While debian is not an officially supported distribution, I've been able to alien most anything IBM releases for Deadrat or SuSE with great success. If you're going to be running on ppc64 hardware, I recommend grabbing the redhat releases though, as the SuSE libc linked files are generally non-working with latest toolchains. I imagine similar success with alien on other architectures.
When management sees IBM they don't see software. Nor do they care about software. What they really see is someone they can sue if things go really wrong. (Not that it will, nor will it do them any good if they do, but it satisfies pencil pushers.) This is #4 on my alltime Marketing Myths. Being, "It takes a large company to create properly tested software." Thank goodness Nasa (heavy user of Forth) and the millions of CPU's running Tron never new that this was true. I really thing it would be say that between 50 and 75% of all mission critical software is either locally produced by one individual or, is supported by a single software written by a single individual. Meaning that without software written by individuals, or small organizations, nothing would run.
A large company as we all know doesn't even garuantee the software will run (read your EULA) *cough bob cough* ME *wheez* However the Myth persists. So the real question is how to get what you want and make them think they are going to look good to investors. (Looking good is the primary here. Being good is a nice to have, but looking good gets you the big buck bonuses.)
You want Debian. No problem Take a look at Progeny (Ian Murdock is the founder) or Xandros. (Hot buzzword name. Makes Marketing types look smart.)
One thing very few understand (Even in the Linux community this is often forgotten.) Linux is a kernel. (Hence the correct term GNU/Linux) The difference between the distro's is tools and graphics. Leaning heavy on the graphics. Linux is Linux, cell phone to mainframe it's the same. (and yes I'm going to get hundreds of flames on that one... sorry, it's truer than most of us would admit.)
I'm sorry, I'm to tired to be witty at the moment so this message will have to do.
Nope. Point out the very most important fact: Debian Can Not go out of buisness, change its buisness model or decide it wants to charge you 1K for your next upgrade. It also has about 1.5 - 2 years between releases so you don't have to constantly play catchup. It is PERFECT for a conservative environment.
I love Debian as much as the next person, however after recently being involved in a project which required Debian (Woody) to be installed on IBM x345's with ServeRAID 6x controllers I would strongly recommend sticking with a distro like RedHat ES, AS or SuSE Ent which is fully supported by IBM. The support for ServeRAID controllers using the ips.o module is fairly poor and in my situation I had to first install RedHat and then do a chroot install of Debian to get the O/S to install successfully. It was a painful process to say the least. Now that the box is up and running we have rescue floppy's with the custom kernel and modules compiled in, but it still makes for some interesting DR measures. I have also been to quite a few IBM seminars of late and they are pushing the RedHat and SuSE barrows, and they seem to be backing this up with a fair injection of $'s into RedHat and SuSE.
IBM Global Services will support anything that you pay them to. Just ask. A fair number of them like learning new things, too.
What I found was that a lot of time was wasted on getting some of the more complex applications to work on it (e.g. Oracle 9i), while getting the same sw to run on something more 'standard', such as RedHat, was a bit easier.
Oracle client installations are really a pain in this case, as they require almost as much time and effort as a full-blown database install. I've experimented a little with their new Instant Client however, and it worked wonderfully on Debian (RPMs converted with alien).
For now, you only get client libraries (100MB!) and SQL*Plus though. Fortunately, after many requests Oracle will also release client headers with their next patch set, so we can compile DBD::Oracle and PHP support for Apache, etc. At least Oracle seems to be listening.
zWhat would an EWOULDBLOCK block, if an EWOULDBLOCK could block would? -- me
IF the system is so mission-critical, you don't just go around updating it like that. You update an exact replica, and test it for a while on parallel with the working system. And THEN you switch.
So you make sure nothing breaks in the first place! You don't just update the packages and then whine about breaking everything, if the system means so much to you.
I do not moderate.
if you are paying IBM or another ISV for specific softtware and support for that software and they reccommend a specific Linux distribution your best bet is to do EXACTLY as they say and use the distribution specified. You also want to be careful in patching and updating things on those distros - even something like updating to a newer kernel will cause your support contract to be completely null.
I agree it can be limiting - especially when you know there are patches and updates that are required for security purposes. For anything that appears that is absolutly critical your best bet is to open a trouble ticket with your vendor's support folks and work with them to address the updates required.
