Anatomy of a Successful Enterprise Linux Distro?

phenix asks: "With the new release of Novell Linux Desktop, and the upcoming release of Sun JDS3, I am curious to hear how these two suites, and their underlying enterprise infrastructures (JES and OES) compare. Specifically, I am interested in their ease of management/deployment in these areas: directory services, productivity (office) applications, centralized application serving, centralized document storage, groupware, and remote application installation. All of these, of course, without the use of Windows products like Exchange and Windows technologies like Active Directory. Is there a better alternative?"

Comments

How about YOU test it & get back to us?

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.novell.com/products/openenterpriseserve r/beta.html
Open Enterprise Server is now shipping. An evaluation version will be available from the product web site on March 15, 2005. You may choose to download the public beta at this time or return when the evaluation is available.

The Java Enterprise system is available for download in its entirety as a CD Image (ISO) or Compressed Archive

Re:How about YOU test it & get back to us?

[goldspider]

At risk of wandering offtopic, the parent post is a microcosm of why people don't try OSS. A user asks for help/opinion, and it gets thrown back at him/her. Almost as un-helpful as "RTFM".

Re:How about YOU test it & get back to us?

[kneecarrot]

Current users of OSS are constantly bemoaning the lack of wide adoption but also have their personal identity and self-esteem heavily reliant on the elitism associated with the communities surrounding OSS. The natural urge is to bar membership to this community to perpetuate the elitism, greatly harming new user adoption.

Re:How about YOU test it & get back to us?

[jedidiah]

Free Software is not about being whiny and helpless.

Even Apple is not about that despite the fact that they've been the vangaurd of user friendly computing since foundation.

Re:How about YOU test it & get back to us?

[Anonymous Coward]

> At risk of wandering offtopic, the parent post is a microcosm of why people don't try OSS.
Funny that you might mention the word try.Unlike some volunteer distros or FOSS dudes hanging out on an IRC channel, Novell & Sun have made is real easy to get the software & it's documentation. They are real companies ready to stand behind their products with real people.

As the parent, I admit that yes perhaps it seems like RTFM. But I did just the same amount of work that the submitter did. I found some links/info & dumped them on a page. Why exactly does everyone want a accurate technical answer for free (not $$$, but zero work)? If he can copy & paste some links into a question, then why am I demonized if I copy & paste some links into an answer & suggest that he try them out for himself. If I can download the ISOs & install linux, then so can he. Why must I go out of my way to create a technical assesment?

Maybe I'm crazy. Maybe I'm freakin Loony Toons. Maybe I expect people to *gasp* do the absolute very first steps and try it for themselves. If he fails after the first steps, then either myself or more likely in this case Sun/Novell can help him out. Too often we see Ask /. articles that plain suck. This one DOES NOT suck as bad. Usually the very nature or reaching /. and getting a question posted should suggest that the submitter is competant in that field. If the submitter knows about and have interested in Sun JDS & Novell OES (geez, we aren't talking about newbie how to fix a b0rked MBR or even easy linux Linsipre or Xandros) then how about doing something with them? He is just as empowered to assess the products as I am.

Re:How about YOU test it & get back to us?

[ender-]

Or maybe the poor guy is aware that sometimes issues crop up during a full deployment that don't show up in a test environment, and just wants to see what issues or concerns others have come across in their deployments.
Or perhaps he just wants to supplement his testing with other opinions of the products which might bring to light issues that he hadn't thought of.

I'm a pretty pessimistic guy but it amazes even me the amount of negative feedback that is generated whenever someone asks a question.

Maybe he is just being lazy and not wanting to try it on his own but you don't know that. It's pretty rude to slam him on the basis of something you don't know anything about.

Not to mention the fact that by posting it in a public forum, he's bringing an important topic into public discussion which could produce a productive idea or two on the topic. Sure I know it's a slim chance, this is Slashdot after all :). But it could happen.

ender-

Re:How about YOU test it & get back to us?

[Anonymous Coward]

The information was good. Maybe you just need to work on the delivery a little :)

Re:How about YOU test it & get back to us?

[killjoe]

Well if the article was not a blatant troll I might agree with you. But it was trolling so I think the RTFM was a perfectly valid response.

Ask not what open source can do for you, ask what you can do for open source.

Re:How about YOU test it & get back to us?

[Anonymous Coward]

AC, no one asked you to download & install anything.

The OP was asking those who have already done so to comment on their experiences.

If you haven't got anything to add to the discussion, just move along; nothing to say here! Your silly little rant simply adds noise to the signal.

Re:How about YOU test it & get back to us?

[4of12]

The natural urge is to bar membership to this community to perpetuate the elitism, greatly harming new user adoption.

Sometimes. But untrue at least two-fold.

First, much of the FOSS community is genuinely interested in helping people to use FOSS, regardless of their abilities. The majority, in all likelihood. It's only a small fraction of FOSS users with some intelligence and more than a few personal insecurities that belittle the attempts of others to learn FOSS software.

Second, there's always the cachet associated with doing what's new and what's cool and what's not common. There are some who will actively seek to learn FOSS for the same reasons that they have the latest PDA gadget. The community grows in size somewhat because of these new members who usually delight in "explaining the mysteries of the universe" to co-workers, friends, the girl cashiering at the grocery store, etc.

The biggest problem is that enterprise wide deployments are the last frontier for Linux (and even that is rapidly being colonized). In the old days people complained about lack of desktop environments, lack of hardware support, lack of embedded processor support, etc. a whole lot of features which have faded in importance.

That's why the last battle will be the one for a distributed global authentication and authorization system, something which takes a while for the FOSS to come up with the standards and the implementation of an agreeable system. The established players (MS, Sun, etc) will just distribute their solution as part of their distribution.

Re:How about YOU test it & get back to us?

[Anonymous Coward]

(Original parent here.)

those who have already done so
Show me where he asks for those who have already done so. You can't.

If you haven't got anything to add to the discussion
Geez, thats great. One AC who contributed no info/links complaining about another AC who DID provide links/info.

Your silly little rant simply adds noise to the signal.
Mostly wrong. My original comment is part of the signal. It is your critique of my posts that is the noise.

Re:How about YOU test it & get back to us?

[Anonymous Coward]

(Original parent here.)
You are right. I will try not to shoot from the hip^W tips of my fingers in the future.

Re:How about YOU test it & get back to us?

[pooh666]

There is NOTHING more usefull that RTFM. That is why it is an acronym..

Just like

[Anonymous Coward]

The anatomy of the unicorn. They're both mythical creatures.

Re:Just like

[ch-chuck]

Legend has it that only virgins can see the Successful Enterprise Linux Distro.

Re:Just like

[Draknor]

Then surely SOMEONE on /. would have seen it by now!

Re:Just like

[sharkey]

So Slashdot is the right forum to ask, then.

Re:Just like

[zonker]

until linux goes through a major rewrite gutting it of the cruft of 30 years of unix back history it will be a strange creature to most of the windows using community. on top of that it needs to be amazingly easy to install, configure, maintain and troubleshoot. while most longtime users will insist that some or all of these things are now at the level of windows i think they are blinded from reality.

a quick little example... most folks today have swallowed the idea that the "A" drive is their floppy and the "C" drive is their harddrive. most folks understand that their operating system is located in "C:\Windows" and that their programs are in "C:Program Files". now explain to them the reasoning behind \mnt\hd0 and \home. to folks that have come to terms with why things are one way, they now need to learn a different way and won't see any clear benefit from the difference. it just doens't make sense to many people. another quick example is the difference between kde and gnome and that some programs require or work better with one or the other or the lack of a good simple installer/uninstaller that "just works" across all popular flavors of linux...

say what you will about windows or os x but there are some good lessons to be learned from them on a user interaction level. distro's like ubuntu have a very friendly face sitting on top of a fairly complex and confusing system underneath. the problem with this is that there is very much a "nevermind the man behind the curtain" approach taken when you really do have to interact with what is going on behind the curtain. the real problems are things that are going to take a lot of folks time to understand.

abstraction like ubuntu helps to an extent but it isn't anywhere close to being complete. i guess i see this abstraction is part of the problem, because you aren't really solving the issue you are just hiding it from the user. if you could hide the problem in such a way that the user will *never* have to deal with the 'hard stuff' then you have more or less solved the problem. problem is, i don't think you can abstract it enough without breaking lots of things. the best example of good abstraction that i can think of is os x as you rarely have to deal with the unix side on even a weekly basis. it is underneath it all but there are only hints of it on the surface.

the only way i see things changing is if we spend a lot of time and money on educating users. the problem is, it might actually be easier to just fork linux and scratch the sticky areas and make them more like things windows users are used to (which is afterall the market you are trying to convert). of course this means nothing will work with it for a long time and it would be extraordinarily contraversial and risky. however, it seems that it paid off for microsoft when they started their nt project, which at first nothing worked with (though i don't think it was very contraversial). this is sort of what beos seemed to be doing but wasn't quite perfect on the abstraction side, but it was very user friendly yet powerful.

of course things aren't peachy keen in windows nt land either, but it is where the majority of the world is at right now... and if linux wants to hit the desktop in a big way, maybe that is what it will take to do it.

Obligatory bash quote

[Mad Merlin]

man
<Saty> active directory is to system resources
<Saty> what joseph stalin was to human rights

linky

Re:Obligatory bash quote

[Anonymous Coward]

Funny maybe - but verifiably true? Come back when you can prove your claim. (Hint: you can't.)

Re:Obligatory bash quote

[drxray]

Are you defending Windows or Stalin?

GUI. Please focuss on the GUI

[scenestar]

If you wish to succed with implementing linux on desktops, inopperabillity Should not your main concern.

Office jocks are lazy technophic grunts. All they require is the fact that they can use it. A *stable* And most importantly usable GUI environment should be available. And sorry for the the blasphemy, but you might want to implement a GUI similar to windows. It will make the desktop feel more "natural" for it's users.

-1 Troll

[Ars-Fartsica]

This is just a veiled "which distro is best" post (most of what poster asks is at application level, not distro level), this entire discussion will be a flamefest.

Re:-1 Troll

[Amiasian]

You are Slashdot's most intelligent user.

Re:-1 Troll

[Kjuib]

Your just mad 'cause my Distro can kick your Distro's butt... oh yeah... thats what I am talking about...

Re:-1 Troll

[Pros_n_Cons]

This is just a veiled "which distro is best"

Agreed, plus RHEL 4 just dropped and not even a mention of it. Sounds a bit like a commercial.

Re:-1 Troll

[jedidiah]

Not at all.

The question can be easily quantified and while there may be disagreements regarding which distros satisfy the given conditions best, this is far from a vague free-for-all.

Re:-1 Troll

[reclusivemonkey]

I am curious to hear how these two suites, and their underlying enterprise infrastructures (JES and OES) compare.

RTFP.

Re:-1 Troll

[LnxAddct]

Yea my first though as I looked over at the box sitting next to me was "Hmm, RHEL seems to handle everything he wants just fine, this guy must be a troll." The reason I immediately thought this was simply because in order to not mention Red Hat in an eterprise linux discussion, you really really have to purposely try and avoid them. If the guy really wanted the best tool for the best job he wouldn't have singled out just those two distros, as a result I'm not going to give him my oppinion (although I think I just did)
Regards,
Steve

Re:-1 Troll

[Anonymous Coward]

and as he said, the intelligent discussion is at the application level, not the distro level.

