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."

Comments

Conservative and don't like Debian?

[Anonymous Coward]

Imagine if you tried to introduce them to Gentoo! They'd probably faint.

Re:Conservative and don't like Debian?

[the arbiter]

"sydb". What are you thinking? Seriously?

You have a working system. What is your rationale for wanting to change ANYTHING, much less your OS?

You've paid (if my own workplace is any indicator) at least tens of thousands of dollars just for the IBM support (which is superb, if you're running approved software).

You probably are using other software, all of which you've paid support contracts on.

All these contracts will become null and void if you should do something completely insane, like switching your DE to a distro that is not supported.

Well, go for it, it's your career. I'll say this, however. If you were employed at my workplace, and suggested such an insane course of action, you wouldn't be working here for long.

Re:Conservative and don't like Debian?

[sydb]

We don't have a working system, this is a new system for a particular job.

The only IBM software we need to use in "production" is a DB2 client and probably a TSM agent. We could avoid the TSM agent.

We would probably want to run WebSphere on it for testing purposes - testing of scripts before they reach the environments our developers use.

My concerns are more about persuading management that an "unsupported" distribution could be a goer, and what I expect to be a small number if contacts with IBM support.

So I understand your thinking, but in this case it's misplaced.

Re:Conservative and don't like Debian?

[gujo-odori]

I also worked at an ISP that ran its mail system on IRIX and migrated it to Debian, and our experience was nothing at all like yours. While I no longer work there, they are still running Debian and to the best of my knowledge (which is pretty good; I still keep in touch), they have delivered 100% mail system uptime since migrating to Debian, something we were not able to do with our SGI boxen.

Partly on the basis of that experience, I moved from running RH on my workstation to running Debian, and I've never been sorry about that, either.

Our migration from IRIX to Debian was a complete success because of two things:

1) We had, collectively, a lot of talent on Linux;
2) The sysadmin put in charge of the project had a lot of talent and experience on Debian; the rest of us had most of our experience in Solaris, BSD, and Red Hat. The IRIX guy had moved to another department by then.

What was the difference? Not lack of talent, I think. It sounds like you know what you are doing. Perhaps a matter of choosing appropriate hardware, though. We didn't screw around with ATA RAID (this was in the pre-SATA days, but that wouldn't have mattered) or anything that was less than server grade. This was a mission-critical system, and we used only server-grade hardware that was known to be very well supported.

The hosts we used were six dual-CPU rackmount cases running SCSI disks (RAID 1) for the OS install, and all the important stuff was on SAN (RAID 5 there).

Everything was absolutely bulletproof. How bulletproof? We installed Woody, with the 2.2 kernel (this was the late 1990s, and 2.4 was still experiencing some growing pains) and it worked perfectly right out of the box.

As I noted at the top, they are still at 100% mail system uptime to this day, to the best of my (fairly good) knowledge. They are still running Debian Stable.

Many other people can tell you stories just like this. Debian most certainly has a place in a shop that needs to get things done, a place that can perhaps only be taken by FreeBSD (with the possible exception of Slackware, Debian Stable is the only Linux distro I've ever used that can match FreeBSD for stability, or at least come very close).

I'm not saying you don't know what you're doing, I'm sure you do. You're probably a better sysadmin than I am. However, I do see one thing that you did wrong. You chose (or perhaps the customer's budget chose for you) what some people would call "toy hardware." Debian Stable often isn't the best fit on the block with that stuff. But if you had been using a proper server box with SCSI (or at the least parallel ATA; I *still* don't like SATA support under Linux much), I think it would have been all right.

One other thing I would have done differently is this: as soon as I found that I had problems with the hardware and the distro I had chosen, one or the other would have been jettisoned. For a server application, it would have been the hardware if I had the latitude to make that decision. Even today, a server you need to depend on should use SCSI disks (I'm still partial to Adaptec adapters) and known top-quality parts.

With all due respect, while building an identical machine in your lab was the smart way to do it, investing hundreds of hours into making Debian work with that hardware was not. It would have been cheaper to *buy* a proper box and just *give* it to the customer. Alternatively, if that hardware was cast in concrete, early on you should have chosen a different distro, one that is focused on a single hardware platform and that places more emphasis on supporting the bleeding edge than on rock-solid stability for tried and true equipment. Debian is not that distro (not to say it doesn't work fine on most stuff; I install Debian Sid on Frys' sale-quality hardware regularly without incident).

I would advance the idea that Frys sale-quality hardware (such as SATA-RAID) has no place in a shop that needs to get things done. You probably won't ex

Dear slashdot

[Mike Hawk]

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?

Re:Dear slashdot

[citog]

Interesting, you've gone from

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).
to
It's not about choosing the right technical solution, because I have ample justification for Debian being the right technical solution.