Of course your production systems may have other boxes running some supporting software - perhaps mail servers, monitoring, security scanning stuff and these are ideal candidates for your other distributions. In fact - outside of the comfortably numb world of running expensive supported software apps you should spend some time with other distros in either a testing/exploration capacity or in running other boxes as may be needed. You only sharpen your skills by doing this.
Thoughts like that would have kept IBM themselves from Linux. Insulting and lacking in detail. What exactly are you trying to accomplish?
The posts that follow below by the likes of Ars-Fartsica are simply insulting. "Silly fanboy justifications..." nice. What a nasty bunch of flames. All because this guy wants to see if anyone has experience doing something and if not, to try what he knows works.
Go for it, sydb. These turkeys are full of shit. Stick to your guns, what you know is right really is. You are not the only person who's noticed that Debian is generally easier to maintain. Also, Debian does have very good quality and excellent configuration.
The best way to do it is to try it out small scale yourself. See how much time you can get for experimentation. It looks promissing for all the reasons you give, but a study can give you a real feel for it.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Bah. once I tried to find out why the heck HP does not commercially support debian for example on one of their most-sold servers,
...and that since 2001!
the proliant dl380.: proliant drivers
However, the following article says, that the internal development at HP _is_ running on Debian:
Or here's the other URL claiming HP to be Debian-supporting: HP OSS site
still, they only provide their Insight Agent drivers for monitoring this nice hw for RHEL and SuSe. bah.
"First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they attack you, then you win." -- Mahatma Gandhi
In a few weeks Debian will sport a fresh and new stable distribution that is well suited for a production environment.
But in two years, Sarge will be as old as Woody is now, and you will be in trouble.
Alternatively you can install Debian testing, but I pressume that your employer wants security updates....
You are wasting your time because you are deploying rational argument in a management environment. These are incompatible concepts.
Managers do not reach decision-making levels in large organisations by listening to rational arguments. They get there through a host of means including but not limited to back-covering, buck-passing, palm-greasing and politics-playing.
Whenever presented with an argument their first reaction will be to do the updside/downside caculation, which goes roughly "If my name is on this and it goes right, how much kudos do I get vs if it goes wrong, do I get the blame"? Nobody to whom the blame sticks progresses up the pole.
If they choose GNU/Linux and it goes right, there will be some bottom-line benefit. A million people will claim that the small bottom-line effect was not due to the choice of GNU/Linux but better outsourcing, maintenance contracts, management or whatever it was that THEY are responsible for.
If there is a single significant failure, EVERYONE will point to the hapless decision-maker and say "See, told you so, this free software is crap and there is the idiot who selected it, no wonder we fsked-up / lost money / had downtime.
Now, put yourself in the position of the person you are arguing with. You are pressing the wrong buttons.
IF however you can pass the blame AND save money, there is a slim chance of getting the argument through, but trust me, the argument will revolve 80% around blame and 20% around cheaper/better/whatever.
Who is your principal software maintenance company (can't see the parent post whilst replying). Was it IBM? IF you can get them to guarantee to support the software and carry the blame, you have solved one of the blockers. Problem is, they only support RedHat and SuSE/Novell.
Unsupported Debian? Forget it, it is a waste of time. Appeals to rationality, quality, goodness of fit are not the issue. Should some remarkable turnaround occur and (say) EDS suddenly announce support for Debian you have the slimmest of chances, but if EDS or whomever aren't already involved in big contracts in your outfit, the supply-chain people will find reasons not to start negotiations with them (risk again) instead of sticking with the existing known supplier (much less 'risk').
Your only hope is to find a friend in the maintainer/supplier and convince those people first. Then they take your manager person out to dinner/golf and start telling him/her why Linux is so good for your business and that might stand a chance of winning.
You don't like what I have said above? Your choice, but I do this stuff for a living. I know the reality.
My experience on a very big project (financial environment, 6000 systems) is there are two big issues in proprietary software used on Linux systems:
1. you can not use the distribution you like
2. you can not freely update the operative system, for instance kernel security patches supplied by commercial Linux distributors, because proprietary software will deal with them only one year later.