Re:-1 Troll

[jedidiah]

Tell that to my enterprise. They have some very particular requirements regarding what kind of software (OS or applications) can come through the front door and unfortunately Debian doesn't cut the mustard.

Re:-1 Troll

[EvilAlien]

Mustard-cutting is supported now in Debian-unstable and will hopefully get into sid when it goes -stable. Of course, Gentoo lets you emerge mustardcutter right now, except it will take you the rest of the day to get it actually working. I think Fedora has the RPM somewhere in the dubious-testing repo, but it won't be as optimized for your hardware.

ZENworks

[Alapapa]

Yesterday's thread about ZENworks looks like an interesting push forward for Novell.

Blame

[peterprior]

Having someone (a company / corporation) to blame / call when it goes wrong

Steps to a better Enterprise

[Anonymous Coward]

1. Get rid of Berman and Braga

Ohhhh, were on about Linux in the enterprise.

Re:Steps to a better Enterprise

[thatnerdguy]

They run linux on the enterprise? What distro do they use 200 years in the future?

Re:Steps to a better Enterprise

[Anonymous Coward]

They run linux on the enterprise? What distro do they use 200 years in the future?

I am typing this from the future... Suse Linux 2048bit Version 793.5 RC1 (kernel 76.8)

Re:Steps to a better Enterprise

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow! the first FP (Future Post) on Slashdot! congrats....

Re:Steps to a better Enterprise

[Anonymous Coward]

They're running Gentoo. Gentoo 2005, to be exact. I think it finished compiling sometime during the Kirk era. That'll teach them not to compile on the tricorders.

Re:Steps to a better Enterprise

[Anonymous Coward]

cue the Debian stable jokes...

(posting anonymously since ./ banned my ISP's proxy)

what about multimedia?

[bogaboga]

I see you (the submitter) have not mentioned multimedia! And ohh, the topic "successful Linux desktop" is subjective.

The question to ask/consider would be...Successful as defined by who? To me, SuSE is successful but after heavy modification of KDE as discussed here at slashdot many times, and installing MPlayer to handle all my multimedia needs. I also use streamtuner because I have not been able to fine any other KDE based directory browser, that will let you record a stream too.

Unfortunately, I have never had any success with amaroK and Kmail. Amarok keeps crashing, and its equalizer sucks, the analyzer is always behind...while Kmail cannot connect to my ISP, even after letting it detect what the ISP supports. It would be interesting to know that Evolution is just fine.

Re:what about multimedia?

[qkslvrwolf]

I don't know, but in the context of the question, maybe OSDL would be a good place to start.
And that is really what is important if you want linux to keep moving up, which I do. Its about having a choice, but you only really havea choice if you can transition from one idea to another smoothly, so you can pick your poison at a moments notice without have to worry about transition quite so much. Its a large part of what seperates linux from microsoft in a buisness sense; with linux, you should no longer be locked into one persons formats. This is where a desktop standard is a marvelous idea. Don't like the pricing/support of your current provider? Switch to someone else, with a minimum of effort. Could just be me. But then, I'm going to try and convince the government to switch to linux, so I have to start working my arguments somewhere.

Re:Better alternative than active directory?

[Marthisdil]

Guess you didn't like NDS, eh? Or if you did, then you simply must hate microsoft...typical...:)

-1 Offtopic

[daveschroeder]

A successful enterprise Linux distribution?

Mac OS X + X11 + Apple Developer Tools (Xcode) + Fink

In all seriousness, we have found that a desktop or laptop with Mac OS X, with X11, all of the compilers and development tools, and a ports/package manager like Fink or DarwinPorts, which still allows running normal productivity software like Microsoft Office, mainstream media players, Adobe products, etc., has been the most productive platform of all.

Re:-1 Offtopic

[Anonymous Coward]

OSX is not linux.
BSD is not linux.
debian is not linux (it has linux but isn't linux).
screenshots of gnome are not pictures of linux.
the free software movement is not the "linux community" (freeDOS seems nice).

Linux is the program people refer to by it's rank: "kernel".

The man asked about linux distros, not unix. Maybe he's a free software "zealot" and proprietary stuff need not apply.

Re:-1 Offtopic

[Anonymous Coward]

You forgot:

Linux is not linux.

Re:-1 Offtopic

[Anonymous Coward]

Mac OS X, with X11, all of the compilers and development tools, and a ports/package manager like Fink or DarwinPorts

All of which are a pain in the ass on OS X compared to Debian. Yes, I own a Mac, but all the simple things in Debian I take for granted are a pain in the ass in OS X. Fink has broken packages so often its not funny.

Re:-1 Offtopic

[MSFanBoi]

This assumes you are an Enterprise running MacOS X servers on Mac hardware.

98% of the world isn't.

Re:-1 Offtopic

[IamTheRealMike]

The guy didn't ask what Dave Schroeder finds the most productive platform, he asked for a comparison of two enterprise Linux distros.

Seriously. What part of the question is so hard to understand? If he wanted to know about Apple, he'd have mentioned it.

You're totally right in your subject: that was a -1 Offtopic post, so in future don't post them please. Doing so is just an abuse of the system - Apple is quite capable of doing its own marketing thanks without you shilling for them.

Re:-1 Offtopic

[bani]

osx isnt linux nor is it even bsd. its some bizarre hybrid which was bsd-ish but has weird mutated incompatibilities such as missing dlopen() (recently fixed, but was missing for a long time).

not to mention the mess that is bundles. yes i know its legacy from nextstep and yes it sucks less than classic macos resource/data forks. but that doesn't make it right :)

also anything which links to the Carbon framework needs access to the GUI. unfortunately a lot of the fundamental OSX API is only available in Carbonlib so many character based apps may end up needing to link to it.

Imagine things like grep and sed refusing to work unless they can open a connection to X11. That's the kind of weirdness you get with porting stuff to OSX :-/

osx might make a fine desktop client but as a dedicated server os it leaves much to be desired.

Re:-1 Offtopic

[Anonymous Coward]

Once you calculate in that the Mac has only one mouse button I think you'll find your productivity numbers much lower ;)

Re:-1 Offtopic

[JW Troll]

Only problem with your "solution" is that you're crippled by expensive Apple hardware. Good luck trying to install mirrored hard drives in that, or millions of other things you would ordinarily expect.

I'm with the others

[bogie]

Do your own research and then get back to us. Download the eval versions and test them. Or were you planning on implementing an "Enterprise Solution" based on the whims of the /. readership? Giving you the slightest benefit of the doubt there are many other less public, more informed forums for this type of question. Why ask at /. where most of the users A) don't use linux anymore and b) are desktop users?

I though "which distro is best" discussions were banned by now?

Re:I'm with the others

[dupup]

Why ask at /. where most of the users A) don't use linux anymore

I am curious about the thought process behind this statement. How is it that you assert that most (i.e. > 50%) of /. users don't use Linux? And the accompanying assertion that used to (by including "anymore")? I can think of no way to prove or disprove this without an explicit survey. Has such a survey been conducted and I missed it? Am I now in the /. reading minority as an archaic Linux user?

Re:I'm with the others

[LilMikey]

I believe most of the readership is running Windows and it's been that way for quite some time now.

Re:I'm with the others

[qkslvrwolf]

Or at least when they're at work, like I am.

Re:I'm with the others

[Taladar]

While that might be true or not I don't believe most of those that used Linux as anything similar to a primary OS switched (back) to Windows. If anything they moved to other alternative OS.

Re:I'm with the others

[drew]

while i have no idea where the logic behind including "anymore" came from, as for the claim that most users don't use linux: some time ago, Taco posted a lot of stats generated from the slashdot log files showing that, among other things, something like 70%-80% of slashdot's traffic was from Windows/IE.

of course, there's still some faulty logic there, because saying that most /. users use windows (which is true) is not the same thing as saying that most /. users don't use linux, although i wouldn't be surprised if that were the case.

Re:I'm with the others

[aichpvee]

Saying that "most /. users don't use Linux" and "most /. users don't use Linux anymore" mean two completely different things. As grandparent said it would require that at some point "most" ./ users had used Linux.

As for the traffic stats, do they count how the browser reports itself or what browser the user is actually using? Because lots of people, if not "most", who use non-IE webbrowsers have them set to identify as IE. Though I could easily believe that most do use IE as the majority of people in the world are pretty fucking stupid and don't recognise quality software when they see it.

Be the borg

[LINM]

The problem with Sun and Novell is that they are both approach the problem: how to be Microsoft. As such they are trying to be all things to all people (their own OS, own directory services, own productivity, etc.). I support the effort, but there are two many years and too much functionality of built up Microsfot competitive status to comprehensively replace in one package.

A more feasible / successful approach the "assimilation" that is being led by Xandros. Let the user keep his productivity suite (Crossover), keep his Active Directory (Xandros authenticates against it), keep their NTFS, etc. Above all, get the home and corporate user on the right OS (Debian in Xandros' case) and migrate the other functionality in a best of breed fashion in the future (when it is easier).

In some of the cases, Xandros did build out functionality that Linux normally lacks: e.g. remote application installation. In this case though, they also built Windows hooks so the same manager can control both Linux and Windows boxes: clever.

Re:Be the borg

[ClosedSource]

"The problem with Sun and Novell is that they are both approach the problem: how to be Microsoft."

Given that they are both for-profit public companies and Microsoft is the most financially successful software company in the world, is it really hard to understand why they would like to emulate it? Now actually getting away with it is another matter.

Re:Be the borg

[mchawi]

To be fair - Novell had all of those things before Microsoft did. They are just porting most of it from Netware to Linux.

I use both AD and eDirectory, and have used both SMS and ZENWorks. If I can do the same things with either one, it means I can choose what I want based on the company rather than on what I am missing from the OS.

The approach you say with Xandros is a very good approach - and I agree that it will hit a definite market that Novell and Sun do not hit. I do think though that trying to have an enterprise wide solution from start to finish from one company with one management interface (sort of) is a real giant step for Linux. They've always had all these tools, but it has never been marketed as a cohesive unit until now. Sometimes the difference is in the perception.

Re:Be the borg

[FuzzyBad-Mofo]

Xandros did build out functionality that Linux normally lacks: e.g. remote application installation.

How does Linux normally lack "remote application installation"? One can ssh into any random box and install software (assuming sufficient permissions), so I think you must be referring to something different from what your words suggest.

Re:Be the borg

[LINM]

Of course you can do anything with Linux. I was more referring to something that a MCSE could handle when , e.g., managing 1500 boxes with different application profiles...

Re:Be the borg

[LnxAddct]

Err... Red Hat has had this for something like over 5 or 6 years. Need to install something on 60,000 desktops? No problem, just click go. Need it customized per user, per their profile or groups that they belong to, also not a problem. This and many other reasons are why enterprises almost always go with Red Hat, especially after you take in to consideration the support and licensing costs of other distros, i.e. Novell (The same level of support will typically cost you just as much, but in some cases can be up to 5 times as great).For those who think I'm trolling, please see Novell's pricelist for the SUSE LINUX Enterprise Server 9 costs per year.
Regards,
Steve

Re:Be the borg

[HangingChad]

and too much functionality of built up Microsfot

Anyone besides me actually like that spelling better? Microsfot. Sounds Greek or Russian.

Re:Be the borg

[Synn]

As such they are trying to be all things to all people (their own OS, own directory services, own productivity, etc.). I support the effort, but there are two many years and too much functionality of built up Microsfot competitive status to comprehensively replace in one package.