So, your anecdotal evidence is now ample justification? I would say Mike (great-grandparent post) is right on the mark with his comments.

Getting what you pay for

[MORTAR_COMBAT!]

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.

Re:Getting what you pay for

[Zweistein_42]

I would tend to agree with this viewpoint. It seems to me we are talking about a commercial environment, not enthusiast shop or basement. Anecdotal evidence of what Slashdot readers have successfully installed on their laptop or home (and I've played with Debian successfully on my T30 too:) has no bearing on this decision.

If your company, as it appears, uses IBM software/hardware, it prefers to pay some (ok, a LOT;) extra $$$ to have the peace of mind of having a large, monolithic corporation a phone call away:). As a hacker, you'll adapt easily to SuSE or RedHat (sure, we all raise hell about the differences, but let's be honest here;). As a company though, and especially a "conservative" one, they'll have -much- harder time adapting to a different model of doing things. In all honesty, sounds like you might be doing them a disservice by offering what is, in the end, an officially unsupported OS. Do you want to be the one who inadvertently nullifies their support contracts (no matter how unreasonable their requirements may be)?

You need to think beyond what you would like to play with, and extend your viewpoint to all the possibilities and risks your company might encounter in the years ahead. If they're more comfortable knowing somebody is guaranteeing, supporting, and in the end, taking the blame for their software/hardware, then it's a strategic policy you should follow.

There's little other then deception to persuade them to use Debian, if they are the type of company you describe.

I know!

[blankslate]

... just skin it up like XP and don't tell them?

Your rationale vs. their rationale

[Dancin_Santa]

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.

Debian - harder to support

[otisg]

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.

if it's just apt....

[levl289]

apt has been ported to RedHat.

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.

Go HP!

[Schreckgestalt]

Go HP, they support Debian.

PS: No, I am not an HP employee.

RedHat is more appropriate

[tedhiltonhead]

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 has helped us out...

[Howard Beale]

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.

Why?

[Mullen]

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.

Except Debian is only REAL OSS

[mabhatter654]

The article has a GREAT point...there's no reason that companies shouldn't persuade a large company like IBM to add Debian to it's supported list...

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.

Re:Why try for Debian? You will fail.

[jdreed1024]

Why will he fail? Assuming it's linux on intel hardware, there really isn't a huge amount of difference between distributions.

Um, no, Not even a little bit. It doesn't matter if you think Debian is the greatest thing in the world, or something you found at the bottom of your garbage can, there's one key difference.

Imagine some updated package broke all your applications. And your quarterly statements are due tomorrow. And the CEO is touring your server farm. And the planets are aligned infavorably. And it's Friday the 13th. Let me show two different scenarios:

Employee: Dear Redhat, your latest package broke our applications. Please fix it.
Redhat: Um, ok, we're looking into it.
Boss: What's going on?
Employee: I've reported the issue and taken the action item to follow up with Red Hat. They're working on it.
Boss: Carry on.
Employee: Um, look harder please, remember we're paying you all this money for Red Hat Enterprise Linux.
Redhat: Ah, ok, I think we've found the problem. We'll try out a bug fix and get back to you.
Boss: Well, is it fixed yet?
Employee: Not yet, but Redhat says they believe they've solved the problem.
CEO: What's going on here?!
Boss: Well sir, we ran into an issue with our latest upgrade, but the vendor is on it, and we'll make sure they get us the fix.
CEO: Good work. Carry on.
Redhat: Here's an updated RPM, try this.
Employee: Hey, that worked, great.

And the alternative:

Employee: Dear debian-users@lists.debian.org, the latest package broke our application. Can you fix it?
Random Dude 1: Uh, no, but you can. That's the beauty of Open Source.
Employee: But I don't really know much about kernel hacking so I...
Random Dude 2: Look, if you don't like it, maybe you should go back to Windows.
Employee: Hey, I like Linux, I'm just not in a position to track down this kernel panic that happens whenever I...
Random Dude 3: You get what you pay for, people are doing this for free.
RMS: The HURD kernel doesn't have this problem.
Employee: What's the HURD?
Ken Brown: The HURD is a stolen copy of SCO UNIX. Duh.
Boss: So, is it fixed yet?
Employee: No, but I'm learning about ideology and wanking.
Boss: Did you just say wanking? And why aren't you following up with the vendor?
Employee: Well, there's not really a vendor so much as a bunch of guys talking about whether or not it should be called GNU/Linux.
CEO: What's this about there not being a vendor?
Boss: I don't know sir, I certainly didn't approve this.
CEO: Well, who installed software without a support contact.
Employee: I did, sir.
CEO; Tell me, employee, can you say 'Would you like fries with that?'
Employee: I can.
CEO: Good. You'll need it.