If you can/may, use only open source software: replace the DB with PostgreSQL or SAPDB, replace the application server with Jboss or Tomcat.
Good luck.
Am I the only one to find it amusing to see SCO Linux listed as one of the validated distros? :)
HP supports debian. See this url: http://www.hp.com/hps/linux/lx_debian.html You might be able to use this fact to convince them it is not a mickey mouse product. find out which organisations are using it at enterprise level.
"Flags are bits of colored cloth that governments use first to shrink-wrap people's brains..."
... what happens if his employer happens to read /. on occasion?
We use and support Debian in a commercial environment - a financial institution. They run a Websphere application. /could/ switch to a RH/SuSE/anything distro, should that be necessary.
:)
We have a chrooted environment for the WS stuff itself, just to be sure that we
However, while testing the WS installation with a chrooted RH, we found out that once the RH updates were there, the WS wouldn't install anymore.
That's when we switched to Debian - our preferred distribution - for the chrooted environment as well. Installation went out of the box. Whenever we make support calls, we get good, helpful answers. We have never experienced the dreadful "sorry, we don't support version 1.2.3.4" answer and in fact, IBM seems to be quite serious about delivering quality software with quality support, instead of trying to hide behind a version number.
Looking at newer versions of WS, it gets even better: instead of "RH 1.2.3 / SuSE 4.5.6" they now just need "a x.y+ kernel and a p.q+ C library". That's how it should work, and that's how it works at IBM.
So, I would just go for Debian if that's your easiest way of supporting the software, because that's probably what counts here. (Telling IBM you run Debian counts, too
my other sig is a 500 page novel
Instead, they use RedHat for doing all the low-level Linux stuff and pay some of their people to do open source development of Linux kernel (+ some other important) code. This way they can 'handle' OSS legally risk free. (They have some contracts which could intepreted to be broken by IBM if they would do OSS stuff 'directly').
(my guess:) IBM won't support Debian directly now or in a future unless RedHat do or if there's viable company distributing Debian which IBM wants to work with.
thousand servers.
My small team got the opportunity to proof a linux desktop system could actually
be useful for the enterprise. The parameters were absolutely ideal:
* Several hundred desktops should be migrated from some kind of arcane unix
to a linux desktop (-> Users who know there is a world beyond Windows)
* All they need is a huge inhouse X-application, that would cost millions to
port to Windows, but is simple to recompile on Linux.
Obviously this situation is a winner to attempt to bring linux to the desktop.
It seems management had heard names like RedHat or SuSE before, but the
they did not have a straight preference. Therefore we managed
to the task without the suits trying to sell their
distro, so we (the techs)
could work with our back free.
Now our big enterprise has a deep integration of windows machines in
its custom environment. We felt the possibility to adopt Debian and integrate
it just as deep into this environment. What does this mean?
* There is a configuration management database with html-interface. We use it to
feed parameters in the debian package management and to configure our systems.
* There is an optimized process to install a custom windows desktops. We took the
process and made it the base for our debian install using FAI and Knoppix
hardware detection. (And yes, we install a system in 15minutes automatically,
while the windows desktops need user interaction and takes
two hours in a lab)
* Our users reside in the Microsoft ActiveDirectory. We used the vintela software
to hook up on the AD as well. This was a decision in order to save some time.
You can do it with non-commercial software as well, but vintela is ready-made
and easy to alienate into a debian package.
* Our enterprise is of course very conservative when adopting new software. So
we took the idea of unstable, testing and stable debian distributions and
extended it by a distro called pilot. This one is very close to the stable one
and basically the end-users getting the software a few days ahead, giving
us another layer of confidence in the stability.
* Our management is very fond of packages. We took this to the extreme as we
saw it suiteable for desktops: Everything is a package now. The root-password
is in a package, the desktop menu is in a package, the special fonts are
in a package and the sources list is in a package. Some of the packages ask
the config database mentioned above for parameters.
All the config packages use cfengine to manipulate the system, if problems
arise we have port 22 open and a service user (distributed as package) who
can be used to install/deinstall packages or to gain root access.
* We did it all within something around 40 man-days. This sounds very
convincing to the management, as they know how many years they paid to
squeeze the same functionality out of Windows.