Er, not quite. First off NDS(now eDirectory) has been around longer than ADS, so Novell is hardly trying to match what MS is doing. What they are trying to do is put their services on top of Linux which badly needs that level of Enterprise functionality.

I've used Linux for close to 10 years and have been a senior Linux admin for the past 6. I just got my Novell Certified Linux Engineer certification(which covers their enterprise systems) and I can tell you it's a very good match for Linux.

blah blah

[killtheOSSnazis]

can you not research this on your own? both are available as trials.

Best Distro for Enterprise: Roll Your Own.

[torpor]

There is absolutely no reason for a company wanting to use Linux, to not have its administrators roll their own distro, with their own builds of whatever apps they need.

"Enterprise" means "not being too lazy to do it properly, so that it works" in my book, so before you MSCDE weenies get all GUI, let me just insult you all right now: if you aren't rolling your own, you're a mouse monkey at best..

Re:Best Distro for Enterprise: Roll Your Own.

[jedidiah]

I can think of one big reason not to do this: Oracle.

Some enterprise applications have very rigorous support and compatibility matrices. Unless your idea of running Unix servers is just playing around with apache, you will likely have some serious support considerations.

In this case, RH and Suse enterprise are the only options if you happen to be in the US or Europe.

Re:Best Distro for Enterprise: Roll Your Own.

[Tony Hoyle]

Get a life. No company who's paying top dollar for decent admins is going to want them spending 3 months setting up their own distro.

They download Redhat (or debian if they're really that good) install it and have it running in a day or two. Then they go for a beer, because everything works.

Re:Best Distro for Enterprise: Roll Your Own.

[jedidiah]

...or install Debian if they want something that's more robust and aren't interested in a Redhat support contract.

Re:Best Distro for Enterprise: Roll Your Own.

[torpor]

"a decent admin" would do it once, properly, in a couple of days, get things online in a week, and from that point on be doing proper clones of the OS partition, when and where needed. a proper enterprise would have a plan to accomodate this. it does not take 6 months to get a working linux system online, it takes working hardware and a competent build engineer. good enterprise has those, whether its a hat worn by one or many ..

and i believe it is true that i need to 'get a life'. alas, my life has been spent in far too many computer operating environments, computer rooms, vaults, cellars, etc.

Then they go for a beer, because everything works.


'a decent admin' goes for a beer, because everything works, and also because he knows precisely how everything works.

distro-fed linux newbies seem to think 'redhat'==business, but in fact, good business does roll its own.

Re:Best Distro for Enterprise: Roll Your Own.

[johnjaydk]

So very true.

The other extremely important factor is the "Warm and fuzzy feeling(tm)" in your manager. It boils down to covering his ass. Having a really big name behind your distro really helps. Novell/Suse have a winning hand here. We all know that in the real world vendors won't cover jack-shit but it's all part of the big lie. Various bogus partner programs can also help here but not as much.

The more insecure your maneger is the more important these factors are.

But having your key applications certified on your distro of choice is essential unless you've got source for them and can roll them yourself.

Re:Best Distro for Enterprise: Roll Your Own.

[Taladar]

Sometimes I ask myself wether this is the reason our economy sucks: Insecure, incompetent managers.

They definitely are the one group with enough influence to ruin the economy, there are very few hard facts you can check for when hiring one and they are in a position where it is easy to hide their incompetence good enough not to be fired (too often).

Re:Best Distro for Enterprise: Roll Your Own.

[zootm]

Surely it's more time-consuming and resource-intensive to do that, though? Unless you've got special needs for your specific setup, why is this an advantage?

Re:Best Distro for Enterprise: Roll Your Own.

[LnxAddct]

Mod parent up. Seriously if Red Hat wasnt such a popular name my company would have never gone with them and we'd probably still be running a pure MS network. Name brand means a lot. The one area I disagree with the parent psoster though, Red Hat support has been astounding and they actually really do cover things and surprisingly seem to care. Their support is up there with Veritas, who probably has the best in the industry.
Regards,
Steve

Re:Best Distro for Enterprise: Roll Your Own.

[Anonymous Coward]

Utter nonsense.

One of the big causes of switching to Linux is that the maintenance requirements are much lower than that of windows, a single linux admin, ie Me can easily look after and maintain 70 servers and 200 desktops without too much grief and still have time left over to help out the windows admins and do some development work on the side and maintain the documentation.

Now we roll our own, and all of a sudden I have a nightmare on my hands, _thousands_ of packages have to be maintained by hand, testing requirements go through the roof, and when I have the nervous breakdown and get carted off to the loony bin, the poor sod who is my replacement is completely lost, because the documentation is months out of date, the servers will be having the seven shades kicked out of them by the l33t script kiddies and the users will be deserting KDE in their droves back to our win98 site license and the bosses will be looking for someone to (rightly) blame.

I suggest you actually carry out a couple of large scale conversion before making idiotic comments like this that only server to show how ignorant you are of Enterprise requirement.

Oh wait, sorry I forgot this was slashdot.

Re:Best Distro for Enterprise: Roll Your Own.

[torpor]

its more time consuming and expensive if you haven't already done it, and don't know what you're doing.

but, trust me, do something hard once, and its hard. do something hard a few times, and it becomes easy. do it enough times after that, and you find ways not to do it so hard as you did it the first time.

if you roll your own system, it may be hard once. but you won't roll systems so hard after that... 'good admins', and in my opinion generally good linux users, don't fear this.

Re:Best Distro for Enterprise: Roll Your Own.

[zootm]

I'm just not getting what the huge advantage to this method is, though? Surely most "boxed" distros give you the opportunity to select which software packages to deploy?

There's probably (read: nearly definately) something I'm missing here, though.

Re:Best Distro for Enterprise: Roll Your Own.

[torpor]

no, it is irresponsibility which is ruining your economy. most people have their heads so far up TV's ass that they just don't want to have anything to do with any kind of responsibility, whatsoever.

this whole thread has been predicated on the responsibilities of a 'good system administrator', and i have attempted to demonstrate that it is the 'fully responsible' kind that is the best, and thus the best distro for enterprise is one that suits this model: roll your own.

but, courtesy of american law, the responsibility for things is being bled out of that once great nation, daily ...

Re:Best Distro for Enterprise: Roll Your Own.

[drsmithy]

There is absolutely no reason for a company wanting to use Linux, to not have its administrators roll their own distro, with their own builds of whatever apps they need.

There are two excellent reasons not to do this:

1. Commercial software that is only supported in certified environments.

2. Cost (software is cheap, people time is expensive).

I've noticed that a rather large chunk of the Linux community - both users and developers - has a fascination with creating busywork by reinventing the wheel over and over and over again. Why is that ?

Re:Best Distro for Enterprise: Roll Your Own.

[torpor]

a sysadmin maintains a currently running system. the most appropriate metric is uptime, i.e. how much is the system actually being used, measured in time.

a sysadmin familiar with their own hand-rolled OS install, first of all, can have a much higher-tuned awareness of what is occurring on the system, than that of the average RH de-tarball'er..

if i know for sure i've got a /sbin and /bin tree, and very little else but my intended most-use apps, and absolutely zero cruft that i didn't put there myself, then i've got a much easier to maintain system. uptime is wonderful under such circumstances.

if, however, i have no clue whatsoever what some .DLL somewhere is for, let alone if there is a good reason to have 31 different copies of it splattered all over the furniture, then i've got someone elses mess on my hands, which are expected to keep it running and clean. no thanks. uptime under such circumstances is unpleasant.

here's some linux advice i have learned to give as well as heed: take some real time to really learn something complicated, or difficult, do not avoid the things you don't understand; the very fact of its existence is evidence that -someone- understood it, so just be like them, only slower..

and never forget that the true lesson of linux is that sometimes, good things are often worth far more than the effort spent. i firmly believe this applies to a 'roll your own' policy of sysadmin, especially when it comes to running important enterprises, as well as it does any other aspect of the open source movement ..

Re:Best Distro for Enterprise: Roll Your Own.

[torpor]

1. Commercial software that is only supported in certified environments.

i know of very few truly professional, commercial vendors, whose certification standards are worth more than a properly employed sysadmin, keeping his machines running, because he knows what he's doing with the entire operating system, all the way to the most-use app. worth what they get paid for, and far, far more above ..

2. Cost (software is cheap, people time is expensive). .. and this, sir, is why america is in deep, deep, economic du-du .. software *is* cheap, and shouldn't *ever* be compared to people as a 'cost line item'. attitudes such as that are cheap!!

Re:Best Distro for Enterprise: Roll Your Own.

[Anonymous Coward]

So what are you going to do when the people who "rolled" this wonderful distro leave the company? Who do you go for support then? Oh, you don't need to worry about it anymore? You got fired for implementing an enterprise grade solution without a support contract

Re:Best Distro for Enterprise: Roll Your Own.

[drsmithy]

i know of very few truly professional, commercial vendors, whose certification standards are worth more than a properly employed sysadmin, keeping his machines running, because he knows what he's doing with the entire operating system, all the way to the most-use app. worth what they get paid for, and far, far more above ..

This is completely irrelevant. If you need $COMMERCIAL_APPLICATION and $COMMERCIAL_APPLICATION is only supported on $COMMERCIAL_DISTRO, then you have to use $COMMERCIAL_DISTRO. If *you* can't learn how to administer $COMMERCIAL_DISTRO, that's *your* failing as a professional.

No amount of complaining is going to change this, as the logic behind it is both reasonable and justified, *particularly* regarding the Linux community and its levels of fragmentation, inconsistency and NIH-syndrome.

and this, sir, is why america is in deep, deep, economic du-du .. software *is* cheap, and shouldn't *ever* be compared to people as a 'cost line item'. attitudes such as that are cheap!!

Business runs on money. The people who paid the bills aren't interested in paying much larger ones so you can get a hardon running "torpor 31337 Linux 2.1". America isn't in "deep economic [shit]" because of people trying to *save* money, it's because of your president and various other high-flyers throwing it around amongst themselves like sailors in a brothel.

There is very, very little - if any - meaningful advantage to be gained by "rolling your own distro" in the vast bulk of environments (certainly, exceptions like Google exist - but they're few and far between). If you can't learn your way around $SOME_OS then the fault is *yours*, not the developers of $SOME_OS, because they put some config files or startup scripts in a slightly different place that you prefer.

As I've said, there seems to be significant advocacy of large-scale wheel-reinvention within the OSS Community - which is rather ironic when you consider one of the OSS communities oft-purported "advantages" is a reduction in that sort of thing.

Re:Best Distro for Enterprise: Roll Your Own.

[torpor]

This is completely irrelevant. If you need $COMMERCIAL_APPLICATION and $COMMERCIAL_APPLICATION is only supported on $COMMERCIAL_DISTRO, then you have to use $COMMERCIAL_DISTRO. If *you* can't learn how to administer $COMMERCIAL_DISTRO, that's *your* failing as a professional.

Show me a commercial distro that i cannot re-build myself from scratch and i'll show you a GPL violation.

This whole "only runs on supported platform A" argument is ludicrous; if RedHat can build a system that will run Oracle, then .. so can any competent system administrator.

America isn't in "deep economic [shit]" because of people trying to *save* money, it's because of your president and various other high-flyers throwing it around amongst themselves like sailors in a brothel.