During our proof of concept we saw it is very simple to integrate all these great
components into our corporate environment. If RedHat would have sold us
their commercial configuration and provisioning module, it would have been their
process and no longer our own well-tested installation and configuration process.
We have a good command-line interface to our
package management and no silly "advanced web
interface" to our package server. It is all
scriptable and we know the scripts as we have
written them.
So under the line debian proofs to be successful here, because it is so flexible
and because we do not need no certified OS to run commercial software. There is none.
What's missing?
You may have guessed: Management is willing to follow our
proposal but they want a support contract with a serious company with few letters in
the name.
We think this is no
Debian Stable is, well, very stable, if rather boring for the users who want either the newest and shiniest bells and whistles or a newer version of program X because of a distinct technical advantage.
Testing is not generally more stable than Stable, though at times it is similarly stable. In my experience (casual home user), a blend of Testing and Unstable has given me the best results most of the time.
The easyones ... Redhat or Suse, trouble = call ...
... if all of your systems are quite similar, install gentoo(time consuming for the first one), make precompiled packaged that are good for the lowest common denominator(easy), and get yourself a mirror of portage(easy), then install all the distfiles and precompiled files somewhere easy to access(easy), write some good cron jobs(easy). Remove all the compilers stuff if needed (easy), make a liveCD (time consuming but easy)
Redhat has always been a bit more square feeling than Suse, for some reason Suse always seemed to be more finished Distro. But these 2 have also been my worst nightmares when it came to develop software. Something running on these 2 might not make it to other linux without trimming. But as Workstations they are great. They are a bit weak on the science tooling
Gentoo The hard one but good
You can write your own profiles, so let's say you have one for each situation, DMZ,local only servers, endusers, technical users.
That way, the company does not become a compile farm, get software with the configuration "you" want, they are precompiled and the deployment and update is fast. And you can easily fix yourself some build scripts in your own local "portage" so that if you do decide to go away the next sys-admin should be able to just do the exact same consistent installs.
With gentoo I get a quite similar look and feel for all my different arch, ppc32 , ppc64, x86, alpha, sparc. And it does have some support for science applications.
Gentoo can become a good and easy to maintain system but the initial investment is long and hard.
Debian: I would see debian as an in between solution. And in my experience I always ended drying between wanting stable but could not support new/wierd hardware. Then the consistency between arch has always been rough.
Yes I know, if they are not the same it should be filed as a bug in debian, I got shruged off when I tried file one and I would have had to file many... Then I have better things to do than filling bugs.
Linux From scratch, is the only way to start for really hard to tackle services or needs, but should be kept as a guide and learning tool. Far from being and overall usable distro, it is the best when it comes to embeded, single purposes boxes that gentoo cannot handle. If some new platform would be totally unsupported I would use that one. Cross compile it and give it a spin. Then I'd go to Gentoo and try to make a new profile.
Mandrake: each time I tough it looked great it left me down somewhere else, maybe better than it was last time I tried it.
Slackware and others, I am sorry I didn't install Slackware in a long long time, when gcc2.7.2 was the new thing and kernel 1.2 was still the stable thing. and I was too much of a newbie to say anything sensible.
I have to add that it was an IBM reseller (but who does the support and everything) and not directly IBM, but Debian was - as far as I understood - their first choice.
I agree with the previous post.
Now only way to go is to choose supported distro or buy support.
The future is in Debian-based, but corporate-supported distros. It is cheaper for support-provider (than rolling your own) and provides richer experience.
I've just set up a mission critical backup/file server with Debian. The vendor of the box was actually a Microsoft Gold Partner (Yuck!) piecing the thing together off HP's Linux compliant 24hr around the clock hardware replacement line.
Note that this is in Germany, where Linux is a tad further than in the US. I'm suprised at how pragmatic the professional IT here is handling this. Debian Sarge was preinstalled and is covered by the service agreement. Once again: This is a MS Shop. Suprising, eh?
As far as I have seen it's like 'take SuSe for trying out and switch to Debian when you call the Linux guy to get yourself a server'.
As far as sevicability and usage in commercial enviroments in Germany is concerned, Debian is on par with SuSE, RH and Mandrake. That's what I can tell. This also supports my theory that Linux critcal mass is due in Germany within the next year or so.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
conference website Bedfont Lakes is next door to Heathrow airport. my talk is on IBM Collaborative Technologies using Linux. Basically I am demoing Notes under Wine and ways of getting Sametime and ICT going under Linux. For the demo I am using Knoppix installed to disk, which is basically Debian but you know it is going to work before you install it. If you have any questions or if you want to attend then go see the conference website or contact me through my blog.
take a look at:; 13062 81842;fp;16;fpid;0
http://www.computerworld.com.au/index.php/id
We do not inherit the Earth from our Anchestors, We borrow it from our Children.
Boy are there uneducated twerps out there. You're running on a corporate UNIX and you want to switch over to Linux?
Obviously you don't realize what kind of problems Linux has with enterprise integration, interface stability, and plain UNIX incompatibility.
But, I do hope you'll get what you want! Then, when you have to integrate "your favorite Linux distro" into an NFS/NIS/AutoMount/CacheFS environment, you'll start sweating... Zucker kommt am Schluss.
I'm just going to be starting a new job at a company that wants to grow. Sadly, they actually think Linux is the way to go, and that it'll magically solve all their growing pains.
Because of their misinformation, I'll have to actually push corporate UNIX (Solaris, HP-UX, IRIX) into the door and educate them on Linux. How bizzare.
People, get a grip! Learn corporate UNIX first, so that you can make an EDUCATED decision and know the pros and cons. Linux has its place, but IT IS NOT in the enterprise. It makes for good web servers , DNS or FTP appliances, and hopefully a good desktop in a few years, but that's where it starts and that's where it ends.
The whole Linux setup is just one big hack, UNIX wannabe. If it only did it right, at least that'd be something...
http://www.progeny.com/
i'm running debian (woody) on a Dell PowerEdge 1750.+ Servers
i used the images from http://wiki.osuosl.org/display/LNX/Debian+on+Dell
it works very nicely. the server is running smtp, squid, http and some others.
the problems is: Dell won't support it with the open manager software. they issue only rpms, so on my other Poweredges i run red hat. after running dells for over more than two years, i really prefer to stick to red hat instead of debian. for the following reasons: 1. dell support, 2. commercial vendor support for red hat (oracle). i won't be running oracle on debian. although it can be done ofcourse. 3. nicer management tools . 4. poweredges come pre installed with red hat. i have the server up and running within half an hour. debian needs a lot more tweaking.
Either you live in some alternate universe in which vendors work on bugs for individual users, or you've been smoking some exceptionally strong weed. Or, possibly, you don't have a clue.
I don't believe in alternate universes.
I've had this problem with IBM.
I work in Italy. A company that produces an accounting package was interested in bundling their solution with our Debian-based server product.
Their solution uses DB2 for its database. It was important to them and their clients that IBM supported the DB2 installs back-ending their software. IBM only certifies DB2 installs (at least in Italy) on RedHat 7.X and a flavour of SUSE I don't recall now... Yes, in 2004 they will insist upon RedHat 7.X if you want IBM's support. Yes, I pointed out that RedHat doesn't support 7.X any more so essentially they were asking their clients to choose a lack of support for their DB or lack of support for their OS.
I'm sure there are countless examples where heavy-hitting software vendors have been able to cajole support from IBM for other distros but small software companies haven't got a hope.
In a last-gasp effort, I adapted the IBM installation and update scripts to use alien and dpkg and demonstrated that they worked flawlessly. The accounting package developers were happy, we were happy... IBM refused to budge.
Though not directly related to your question, it might help to know, that there are vendors dedicated to offer commercial support for IBM hardware, e.g. Xtops.DE - Linux, Laptops, Notebooks, PDAs.
A good starting point might be , much better than going at blindly eh ?
If it's a production system running some ibm software then you want as little as possible on there, it doesn't matter that debian has 10000000 different packages, you're not going to be able to make use of 999990 of them anyway so the depth of the repository really becomes a moot point.
I am NaN
We have Debian here. We also have Solaris, SuSE (and a little bit of RedHat and Fedora for those who don't know any better) and used to have Gentoo.
We use Debian on any Linux servers -- primarily because Yast gets in the way for most serious Unix admins -- and SuSE on most workstations -- it makes it a lot easier for Noobs who actually need to be able to 'fiddle' with their box (driver development, etc). I like them both, but prefer Debian.