America is in stagnant economic entropy because its people refuse to take any personal responsibility for the situation, instead finding it fashionable to blame politics at every turn, ignoring the fact completely that those politicians are representative of what the people want.. and if they're not, then the 'system' has failed, then, hasn't it .. and why has it failed? Because the American people fail to take any responsibility, playing blame games when they should be working on themselves, instead ...

Re:Best Distro for Enterprise: Roll Your Own.

[wizzy403]

This whole "only runs on supported platform A" argument is ludicrous; if RedHat can build a system that will run Oracle, then .. so can any competent system administrator.

Try calling Oracle for support. If you're not running RHEL or SEL they won't talk to you. I don't care how "competent" you are, or how good your hand-rolled distro is. Once Oracle finds out you're not running on a version they have certified, they will not support you.

Don't run Oracle? Replace Oracle with WebLogic, DB2, WebSphere, OAS, SAP... If you run ANY big-name commercial software, you have to suck it up and run on a supported platform.

Re:Best Distro for Enterprise: Roll Your Own.

[drsmithy]

Show me a commercial distro that i cannot re-build myself from scratch and i'll show you a GPL violation.

Rubbish. There's nothing in the GPL to stop a commercial distro including non-GPL software, libraries or even kernel modules and not violating it.

Added to that, you (supposedly) aren't talking about "rebuilding commercial distros", or even reusing someone else's rebuilding of a commercial distro (eg:CentOS), you're talking about *rolling your own distro*.

Your original statement was "there is absolutely no reason for a company wanting to use Linux, to not have its administrators roll their own distro, with their own builds of whatever apps they need". The points you still haven't addressed are:

a) justifying the substantial cost of developing *and supporting* your own linux distribution

b) the complete lack of support for major commercial packages that doing this entails.

In 99% of cases *THERE IS NO MEANINGFUL ADVANTAGE TO ROLLING YOUR OWN LINUX DISTRIBUTION*. It's pointless. Rebuilding your own local copy of some commercial distro (eg: RHEL) is an only marginally less pointless proposition when you could simply use the existing rebuilds of said commercial distro.

Added to that, in all these "non-standard" cases you lose any hope of useful commercial software support. This second issue may not be relevant to some - probably a lot - of environments, but the cost and utter lack of benefit from the first is certainly directly relevant to the vast bulk of them.

This whole "only runs on supported platform A" argument is ludicrous; if RedHat can build a system that will run Oracle, then .. so can any competent system administrator.

*Can* is not the issue - I *can* run Oracle on FreeBSD using binary emulation. *Support* is the issue, and since Oracle have no way of knowing - or, more importantly, *testing* - someone's custom distro, they can't reasonably support it. This is why the first question you get when you call up for support is "what are you running it on".

The Linux community is not known for its fondness of commercial, closed-source software or its efforts towards retaining code and API stability to support such software. Indeed, it's rather *infamous* for its attitude towards these things.

Re:Best Distro for Enterprise: Roll Your Own.

[torpor]

a) justifying the substantial cost of developing *and supporting* your own linux distribution

Where is the substantial cost? I download tarballs for the packages I need, I set up a running system, I build the binaries, I create my own filesystem, I make a tarball of the finished running system.

This is a weeks worth of work for a competent engineer.

What you are saying is its 'expensive not to have competent engineers doing linux admin', and I'm saying: "the only reason for that is incompetent engineers".

b) the complete lack of support for major commercial packages that doing this entails.

Show me a commercial package which runs on a Linux distro that cannot be re-built from scratch by a competent engineer. Oracle? Forget it, I can get Oracle running on a custom-built system in a week. Done it enough times already to not even break out in a sweat over it.

In 99% of cases *THERE IS NO MEANINGFUL ADVANTAGE TO ROLLING YOUR OWN LINUX DISTRIBUTION*. It's pointless. Rebuilding your own local copy of some commercial distro (eg: RHEL) is an only marginally less pointless proposition when you could simply use the existing rebuilds of said commercial distro.

Any decent admin would scoff at this. Building your own means you are *fully* in control of whats going on, and not only that: you know whats going on. So many times I've seen 'admins' waste their time trying to work out the 'way RedHat does it' compared to "the way Gentoo does it", when they could be educating themselves and rolling their own ..

The Linux community is not known for its fondness of commercial, closed-source software or its efforts towards retaining code and API stability to support such software. Indeed, it's rather *infamous* for its attitude towards these things.


Its a strength of the Linux computing realm, not a weakness. Those who understand this and know how to exploit it, do. Those who don't understand it, complain about it, and get very little actually done ...

Re:Best Distro for Enterprise: Roll Your Own.

[drsmithy]

Where is the substantial cost?

[...]

This is a weeks worth of work for a competent engineer.

Right there.

I don't know what the going rate is for senior sys admins in the US, but here in Australia something around the $90k mark is right up there for a non-specialist. That's about $1700 per week. Figure on the actual cost to the employer being about 2.5 times that, or about $4200.

Your hypothetical attack of NIH-syndrome requires a full week (which I think is a substantial underestimate, but I'll run with it) of your time, which costs your employer about $4200.

And that's just *initially*. Figure a solid day's worth of work each week (on average) to acquire, compatibility- and regression-test patches and updates to the various parts of your distro.

Where is the $4200 of additional value this in-house distribution offers ? WHere is the ongoing $850/wk value from this in-house distro ?

What you are saying is its 'expensive not to have competent engineers doing linux admin', and I'm saying: "the only reason for that is incompetent engineers".

It's expensive to have good admins. It's expensive *and a waste of money* to have good admins duplicating the work of dozens of others for no meaningful benefit. Your expensive admin's time is far better spent working at *new* things that improve the company's efficiency.

IT infrastructure is a means, not an end. This is a rather important point that the vast bulk of /. denizens simply do not grasp.

Show me a commercial package which runs on a Linux distro that cannot be re-built from scratch by a competent engineer. Oracle? Forget it, I can get Oracle running on a custom-built system in a week. Done it enough times already to not even break out in a sweat over it.

You're really having trouble with this, I see.

The issue is not "getting it working", the issue is "using it in a supported fashion", because if you're not doing that you may as well not be using it - use some free alternative instead.

I struggle to understand why anyone would use Oracle in an unsupported configuration in a production environment. You're basically spending a whole bunch of money for absolutely no reason.

Any decent admin would scoff at this.

No, decent admins already know this.

Building your own means you are *fully* in control of whats going on, and not only that: you know whats going on.

You keep waving your hands around and saying this. In what meaningful way aren't you "fully in control" with existing distributions ? What *useful* things does this "additional control" buy you ?

So many times I've seen 'admins' waste their time trying to work out the 'way RedHat does it' compared to "the way Gentoo does it", when they could be educating themselves and rolling their own ..

This sort of thing is a sys admin's nightmare. Inheriting systems where cowboys like you have done everything "their way" because "it's the best way" is a frustrating and time-consuming process. First you get to play "find the application installation", then you get to play "find the configuration path", then you get to play "find the startup scripts". It's usually weeks, if not months of familiarisation before the new employee can start being productive unless the environment is trivial.

Whereas when you walk into an environment where a *good* admin has been, who has followed the distro's guidelines and rules for package installation and configuration, these headaches simply don't exist - you can start being productive nearly immediately.

Your perspective is good from a job-security perspective. It's bad from just about every other perspective.

Its a strength of the Linux computing realm, not a weakness.

Maybe from a Linux zealot's perspective.

Out in the real world, however, businesses are more concerned with getting actual work done, not buggerising around with computer systems because "it's fun".

You have yet to offer a single tangible - or even defined benefit to doing everything in-house for the typical business.

You might want to include RHEL 4 in the comparison

[crush]

It comes with Samba 3.0 for SMB/CIFS, Active Directory authentication and a Microsoft Exchange connector.

Citrix and Acrobat Reader, OpenOffice2.0 etc

Hmm.. what else... NUMA support for multi CPU (also a lot of multicore enhancements)...LVM2 for easy disk addition, removal....

RHEL4

Re:Better alternative than active directory?

[Tony Hoyle]

Unfortunately maybe not... I always use Linux server side, but have a Win2003 VMWare session running active directory. Why? It just works. It's all integrated... you add a user, set their password and kerberos and ldap work across the entire network. I don't have to *know* that it's ldap and kerberos under the hood...nor should I have to.

Sad to say there's nothing close to that for Linux yet (until we get a native version of NDS).

Farting around with ldif files and obscure samba configurations just doesn't come close.

Open Source alternatives to Microsoft Exchange

[herve76]

> Is there a better alternative?

There is a company in France called Zinside that sell or rent Server Appliances. Their servers offers affordable Open Source alternative to Microsoft Exchange.

Ref: http://zinside.com/

Red Hat?

[phenix]

You're all just mad because i didn't mention Red Hat.

Seriously though, the question really has nothing to do with the distribution, I'm concerned primarily with the infrastructure provided by Novell and Sun to support and implement the distribution.

I'd love to test these myself (and will), but nothing is more informative than real-world users who have done a real-world implementation; I'd be very surprised to hear that there are no /... readers who have tested these yet; meanwhile, please comment on these companies past performance with their products (JES, SuSE Enterprise, Red Carpet).

I'm not looking for Windows clones, or Windows compatibles, and am rather disturbed that both Novell and Sun seem to be touting their "Exchange connectors" as one of their key features.

Re:Red Hat?

[killjoe]

look at Xandros too. They have a great way to manage all your PCs, pricey but good.

Re:Red Hat?

[LnxAddct]

Seriously, check out Red Hat. I havent used Sun's product extensively, but I have used Novell's a good deal and I can honest to god tell you that Red Hat is the better choice. Read this post for someone else's view on it. If price is a concern, you'll hear alot of FUD about Red Hat being more pricey. The truth is its not, and the proof is in the pudding. You'll notice that both companies offerings are very similar in cost per year and that in some cases one company will slightly beat out the other, but in other cases roles reverse. After using the management utilities Red Hat offers as compared to Novell, I could never see myself going back to Novell regardless of cost, the price savings is just a nice side effect:)
Regards,
Steve

P.S. In case you don't know Red Hat's prices.

Re:Red Hat?

[Anonymous Coward]

How about trying your Linux apps on Solaris 10 after their next update (second quarter)? Your research can then include both "Enterprise Linux" and "Linux on an Enterprise OS."

Re:Red Hat?

[Nailer]

You're all just mad because i didn't mention Red Hat.

No, just puzzled.

Seriously though, the question really has nothing to do with the distribution, I'm concerned primarily with the infrastructure provided by Novell and Sun to support and implement the distribution.

There's around four times the amount of people working on Linux at Red Hat than working on Linux for Novell. They're marketshare of server distributions is greater than all other competitors. They have more certified software, and software tends to be certified against RHEL before SuSE.

They also don't encourage the use of ReiserFS, which has had fights with NFS, still has fights with SELinux, and terrible recovery tools.

Do you think you should include RHEL?

Re:Red Hat?

[Builder]

Ok, Red Hat have their RHN solution. They also provide a tool named Satellite which effectively provides RHN on your own site. The idea is that it will manage your entire environment from deployment, through patching, rollback, configuration management, etc. On paper and in the demos it looks like an amazing product.

Having said that, it's looking increasingly likely that this pile of shit will cost me my job. From small problems like being able to take the entire Satellite solution down with a single security scan, to half implemented features, to poor support, I'm currently fighting a rear guard action trying to justify this product where I recommended it. You can't have multiple tiers with the overview information all being visible at the top of the tree like you can with SMS, etc.