Our sales pitch is based on the fact that we usually wouldn't bother calling for vendor support, anyway. As fast as some of them are, they're usually not as fast as us researching and fixing it ourselves; you have the phone-call, then sometimes the Appeasment Engineer, then they want a config. dump so that they can look at the problem, then they often come back to you wanting more information... Whereas even with a bit of Googling and some mail-list trawling, someone's often described your problem and how they fixed it. There's not a huge number of 'new' problems out there.
On top of this, we started off with small introductions -- e.g a CUPS server was much easier and faster to get up-and-running on Debian than Solaris -- generally setting up the machine as proof-of-concept, then deciding the thing worked reliably enough not to migrate it elsewhere.
I think it ultimately doesn't matter who the vendor is, they're going to be rubbish at some point or for some thing, and if you're not going to be able to present yourself as the first and fastest trouble-shooter in a large percentage of situations, almost any OS/Distribution is going to bite you hard and often.
With Linux, I would say that percentage needs to be even higher, just because the tools and skills in use by the Support Engineers are probably going to be exactly the same ones available to yourself -- i.e any of the non-open-source vendor's proprietory tools and trade-secret knowledge is in the public-domain for open-source.
However, if you're mostly wanting to make it possible to redirect blame, then there's nothing better than a vendor.
We used to use Slackware on our colo servers; but following an incident, which required a re-install of one machine, we were forced to make a choice between SuSE (which we'd have had to pay for) or Debian (which I already knew intimately). Easy decision (and made me less replaceable into the bargain)! I soon had my boss -- an old-skool Unix guru and Slackware devotee -- converted to the wonders of apt-get. (Till a package he wanted wasn't in apt, then he was back to cursing and decrying package management systems of all flavours. But this si normal.)
..... at home, not at work, and make sure you don't have any sharp objects within easy reach .....
The colo machines are running Woody (stable), but in the office, I'm running Sarge (testing) and Sid (unstable) on my desktop, just because it includes the latest KDE. Usual story: needed just one package; tried backports, hit snags; decided what the hey. No problems as yet. Remember, Debian is always more stable than Fedora -- and packages won't get updated unless people actively test out the newest versions and give decent feedback. Also, in Debianese, "unstable" refers not to the behaviour of the software, but to the level of development activity. If you want a really unstable operating system from Debian, try experimental
To summarise, I recommend: Stable for remote servers; Testing for servers you can physically get to and other people's desktops to which you can get root access; and Unstable for your own desktop.
Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!
You have a responsibility to them to make sensible decisions based on economic reality and ensure that their business will continue. That is what they employ you for.
You can use Debian or Flying Monkeys, but you better be damn sure that if you are killed in a road accident that your choice is something the next guy along can understand and allow the company to continue with.
If you aren't 110% sure they will be able to pick up the pieces then you are being irresponsible and betraying the trust they have in you.
No matter what OS or Application you use, your supposed to TEST everything before you roll it into production.
If your the kind of person who does things haphazard then your asking for trouble. Debian won't make you a better sysadmin.
The OS is only as secure and stable as the person managing it.
Not sure if this can help you, but tsm clients work like a charm even on slackware. The tsm server we have is of course AIX, but when it comes to clients, redhat/slackware/w2k, all of them just work. I have not experienced any problems.
--- d'oh
Have you ever tried to convince a PHB to use SLACKware? It'll never happen!
Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
I agree with using a supported platform as stated in many comments throughout this post. Since you're not running a server farm, you're not going to really benefit from the use of apt-get for updates.
With SUSE, you can run YaST remotely from a terminal window and perform your on-line updates. You can choose from doing them manually or automatically.
Also, considering IBM put $50 million in the Novell purchase of SUSE, it may even be the safest bet for a supported platform
We're mostly developers, which is probably what made us attracted to debian in the first place. We have a developer in our group that wears the sysadmin hat (ducks) but he is both a black-belt problem solver and a good admin. I enjoy the anal-retentiveness of debian-devel and its great to see so many minds focusing on a project.
We put a lot of faith into Debian. Our servers run all of our models and our execution platform, which trades enough securities every day to put my face on MSNBC if something goes horribly wrong.
We do use 3rd party libraries in our software development, and as far as they know, we're running Redhat like we're supposed to. I have yet to have a conversation with someone in tech support that is really a Linux guru. I'm not going to claim to be one, either; however, the code I support is only used by my group. The people I usually talk to in support are usually developers, too. If our group had to support 3rd party executables, then Debian probably wouldn't work so smoothly.
All these negative comments about Debian have suprised me a little bit. Perhaps I don't read /. often enough. And no, I probably wouldn't recommend Debian to any of my peers outside my company. But I don't think "Using Debian in Commercial Environments?" is a ridiculous question, either. It can work without a headache for a troop of coder monkeys writing in-house software.
It also has about 1.5 - 2 years between releases so you don't have to constantly play catchup.
I think your numbers are low. The current consensus seems to be that the old version of stable will be supported for one year after a new version of stable is released. If the release cycle stays the same, it's more like 3 to 4 years total.
If you have your own IT team that can support Linux, Debian would probably be fine. But I think the average PHB would be much more comfortable with the likes of RedHat or SuSE. And does it really matter that much? We're talking servers here, right? What does it matter which distro you're using? I would think support would be more important.
Plus, apt is available for RedHat and works most excellently.
I see a lot of comments about how apt is so great but let's not forget that apt is now on Fedora and that you can also install an internal distro using YUM (which I think is better than apt).
Don't get me wrong, I use Debian, Fedora and Redhat. But for a medium to large business, I'd definitively go with RH enterprise because of support. For home or small business, any distro would be fine unless you run some application that require a specific platform (think oracle, large backup solutions like HP/Veritas, etc).
BTW, anyone has a Yum vs. Apt comparasion chart?
-- Leeeter than leet
I'd say all major distributions are about the same.
The thing that keeps Red Hat and SuSE on the top is certifications, validations and things like that, which aren't free.
Is Debian enterprise ready? Yes.
Would I recommend it to enterprise customers? No.
First, very few application vendors explicitly support it. I've had bad experience with Red Hat 8 (a vendor who "supported it" until we run into a RH8-specific bug they couldn't fix, then they recommended RH Enterprise Server) so I would be very very careful about that. This has nothing to do with "skillz" - sometimes to make things work you'd need to change the application or do something which isn't possible.
Second, if you happen to need to connect it to SAN or such hardware (or install Oracle on it), you'll be in big trouble - not because it can't be installed (it can) but because the customer would kill if they knew their 100K of h/w or s/w has been rendered unsupported because you've used an unsupported OS.
Third, in many situations, OS cost is about 1% of total TCO, so why bother?
Debian needs certifications and h/w vendor support. I hope some big Linux user will donate this money to Debian to get couple of important certifications for enterprise h/w and software.
And the rest is at your control, where you can use Debian. Just make an agreement with IBM to take full care of the DB/2 server, so you will never have to touch it.
Doesn't sound like this box will be getting a lot of mileage out of apt-get, etc. Why do you even care which distro it runs?
Sure all the tools and apps that come along with a given distro give that distro it's own flavor, BUT if you know how to use the command line effectively and you know how to compile applications in case there isn't a binary version then in the end it really doesn't matter which distro you choose. In your case, I would go with a distrobution of Linux where you have the option of paying for support from some third party, especially if your running critical programs on that server.
It seems that in Linux land, people try to push a distro maybe cause it's powerful and you can compile your own kernel or maybe just because they have a bumper sticker that says Slackware. Whatever, the reason, this is line of thinking is fine if your going to use this server in your own company or if you're going to be the only one accessing the server. But in the corporate world where most managers have no clue what they're doing, some geek heads mistakingly overlook practicality and get into trouble with their boss when the server goes down. As far as I see it practicality is the key and no one I know of ever got fired for being practical.
apt also works with red hat
http://www.npcgaming.com Dedicated Gaming Servers
Well, in that case, RedHat should get with the fucking program. FHS is very well-designed, and is the standard for GNU/Linux. The reason for said testing problems (software that works on RedHat possibly not working other distributions) is due to RedHat's idiotic decision to deviate from a perfectly good standard.
social sciences can never use experience to verify their statemen
Two years ago we switched the whole IT infrastructure of our paperless 3 doctor clinic (7 employees, plus a subsidiary at the local hospital outpatient department) to Debian Linux, running mostly in-house developed software.