I've learnt one very valuable lesson from all of this - People who laugh at people who say no-one ever got fired for buying Microsoft, obviously haven't been on the firing line for buying something else.

Ignoring Satellite, that pretty much leaves the following:
1. Their support period - they guarantee to support the distro for 7 years now

2. Guarantee of API / ABI stability - This is great on paper, but doesn't happen. It didn't happen in RHEL3 because of the changes to Linux Threads, but a simple fix with LD_ASSUME_KERNEL was available. Still, it scared managers. I have no idea how they plan to do this in RHEL4 because of the new kernel development process with so much change happening in the 'stable' kernel.

3. Support offering - so far, IMHO, this is shit. I've had such gems as being told that I shouldn't hot-swap disks in an HP-DL380, but that I should power the machine down and replace the disks. I'm so glad I have that in writing - makes for great stories at parties :)

4. SELinux in RHEL4 - This looks good, but I think it will be a while before enterprise apps such as Oracle RAC work seamlessly with this.

5. AD integration - They are providing out of the box AD integration with RHEL4 but it's pretty primitive. It just uses Winbind and this isn't suitable for a lot of bigger oranisations with more complex AD heirachys.

Overall, I'm not impressed with Linux in the Enterprise. Having dealt with Red Hat and Novell, even though I'm a dyed in the wool Linux geek, I still feel more confident about Solaris. Even with Sun's schizophrenia :)

Guess what...

[Hakubi_Washu]

The Goatse-Man I can understand, but why haven't you put tubgirl on the second screen? It's lame this way... :-P

Anything better then PAM?

[0racle]

For authenticating against an LDAP directory or kerberos key store, is there anything other then PAM for Linux to handle it?

Re:Anything better then PAM?

[Builder]

What do you mean by better than PAM? What kind of problems are you seeing with PAM ?

Re:Better alternative than active directory?

[jedidiah]

That level of network integration is all fine and good until you start to contemplate their network security. They are the lowest of the low when it comes to this.

Of what use is an easy to use network if that network is down or is being hijacked to host warez?

just be thankful...

[Anonymous Coward]

The fat bastard kept his clothes on....

Re:OMG BASE64 JPEG HOOKUP BITCHES

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow, I am so glad I took the time to actually decode that and look at it. It has forever changed my life for the better.

Re:You might want to include RHEL 4 in the compari

[Anonymous Coward]

Odd, my version of RHEL4 doesn't contain Open Office 2.0.

Novell has done this long before AD existed

[Havokmon]

directory services, productivity (office) applications, centralized application serving, centralized document storage, groupware, and remote application installation.

What an odd question. NDS has existed almost 10 years, providing centralized appliation serving via NDS integrated applications. Look at Pegasus Mail (I assume this is what you mean). Install the app on the server, and the programs INI files are stored in the user's home directories. Users can move from PC to PC without migrating anything that's PC-specific (such as the registry). Hell, if there's any reason to get MS Source code, it would be to get the source to Outlook and rip out the registry crap.

Zenworks takes care of the rest of the desktop 'distribution', like installing and upgrading pc-centric software.

I would guess you didn't know Novell's Border manager could be thought of as IPChains based on NDS login.

It sounds like you really don't know much of what is out there, and you need to read some whitepapers at Novell.com. Or goto some tradeshows. Get exposed.

Re:Novell has done this long before AD existed

[Anonymous Coward]

"Important note to international users! If you are currently using any version of Pegasus Mail with an internationalization module (such as the German module) and wish to upgrade to Pegasus Mail v4.1, you must delete a file called PEGASUS.INI in the directory where Pegasus Mail is installed after you do the upgrade but before you run Pegasus Mail v4.1 for the first time. This disables the internationalization module and is necessary to ensure proper operation. Updated internationalization modules will be made available for v4.1 as they are completed."
http://www.pmail.com/

Re:Novell has done this long before AD existed

[marquis111]

Don't forget Groupwise.

It runs on Windows, Netware, and Linux servers. It's #3 behind Exchange and Lotus, provides document management/storage solutions, all the bell and whistles of groupware, has clients for nearly every platform, has a rich API, has been around in one form or another since the early 80's (Wordperfect Office for the DEC VAX) etc, and is very robust.

Between the acquisition of Suse and the release of ZenWorks, NLES, and other NDS-enabled tools, there isn't much you can't do with Novell's offerings.

Re:Novell has done this long before AD existed

[buchanmilne]

But, Pegasus Mail and Mercury Mail (the server-side component) don't only run on a Netwaresolution, they run just fine on Windows NT as well.

But wait, a similar solution has been around in Unix systems forever, NFS sharing the mail spool.

What was your point again?

Re:Novell has done this long before AD existed

[Havokmon]

But, Pegasus Mail and Mercury Mail (the server-side component) don't only run on a Netwaresolution, they run just fine on Windows NT as well.

"Just fine" isn't automatically integrated with AD like it is with NDS. For NT, you have to specify a username on the command line. That doesn't jive with Win98, where Windows doesn't provide easy to assign variables.

But wait, a similar solution has been aroundin Unix systems forever, NFS sharing the mail spool.
What was your point again?

If the guy doesn't even know what other directory services are available for Windows (when they've already existed for a decade), why do you think he'd be ready for a Unix desktop?

Re:Novell has done this long before AD existed

[smyle]

I'm running the Linux Groupwise client right now. It sucks.

There's no 'Notify' like in the Windows version, and you can't even see the raw SMTP headers.

Re:Novell has done this long before AD existed

[smyle]

FYI - Mercury on NetWare is no longer in development. I don't see a date on their latest release, but according to its What's New page, it now works around a problem in NetWare 4.11SP7 and 5.0SP2 - neither of which platforms are even supported by Novell for the purpose of migrating off of them.

Re:Novell has done this long before AD existed

[marquis111]

That's for sure; I've used the Linux GW client, and it's not very good. I keep telling myself that it's a decent first try and that subsequent releases will get better.

Re: not mad, but you did miss an important one

[ubiquitin]

Ubuntu.

This is the first linux distro that I've recommended to my mom, and to my brother-in-law, who has used Windows exlusively. My mother's experience was that the web browser worked without any configuration when she booted up, and my brother-in-law was happy that his wireless connection on his laptop also "just worked." Sun and Novell could learn a lot from some of the open source integration efforts, but they have the advertising budget, so we can guess who will get al of the press.

Interface and Control Issues

[Zombie Ryushu]

I think that Linux Distributors need to help get distrobutions configurations optimized.

In Linux, often, the needs of the Enterprise have to translate into the needs of the Home User. I know you likely think that the Home User doesn't need OpenLDAP, when in reality, with the amount of information they have to manage using computers, they absolutely need OpenLDAP, MySQL, Samba, and other things.

Alot of Linux "Bugs" are fixable out of the box configuration issues. I have a friend of 8 years who much to my emotional devistation, is moving from Linux to Windows XP. The major issue he had? There was always something wrong in how something was configured.

The permissions not being set right on the CD Burner, Gaim not being absle to direct connect from behind a NAT, even a well configured Shorerwall NAT.

Linux can be configure such that it does "Just Work(tm)." The issue is the distributors, even Mandrake do a hard time gauging what the real needs of the Enterprise and Home Users are.

This isn't a "Linux Software is inferiror" issue its a "Why did you set the CD Burner to 600 when it should be 660" issue. These configuration issues cause Linux to fail. Giving people the impression Linux Software "Doesn't work" Like my friend.

Linux Distributors Underestimate the needs of Home Users and Distributors of this day and age with half-hearted configurations and sometimes downn right "Wrong" information. They substitute Universal comprehensive Linux Applications like Linuxconf for Proprietary ones like thee Mandrake Control Center.

The Distributors need to start creating more dynamic and sophisticated DEFAULT CONFIGURATIONS to meet the growing dynamic needs of today's home and Enterprise Users. /etc/passwd and /etc/shadow Just don't cut it anymmore.

Re:Interface and Control Issues

[Anonymous Coward]

Why are you associating with infidels? Let the lost be lost and install Windows. We are the chosen people and will be led to salvation through Linux.

You forgot xandros!

[matt-larose]

Ok, so I work for them... BUT you should definitely look at Xandros Business edition as a desktop, and xDMS as a deployment solution.

Re:You forgot xandros!

[matt-larose]

Oi, i get marked as a troll because i work there ? Thats silly. Eitherway, check em out :

http://www.xandros.com/products/business/product s_ business.html

Version 3.0 of the business editon will be coming soon with kernel 2.6.x and lots of other goodies :D

Re:You forgot xandros!

[Anonymous Coward]

Oi, try using the a tag:
Xandros Business Products

Re:You forgot xandros!

[matt-larose]

Roger,

10-4 good buddy!

Not really important

[ebuck]

Most of these features you wish to compare are not part of a Linux operating system. Most are applications that are installed on top of a Linux operating system.

So, among the Linux distributions, all of these features are roughly eqivalent, providing that you are using the same software to meet the need for the particular feature.

Now in comparison between Linux and something else, Solaris, Windows, whatever... the ability to compare becomes much more difficult; because, you are comparing different products. In some platforms (Windows for example) the product can be part of the operating system, while in others it may require the purchace of "3rd party" software. In a few cases (Oracle, et. al.) you get lucky, you are really comparing the same product on two different platforms.

When comparing different products, you are usually comparing different solutions, and such comparisons often break down to personal preference, familiarity, and comfort factor.

As far as the base Linux operating system, a company can't go far wrong with either RedHat or SuSE. I'd pick RedHat personally, but Novell's backing of SuSE is not to be discounted. Both products support many of the solutions businesses will need, but neither will perfectly act as a Microsoft server clone.

Lack of a feature is not a defficency, when the feature itself creates more problems than it solves.

Re:Not really important

[ajs]

"Most of these features you wish to compare are not part of a Linux operating system. Most are applications that are installed on top of a Linux operating system.

So, among the Linux distributions, all of these features are roughly eqivalent, providing that you are using the same software to meet the need for the particular feature."

VERY untrue! You will find that, for example, LDAP support (and the ability to talk to AD if needed) varries widely from distribution to distribution, even though they all have roughly the same tools for talking to LDAP. The key questions are: how easy is it to set up; how well are applications, tools and libraries configured to integrate any given feature you need; are conflicting services installed by default (and/or REQUIRED);etc.

You might not think this way because you worry about <1000 end-user machines, but let me tell you, when you need to install 5,000 end-user desktops, you're not thinking, "eh, it's ok... I'll just install anything and configure to taste," you're looking for something that gets you as close to the finish-line as possible so that you can worry about the truly hard problems. Sure, you're just going to dupe hard-drives, but that doesn't get you the perfect economies of scale you might have expected. You're going to worry about things like, "oh look, this LDAP server falls over when 1000 clients ask it a question at once," and other scaling issues. You don't want to have to start at ground-zero, "why doesn't LDAP work with applications X and Y and works half the time with Z."

The above is just an example, but I think it illustrates the point.

Re:Not really important

[buchanmilne]

If you're configuring 5000 machines, and not using the tools available to do customisations like this (autoyast on SuSE, kickstart on RH, Drakx auto-installation on Mandrake), then you're wasting your time.

If you think one AD box will handle 1000 clients, think again - OpenLDAP scales better, you need to tune it some though.