I must say since we did that move (which involved an initial rather chaotic 2 weeks) system administration is almost zero.
Security updates happen seamlessly and automatically in the background, new software installation is a breeze, we haven't had a single unscheduled reboot, an administrator work essentially boils down to set up new user accounts, service printers, swap DVD blanks for daily backups, and read the AIDE reports regarding system integrity.
The most important point - and this is where Debian really distinguishes itself from SuSE and RedHat - is that we got rid of counterproductive "release" cycles. Upgrading a RedHat system from one version to the next can be a hairrising experience, and I suppose that's the same with all other commercial distros depending on the "release cycle" paradigm.
Vendor A likes Distro 1, vendor B wants winblows, vendor C wants Solaris. What to do? Want to support all of those platforms knowing that they will never get along? That's the commercial nightmare and the further you get away from it the better. In the end, you please yourself. If your vendor is not working for you, dump them.
The whole thing's a red hearing anyway. In this case, IBM does not specify a single distribution and does work hard to please their customers. All the distros use the same packages because the free ones end up being the best in the long run. Debian has been getting things done and companies like IBM are going to be using it and liking what their customers use and like. This guy is just ahead of the heard and IBM is not going to punish him for it. When you buy an IBM thingy, IBM will help you use it, regardless.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Your short-sighted analysis ignores everything else, aside from this one program that you want to work. Certainly, that figures into it. However, there are other things -- like the problems with RedHat's non-standards compliant Linux, stability, security, etc. Maybe it happens that Debian is a better choice, all things considered, maybe it's RedHat. It probably varies with the size of the company (smaller companies often get more benefits from stepping outside of the "mainstream" distribution). You are cherry-picking the facts to arrive at a pre-destined conclusion that you want to arrive at. No, actually, you are describing a situation in which any intelligent person would choose RedHat over any other distribution. There are other situations in which RedHat wouldn't be chosen, such as when the the benefits of the overall system is deemed of more importance than any one application.
social sciences can never use experience to verify their statemen
And you seem to imagine you are one on this matters. Though you are just blowing hot air.
[p1] You must have a really funny idea about how the financial market(s) are working; and the second sentence is just a bold assumption, unless you claim god-like insight into the situation the pp described.
[p2] I don't known much about xfs (never used it), though it seems to have been around for quite some time; we aren't talking about reiserfs here, xfs was proven technology long before IBM took interest in Linux. Finally any (non-upstream) xfs bug would most probably occur in a redhat/suse kernel, which are heavily patched compared to debian; though I guess anyone using any linux commercially will compile their own (vanilla) kernel.
[p3] All that will happen (statistically speaking) for any existing distribution, for "this other OS" and virtually any software. You don't really expect to get well informed help on an IRC channel, do you?
[the rest is a little better]
[p4] You are correct in stating that redhat coders help develop/fix free software (and are thus credited). Though they get paid by redhat for making something work, which (many) customers want/complain about. The changes (as source) have to be made public according to the GPL license (assuming it applies). Simply giving the fixes to the upstream authors is the easiest way out of the nightmare of applying "your" diffs on every later version. Furthermore trying to hide these modifications (from the original authors) would create some bad publicity.
[p5] I definitely agree that redhat/suse are not screwing the community; if anybody wants to have/pay for support, who am I to argue. But I am under the impression that the best way to help free software was sending bug reports or even patches.
Speaking as a former installer of IBM servers, Debian is definitely the way to go. We forced ourselves (once and once only) to use an IBM approved distro (turbolinux) and found you could do nothing with it compared with what's available with Debian. RPM's can be aliened (with a bit of work - especially the setup scripts and init.d locations) . Hey we had pervasive.sql and ACCPAC running on one of them. and ease of update! nothing compares with Debian. Never used IBM support for software. (never needed to)
Jedis are stupid. If they were so powerful, why couldn't they handle counseling for a kid who missed his mom?
The IBM RPM's for TSM work fine under debian
.debs and did a dpkg -i ...
/home from a debian stable system seems fine
I used "alien" to convert to
Admittedly our TSM server is a large AIX box, but backing up