Dual smooth

[spectrokid]

This is my wish for a linux distro. I work in a Windows only company where linux is slowly creeping in (embedded, specialised application servers, a small beowulf). I have ZERO chance of getting admin rights on the network or influencing the IT dept. towards Linux. What I need is a distro which not only coexists with windows, but automatically sucks its settings, copies email settings, home drive and printers. Automatically install the correct autentication module so people can log on with their active directory password. Read the windows drive letters and mount them. Note I write this from a linux box. I am trying, but it could be easier.

Re:Dual smooth

[Anonymous Coward]

Xandros does a lot of what you say. The pay "business edition" supports Domain Controller login. I'm not enough of a Windows Weenie to know if that is that same as AD or not.

There is a free version available via bittorrent here: http://www.xandros.com/torrent/xandros-301-ocd-ins tallation.zip.torrent

The free version does not do all that the business version does, and the business version does not do everything that you wished for, but it is moving in the right direction.

Re:Dual smooth

[Anonymous Coward]

Look at Xandros, it actually *is* easy to use in a Windows environment.

Re:Dual smooth

[Anonymous Coward]

while i don't follow your true intent, i'll give advice. first the morals. loading software such as gnu/linux in a windows environment without the knowledge or permission of IT can cause problems. also note there are some networks that log timed screenshots of (x)user. (active desktop, open programs/processes, etc) ok as for options, the chances of you installing an OS on your harddrive without admin rights are slim, so you will require a "live boot" option. the lovely qemu emulator can run a multitude of kernels, linux, bsd, etc. grml can be handy for this, try grml.org and look for qemu for instructions. also DSL (damnsmalllinux) offers a specific version for booting while in windows. It is very small. a popular option is to use the 50 meg ISO, qemu emulator, and other dsl files (totalling about 60 megs) and if you have a 128 meg thumb drive, you copy your wanted settings/files/shortcuts/etc. there is also a repository for dsl to install software. If you have enough ram you can load entire contents into it with the various flavors' "toram" options.

Re:Dual smooth

[ebuck]

If you can do it, so can others. Others might not be as good intentioned as you are.

What you need to do is to communicate more effectively with your IT department. It may seem nearly impossible, but it is really the easiest path to building the trust necessary to get better permissions. Eventually, they'll get to a point that they trust you enough to feel that they don't have to be looking over your shoulder. Expect to instantly lose any accumulated trust if your software interrupts (or even is suspected of interrupting) business in any way.

The other route is to ask for a "junk" box to "play" with. Sometimes it's easier to get a box on the network with the understanding that it's "Not Their Problem". If you really meet a business need, they will soon purchase a "server class" replacement and you'll be the lead in setting it up.

Re:Well

[Anonymous Coward]

"Yes. It's called Windows."

AAAAARRRRGGGHHHH.....

And one other neat thing about RH

[crush]

is that they're busy working away (especially Thomas Fitzsimons) on GNU Classpath to make sure that with that and gcj there's a full Free/Libre java environment

Filesystems

[Micah]

You would think that a serious enterprise Linux distro would support filesystems beyond ext3.

Ext3 is good and stable and all, and is fine for pretty much any general purpose use. But Reiserfs and XFS both have advantages in certain areas. Reiserfs for tons of small files (like mail spools) and XFS for monster files. Either of those could have uses in the enterprise.

So I'm a little disappointed that RHEL4 only supports ext3, and even removed Reiser from the distribution entirely. We were going to use Reiser for our new RHEL based mail server, but now it will have to be ext3.

Re:Filesystems

[chez69]

think about which filesystem has been in use the longest on linux, and has had the benefit of the most testing.

ext3 would be the answer.

Re:Filesystems

[LnxAddct]

I think if you boot the install passing it reiserfs, you can use reiserfs. Reiserfs is a great file system, but it is no where near as complete and stable as ext3 is. I use Resierfs on personal servers, but on anything critical its ext3 simply because I have seen reiserfs do some funky things to fielsystems (not to say that ext3 is perfect). It gets better and better and almost to the point that I'd recommend using it in enterprise, but Red Hat is making the right choice by leaving it out by default. They do afterall do more kernel hacking then any other entity, I think they'd know ;)
Regards,
Steve

Re:Filesystems

[Micah]

> I think if you boot the install passing it reiserfs, you can use reiserfs.

That was the case with RHEL 3 and still is with Fedora, but RHEL 4 has completely removed Reiser. You will not even see reiserfs-utils in the package list.

Other than that I suppose you're right, especially if ext3 can now handle directories with thousands of small files as well as Reiser.

Re:Filesystems

[Sunspire]

This is because Reiser doesn't support SELinux (specifically, it doesn't grok filesystem labeling) which is a major selling point of RHEL4.

Re:Filesystems

[Nailer]

You would think that a serious enterprise Linux distro would support filesystems beyond ext3.

Asides from a variety of speed bumps to Ext3 in RHEL 4 (mainly a different elevator algorithm, plus more) Red Hat supports (and has Open Sourced) GFS, which is both a SAN and on-disk filesystem.

If you need it, you pay extra for support, but if you're already using a few TB of storage, its not too expensive.

Reiser doesn't work properly with SELinux (still!) and most adminstrators think it has terrible recovery tools. In the past, its also had serious problems with NFS.

Re:Filesystems

[Anonymous Coward]

I would argue the discussion about Reiser handling tons of small files better that EXT3. I have a client with more than a few million small files in their filesystem, and performing directory operation (ie: ls) on ReiserFS took about 3-5 minutes to return in a single operation, while EXT3 returned in less than 10 seconds. Besides, with ReiserFS the discussion is not IF the filesystem has an error, but WHEN it has an error - all resulting in lost data. Something that CAN'T be considered acceptable in an ENTERPRISE distro.

Re:Filesystems

[zuesse]

1) Install kernel source

2) configure to required FS

3) compile

4) install

5) configure /etc/fstab

6) reboot

7) stop whining

Re:Filesystems

[dodobh]

ReiserFS has been known to suck under load, like the mail queue directory, or the mail spool of a busy server. It will be a few years before Reiser can be trusted with critical data.

Re:Filesystems

[Jack Auf]

Looking at some of the replies here:
> think about which filesystem has been in use the longest on linux
> I have seen reiserfs do some funky things to fielsystems
> ReiserFS has been known to suck under load

What a bunch of FUD. I've been using it in production on a dozen servers, on dB servers, web servers, and a Postfix server with over 20K users since 2000 without a single problem. You guys haven't a clue what you're talking about.

Re:Filesystems

[Micah]

8) Loose support by Red Hat, which is why we're paying for the freeking thing...

Re:You might want to include RHEL 4 in the compari

[crush]

You are correct. My bad.

Re: not mad, but you did miss an important one

[caino59]

I'll second that vote for Ubuntu.

It just works. I was a big fan (still am) of SuSE... but Ubuntu is even easier...and runs very very smoothly even on a 650 mhz duron machine with an old ati video card.

In fact, I would say it's desktop ready.

Wrong Again, n00b

[soloport]

No, "RTFM" is by far the most cross-platform application ever developed.

So, before you ask for help from one of us, please RTFM and check the bug listings, first.

:-D

Re: not mad, but you did miss an important one

[Anonymous Coward]

I banged your mom AND your brother-in-law. It was a little awkward at Thanksgiving, granted.

NDS

[Anonymous Coward]

pretty much *any* directory service is preferable to active directory. it's use and spread is it's inclusion with windows products. NDS, on the other hand is a full featured directory server, miles ahead of active directory. with evolution being ported to windows by novel, we are very close to being able to *easily* get rid of the pieces of shit microsoft keeps shoving down our throats. Firefox and Thunderbird, evolution and mozilla what ever.

then will go windows on the enterprise desktop at last, and every one will sigh a good sigh.

I wouldn't trust Sun

[walterbyrd]

I wouldn't trust Sun with anything other than Solaris running on Sun hardware. And maybe not even that.

Sun has a long history of ambivilance towards anything "not invented here." Solaris supported x86, then it didn't, now it does again. Sun supported linux, then tried to kill linux (as we know it) by supporting scoxe and claiming that Sun had the only legal version of Linux.

Sun management leaves a lot to be desired, an awful lot. When Sun ran into to trouble, the solution of Sun management was to run around like chickens with their heads cut off; changing the company's direction, and their positions, on important matters about every two months.

Also, Sun management has a snarky, immature attitude. They don't know when to shutup.

As a company, Sun is in trouble. Deep trouble. Yes, they have some great technology, so does SGI, so did DEC, and many other such companies.

With all the great well supported distros, why on earth would anybody go with Sun? Frankly, it would be my last choice.

JDS3 is SOLARIS, you ninny!

[fanatic]

For the veri first LARGE BOLD HEADLINE of the link provided:

Sun Java Desktop System, Release 3 for the Solaris 10 Operating System

Re:JDS3 is SOLARIS, you ninny!

[Anonymous Coward]

You seem to be the ninny, from the veri first SENTENCE in the post: With the new release of Novell Linux Desktop, and the upcoming release of Sun JDS3

Re:JDS3 is SOLARIS, you ninny!

[fanatic]

the post liked to a Sun page that stated it was for Solaris. Although compatilbility with linux is mentioned, I'm betting that refers to JDS2. I bet JDS3 is Solaris-only and if it isn't, JDS4 will be. Now that Sun is Microsoft's bought-and-paid-for whore, there will be no Linux floating about Sun offereings a year from now.

Re:JDS3 is SOLARIS, you ninny!

[reachbach]

"Microsoft's bought-and-paid-for whore.." And who's bought and paid for you, holy one? IBM?I can only feel sorry about the inability of some people to understand the news that they read.Such pathetic naivete.

Re:JDS3 is SOLARIS, you ninny!

[fanatic]

"Microsoft's bought-and-paid-for whore.." And who's bought and paid for you, holy one? IBM?

MS gave Sun 2 Biliion Dollars. Sun abruptly changed course on some issues, including patents, in a way that - surprise! - favors MS.

IBM has given me nothing personally. They *have* made many contributions to FOSS, which I appreciate. Sun, in spite of past contributions (the original OpenOffice was a huge break for FOSS, for example), is now moving in exactly the opposite direction and the new movement dates to the MS cash infusion. Go ahead - tell me it's a coincidence.

"Enterprise"

[nurb432]

No, it means that your base is now so large that if you dont have proper tools and do it all manually you never get your job done.

Its got nothing to do with being lazy.

Re:Better alternative than active directory?

[Anonymous Coward]

Name 3 things wrong with "their network security".

the 'upcoming release of Sun JDS3'?

[Anonymous Coward]

how about already released?

Slack

[datadriven]

Is this where i vote for Slackware?

The same issues that have been for years.

[gelfling]

Make Printing or CUPS work. Period. Don't make me fuck with it. Just make it work. And have more drivers than 10 yer old HP laserjets.

Have an installation proc that CLEARLY tells you what it requires of your disk partition and CLEARLY tells you what it's going to ignore.

Get mouse support in X to work better. Seriously, anyone who who builds a distro where the installation fails because of a fucking minor mouse configuration glitch in X should be shot.

We don't need 4 or 5 6 windows managers. We need X term, K, and a lighterweight one like fluxbox or ICEWM but not both and absolutely either put all of the same apps in all the menus or strip them all down to minimum.

Create the ability to change screen res on the fly w/o forcing a shutdown/restart of X and PLEASE indicate that settings you have already stored will not work if in fact they will not work.

Application installation apps need to have clearer discriptive lines of WHAT they do. Calling something "Monkeysoutmyass+glb.flx.x86windget.v.11.110.9.1.1 .23bmourning_becomes_electra" does not help me in the fucking least.

Put applets that manage devices in ONE PLACE. ONE. not two not three. ONE.

You need:

one office suite
one IM client for AOL/Yahoo. etc.
one IRC
one image management app
one burner
one real/quicktime/etcetera
one file manager

You need to make the appearance of the filesystem in the file manager MORE simple not LESS simple. if that means making a linear type arrangement like windows then so be it.

Make applications uninstallers obvious.

Re:The same issues that have been for years.

[grahamsz]

In the enterprise the goals are entirely different.

Installation doesn't need to be graphical, it should be as automated as humanly possible. In the proper environment you can install solaris using nothing but the network and bios.

Applications should be updated remotely (or launch from a netmount), users shouldn't be installing/uninstalling or you'll create a support nightmare.

Enterprise linux seems a whole lot closer than desktop linux, and they aren't the same.

Re:The same issues that have been for years.

[Anonymous Coward]

You need:

one office suite
one IM client for AOL/Yahoo. etc.
one IRC
one image management app
one burner
one real/quicktime/etcetera
one file manager

I think you just sold yourself on JDS3.

Re:The same issues that have been for years.

[waferhead]

All good points.

You just fairly well described Mandrake 10.1...

I just hope they stop adding acpi=ht in the default lilo setup, as that rather kills off USB on several Athlon based boards.

Unfortunately (for political reasons) you must add contrib and PLF packager sources, easiest by googling for "easy urpmi"

Re:The same issues that have been for years.

[Dunkirk]

Ah... Leave it to an id under 10,000 to put a fine point(s) on it. Loved it!

Re:The same issues that have been for years.

[WMD_88]

Make Printing or CUPS work. Period. Don't make me fuck with it. Just make it work. And have more drivers than 10 yer old HP laserjets.
My CUPS here works pretty well. I had to configure the printer in the web browser, but that's no big deal. And, my 1yr. old HP 3820 (physically broken) and my 2yr. old Lexmark Z52 both have drivers. So much for 10yr. old LaserJets. (btw those things rule. ;) The CUPS company does sell a $40 product with a lot more drivers, and there's quite a few 3rd-party CUPS drivers out there (probably the ones that end up in the commercial CUPS).

Have an installation proc that CLEARLY tells you what it requires of your disk partition and CLEARLY tells you what it's going to ignore.
Not sure what you're looking for exactly that today's graphical installers don't do.

Get mouse support in X to work better. Seriously, anyone who who builds a distro where the installation fails because of a fucking minor mouse configuration glitch in X should be shot.
Haha, when was that? Never had that displeasure. I'll go with you on that one, if it's really happened.

We don't need 4 or 5 6 windows managers. We need X term, K, and a lighterweight one like fluxbox or ICEWM but not both and absolutely either put all of the same apps in all the menus or strip them all down to minimum.
I like Gnome more, but that's offtopic. I agree that having 3 is ideal (failsafe xterm, K/G, and Fluxbox). As for the menus, yes, totally. There are menu creators for Fluxbox and probably all the others - distros should put those to use. (See Knoppix's menus)

Create the ability to change screen res on the fly w/o forcing a shutdown/restart of X and PLEASE indicate that settings you have already stored will not work if in fact they will not work.
Gnome has a program that does this. No forcing allowed, and does it as you wish.

Application installation apps need to have clearer discriptive lines of WHAT they do. Calling something "Monkeysoutmyass+glb.flx.x86windget.v.11.110.9.1.1 .23bmourning_becomes_electra" does not help me in the fucking least.
Please, the exaggeration... :D I don't know about, say, RH, but Debian and Slackware have descriptions that are on-screen when you go to select them. The actual filenames are most for technical information, always have been.

Put applets that manage devices in ONE PLACE. ONE. not two not three. ONE.
Mandrake and SuSE have this mostly done. Others do, in fact, need work.

You need:

one office suite
one IM client for AOL/Yahoo. etc.
one IRC
one image management app
one burner
one real/quicktime/etcetera
one file manager

Default installs of at least Ubuntu and Mandrake are like this. Well, Mdk 9.2. But then again, they'd be fools if they changed that.

You need to make the appearance of the filesystem in the file manager MORE simple not LESS simple. if that means making a linear type arrangement like windows then so be it.
I find that I don't touch the filesystem much, save for /home and /mnt. Everything else is accessible either through menus, or the application path.

Make applications uninstallers obvious.
This has always been right in the package management. What are you suggesting?

Re:The same issues that have been for years.

[Anonymous Coward]

"Create the ability to change screen res on the fly w/o forcing a shutdown/restart of X"

I like the linux way of doing it: ctrl-alt-minus and leave the desktop area unchanged so you can edge-scroll. That way it doesn't mess up your window arrangement - a very good thing when you have 8 packed virtual desktops.

Re:The same issues that have been for years.

[Xarius]

Create the ability to change screen res on the fly w/o forcing a shutdown/restart of X and PLEASE indicate that settings you have already stored will not work if in fact they will not work.

How's about hitting ctrl+alt+plus to zoom in (decrease res) or ctrl+alt+minux to zoom out (increase res)? As far as I know, this functionality is standard for X, and doesn't restart the server.

p.s. Use the numpad minus and plus

Re:The same issues that have been for years.

[matt-larose]

Fair warning, I do work for Xandros.

1-> There are always printers that dont work, but our printer configuration wizard is very good and easy to use. See screenshot at osdir.com

2-> Partitioning : Again, see Screenshots at osdir.com

3-> Mice usually work without issue, when they dont its usually caused by the USB hardware not being detected properly, or requiring a different ACPI setting to be enabled.

4-> We dont resize x on the fly, but we do test the settings you've selected & ask you to confirm them before they are written.

5-> Our login manager only allows kde logins, this can be changed by installing gdm, kdm or xdm from the debian mirror.

6-> With Xandros Networks applications are easy to remove, again more screenshots :D

7-> Not sure what you mean regarding the device applet.

8-> Best tool for the job is our motto. you wont find needlessly duplicated applications.

9-> FileManager More Screenshots

get the open ciruclation edition free here : xandros-301-ocd-installation.zip.torrent

Re:The same issues that have been for years.

[horza]

Make Printing or CUPS work. Period. Don't make me fuck with it. Just make it work. And have more drivers than 10 yer old HP laserjets.

Amen. I just bought a brand new HP and it worked out of the box. The first time a printer hasn't been a Linux nightmare.

We don't need 4 or 5 6 windows managers. We need X term, K, and a lighterweight one like fluxbox or ICEWM but not both and absolutely either put all of the same apps in all the menus or strip them all down to minimum.

Definately. Just use xfce4. Not bloated WMs like KDE or Gnome. Or masochist WMs like fluxbox.

You need:

one office suite

Indeed. OpenOffice. Unless you want something that loads faster in which case Abiword. Or if you need something inbetween then Ted. Though if you need more DTP then one of the Framemaker clones.

one IM client for AOL/Yahoo. etc.

Yup, gaim. Or Kopete if you use KDE.

one IRC

gaim will do this too, as will kopete. Though BitchX is pretty popular.

one image management app

Er, depends what you want to do with images.

one burner

Exactly. k3b is reputedly the best. groast if not. You may as well instally Nero if you have Windoze license.

one real/quicktime/etcetera

Well duh. mplayer. Tho xine is good to keep handly.

one file manager

Of course, ROX is what everyone should be using. Though many prefer Nautilus. And KDE users of course like Konqueror (with the fish: option I'm not surprised). Midnight Commander is prefered by many for some reason.

You need to make the appearance of the filesystem in the file manager MORE simple not LESS simple. if that means making a linear type arrangement like windows then so be it.

If Windows means having nothing but a sterile proscribed bunch of sub-standard options I'll take the Linux approach. Let Darwin do its work.

I agree that the main menu having a million different options upon install is def disingenous though.

Phillip.

Re:The same issues that have been for years.

[swv3752]

Compatible hardware such as HP or Epson printers just work. Lexmark has bare minimal compatibility on some of their inkjet printers, but the laser printers just work as well.

The install process for most Linux Distros is so easy I don't know how to make it any easier. Sounds like someone screwed up and accidentally erased thier windows partition on a dual boot. Other OS partitioning utils really suck so, something in linux like HardDrake or Disk Druid is really good.

It is not 1999 anymore. I have yet to see a problem with mouse support that is any more complex than it did not detect my wheel. hardly critical and a few clicks to correct.

For support of programs best to install both GNOME and KDE, though you can get by with just one. But even if you just install multiple DE/WM's, it does not hurt anything. Whatever the default is for your distro will load unless you choose something else.

GNOME and KDE have supported changing the screen res on the fly for some time. Plus if X setup properly you can just hit ctrl+alt+ + or - for aquick screen magnification.

If you use a gui package manager to isntall it will list the packages in a heirachy by type even if the individual package names mean nothing to you.

If having a choice between Kword and OO Writer is confusing to you, well I am not going to comment further.

Konqueror and Nautilus already closely imitate Windows explorer so I don't know what you mean here.

In Mandrake the program to remove software is labeled "Remove Software". Is that obvious enough for you?

Ask yourself....

[Zombie Ryushu]

Why is it that an Operating system, which stores 99% of its configuration data in text files, Simply have a small light overhead PHP Webmin like Web Server running immediately to configure all aspects of that OS but only intially allowing queries from 127.0.0.1 While the port is firewalled off from the outside. Not have At least a Sample working DN Suffix, default sample OUs, a Sample Kerberos KDC Ticket, RSA/DSA Key all stored and contigured from the moment I install that distro. I'm talking about LDAP, PHP, Krb5, and SSH Being allready ready out of the box. You give me a legitimate reason why not?

Re:Ask yourself....

[Anonymous Coward]

You haven't seen iManager, have you? No, figures.

Who's the ninny

[grahamsz]

JDS is a DESKTOP... it's a gnome variant.

It is not an operating system and strangely enough you can use JDS on top of both linux and solaris. Which make pretty good sense since end users probably can't tell the different between the two OSs.

Re:Who's the ninny

[fanatic]

The title of the artcicle was "Anatomy of a Successful Enterprise Linux Distro?" Maybe that is the fault of an idiot Slashdot editor rather than the intent of of the original poster. If so, I stand corrected. If not - JDS is NOT a linux distro, whatever else it is.

so basically, you all don't know..

[phenix]

good feedback guys, thanks.

-a

Re:so basically, you all don't know..

[Anonymous Coward]

You just posted one of the lamest Ask Slashdot questions for some time, namely, "Please tell me which Distro is perfect for me because I can't be bothered to try them out myself".

And now you're insulting everyone that wasted their time replying?

You are clearly swallowing such vast amounts of semen on a daily basis that the excessive protein intake is causing you brain damage. The best solution is for you to obtain a flask of liquid nitrogen big enough to suspend your entire scrotum in. This won't make you any less of a cocksucker, but it will stop you spreading the genes to future generations.

In summary: twat.

stick with the borg

[spyrochaete]

I just participated in a test pitting Win2k3 vs Red Hat ES3 vs SuSE Enterprise 9. The test was for useability and functionality.

Windows came out on top by a mile. These 2 distros are nowhere near a mature state. The included (gui) tools are atrocious, incomplete, and often break the service so bad that it's easier to reinstall than to repair. Yes, functionality can be established from the command-line, but if you could do that you wouldn't be buying a packaged enterprise distro.

Directory services are a nightmare to configure in linux, and these 2 distros are certainly no exception. Neither distro comes with a gui tool or scripted install procedure, and the testers and I couldn't figure out how to get kerberos and LDAP to work together. Novell's tech support was useless - they said they support installing the service (from RPMs) but not configuring them. The manuals in both distros were totally useless.

The lack of centralized management tools in linux was the biggest downfall. The sysadmin has a LOT of work to do writing scripts and delegating authority to subordinate admins. What the distros really need is a management console like AD/MMC to administrate objects, groups, security policies, profiles, permissions, etc etc etc.

Stay away from enterprise linux products for now. Roll your own. There's no substitute for know-how.

Re:stick with the borg

[dodobh]

Perhaps you need isconf? http://www.infrastructures.org

No on both counts

[Anonymous Coward]

Currently JDS3 is only available on Solaris. And given the appalling choice of Solaris drivers for non-Sun hardware I'd expect
plenty of people would be able to tell the difference.

Re:No on both counts

[grahamsz]

But JDS2 is available on Linux and i'm sure that JDS3 will be out shortly.

I'm not sure how the driver question is even an issue. Perhaps for home users tinkering with solaris, but if you are buying thousands of desktops for an enterprise deployment then you buy hardware that works with the OS you want to use.

Re:You might want to include RHEL 4 in the compari

[LnxAddct]

Mod parent up. Every word is true, and Red Hat is more involved with the kernel then any other entity so why wouldnt you choose the company that is most familiar with it? In addition to that, they do most of the work in Gnome as well (hell they even host gnome's website), so everything usually just seems to click together. I am very pleased with Red Hat and after trying the competition, I see why they are the market leader.
Regards,
Steve

Re: Anatomy of a Successful Enterprise Linux Distr

[alancdavis]

The poster commenting re: qualified support matrices is correct, but I'd go further.

I'm migrating 40+ servers from Tru64 UNIX to Linux to support Oracle, Oracle Apps, WebLogic, Apache, ftp/sftp, Legacy data interchange, printing, fileserver, mail, etc.

I need (in no particular order) stable SAN connectivity w/ NSPOF, data and bare-metal backups w/ short time to recover, integration w/ 24x7 monitoring, qualified support from multiple vendors (no custom/3rd party drivers or kernel build), lights-out management capability, server cloning and deployment, on-line extendable filesystems w/ good performance into the terabyte file system range, cluster filesystem for both data and OS.

I have /all/ of this, out of the box, with Tru64.

I'm still struggling, after 14 months into the RH3 deployments, to get these features.

It only takes three commands

[imtheguru]

it only takes three commands to install Gentoo

cfdisk /dev/hda && mkfs.xfs /dev/hda1 && mount /dev/hda1 /mnt/gentoo/ && chroot /mnt/gentoo/ && env-update && . /etc/profile && emerge sync && cd /usr/portage && scripts/bootsrap.sh && emerge system && emerge vim && vi /etc/fstab && emerge gentoo-dev-sources && cd /usr/src/linux && make menuconfig && make install modules_install && emerge gnome mozilla-firefox openoffice && emerge grub && cp /boot/grub/grub.conf.sample /boot/grub/grub.conf && vi /boot/grub/grub.conf && grub && init 6

that's the first one

Source Bash.org

Re:It only takes three commands

[Anonymous Coward]

Too bad it's wrong ... && chroot /mnt/gentoo/ && ...

chroot starts a new shell, so anything after the && won't get executed until you exit the chroot shell. It won't do much good then, as it needs to be executed within the chroot environment.

Re:It only takes three commands

[Anonymous Coward]

So thats two commands then.

Re:Better alternative than active directory?

[Anonymous Coward]

I think there's been a GNU/Linux-native NDS implementation for a while now:

Re:You might want to include RHEL 4 in the compari

[Anonymous Coward]

Why is having Acrobat Reader a selling point for a distro?! Adding it to any mainstream OS is trivial.

As a side note, I find xpdf to be much faster and more stable (compared to acroread 5 on FC2).

No one ever adds OS X to the comparison

[sjmikeh]

Apple seems to have it all figured out as far as enterprise unix is concerned. I wish a linux vendor looked at what makes OSX work visually and (without blatenly copying) at least implement whats going on. A single well thought out control panel to configure the computer and user environment. Menus using universal sets of words to describe thing instead of the thrown together menus currently used. Stuff that just works. And for godsakes get rid of 90 percent of the stuff the average home user does not need. There is way to much stuff in all the linux distros. Install a base User OS. Don't give them a million options. Don't let them choose to install all the developer stuff. The average person sees the ability to add more stuff and thinks its there I must need it. Give them a good base install. and make them do something else to get more stuff.
The desktop needs
One web browser, one office suite, one email program. Thats it. The computer should detect and print to most USB printers, not require the user to setup or turn on cups....

Again look at apple. What makes there products strong. Its there ability to get rid of all the crap and deliver what most people need. As long as every linux distro tries to make hackers and geeks happy there distros will never serve users.

Re:No one ever adds OS X to the comparison

[Frumious Wombat]

Look at Apple *AFTER* 10.4.

I'm running it for a cluster. LDAP was easy to set up, Kerberos a nightmare (the "you haven't connected to a domain" after you really have was a nice touch), and NFS is pretty doggy compared with AFP, while AFP makes SSH users go through gyrations to get their home directories.

Now, for what I do with it (crunch numbers and provide an office worth of desktop connectivity), it's a good system. If I were running a small web-farm, or moderate sized office, then, yes, i'd recommend it in a minute. It was leaps and bounds ahead of setting up 2003Server for the same purposes. However, in any kind of large enterprise, it needs some time to mature, or you're going to spend as much time becoming proficient in the OS-X/Next way of doing things as you would becoming a RHCE/HP-UX/AIX-jock.
Quite seriously, the question should be, do you want Linux for particular support reasons (pricing, software available, Linux-jocks in good supply, cheap hardware), or should you be looking at a more mature Unix, with more aggressive vendor-support? I know people who work at Enterprise-level sites, and they swear by HP-UX/Solaris/AIX.

Re:No one ever adds OS X to the comparison

[dingman]

Apple seems to have it all figured out as far as enterprise unix is concerned.

No operating system that makes me re-boot a server for ~80% of the updates they push out is really enterprise-ready. And as of last June, they thought I was crazy to object to the practice.

No, I really can't tolerate a couple minutes of downtime on many of my servers at all. It's OK for departmental/workgroup servers as long as I'm willing to come in after hours or on the weekend for every stinking update. (I'd prefer not to.) But I work for a 24*7*365 enterprise. There are things that just can't have downtime, and Apple can't do that yet. If they keep their current attitude, they never will.

On the other hand, if XSan turns out to be any good, and they follow up with some good failover and load-balancing tools, then they would start to be a contender for my real heavy-weight important deployments.

I do think they make a nice desktop for most users, though. Even if I do tend to use my Debian machine for 99% of my work, and the Mac for about .7%. (There's a windows box, too, for Webex and accounting software.)

Support?

[i.r.id10t]

I would think that a big deal breaker is support. Not support for various technologies, or applications/serivces, or hardware, but the "who do you call when it goes tits up" kind.

+1 Homosexual

[Anonymous Coward]

My new iFruit is just FAAABULOUS!

You can deploy Macs, and make your corporation FAAABULOUS too!

Re:You might want to include RHEL 4 in the compari

[rsax]

Personally I'm going to stay away from RHEL4 for atleast a couple of months. It was just released so give it time to stabilize... yes I know it's considered enterprise software but it's better to be safe than sorry. Having SELinux enabled might cause headaches right now. I'm not saying don't use it, it's definitely worth the extra effort for added security, but take your time. In any case, I tried installing Novell eDirectory and GroupWise on RHEL4 ES and it bombed so I guess I will have to wait until Novell certifies it first.

I think those are the "wannabees".

[khasim]

...their personal identity and self-esteem heavily reliant on the elitism associated with the communities surrounding OSS. The natural urge is to bar membership to this community to perpetuate the elitism, greatly harming new user adoption.

It's just software.

The people you are describing are generally known as "wannabees". They want to be elite, but they aren't secure enough in their knowledge or skills and react to questions as if they were threats.

You can see them most anywhere. They're usually the ones with the strongest opinions, also.

They can pretend to be knowledgeable and skilled, but they'd rather spend time boasting and belittling others than actually learning and doing.

The good news is that such individuals do not matter much in overall adoption rates. If someone is looking to use Linux, having a wannabee laugh at his questions isn't going to change his mind. It might mean that he won't go back to that site, depending upon the signal to noise ratio and whether he did get a good answer to his question.

BreastsOS

[gardyloo]

This is where you vote for Breasts, only there doesn't seem to be an Enterprise edition out yet.

Re:BreastsOS

[datadriven]

Wouldn't that take 2 votes?

Re:Better alternative than active directory?

[lukehatpadl]

There is XAD.

You forgot one

[drsmithy]

I am interested in their ease of management/deployment in these areas: directory services, productivity (office) applications, centralized application serving, centralized document storage, groupware, and remote application installation.

You forgot centralised configuration management - eg: Active Directory's Group Policy.

Re: not mad, but you did miss an important one

[drinkypoo]

When ubuntu can actually boot on my laptop or either of my desktops, I'll be a little more interested. My laptop is a thinkpad A21p. My desktops use decent chipsets. Morphix boots on all three.

Windows technologies like Active Directory?

[dbIII]

It's good to know that LDAP is a Microsoft technology - even if others developed it years before Microsoft used it in Active Directory.

FUCK OFF

[Anonymous Coward]

so you get a little flack from the posters (rightfully so) for not downloading free trials like any fucktard would have, and you come back with snarky comments. truly you are a moron.

Familiarity and contempt

[cthulhu11]

Is the word "distribution" really that hard to type?

Huh??! I thought Enterprise was cancelled...

[macraig]

.. but now Enterprise will live on in Linux? Does this mean that I'll have to download distro updates from Paramount every Friday night from now on?

I'll be here the rest of the decade, folks.

You don't trust Sun??

[reachbach]

Stop the Sun flaming,wise guy. If you can't add anything of value to the main topic (which is just a technical comparison of the middleware suites & the desktops), don't waste real estate by repeating the favorite slashdot past time of flaming Sun. And as far as "sun is a company in trouble" is concerned, looks like you don't read anything on the web other than slashdot. Leap out of your dark,confined well and you'll see where Sun's headed. As for their toplines & profits, only time will tell how soon they can make a complete turnaround. Of course, you're welcome to continue flaming if you don't have anything else to do & plenty of time to kill.

Mandrake since 9.1 (NT4) and 10.0 (AD)

[buchanmilne]

Many users will post about distributions most of us consider to be "closed" and that they have these features, but Mandrake has supported authentication to Windows domains since 9.1 (for NT4 domains) and 10.0 (for AD domains).

BUZZWORD ALERT

[evil_one666]

For the love of god, please stop using meaningless phrases that include 'enterprise'

'Enterprise infrastructure' has no meaning. Yes, it has possible meaning; No, it is not well defined enough to use in this context.

This language is invented by salesmen to sell expensive stuff to pointy haired bosses. We should not use this language here.

Re: Anatomy of a Successful Enterprise Linux Distr

[laptop006]

>stable SAN connectivity w/ NSPOF
Works, if you use the right hardware.

>data and bare-metal backups w/ short time to recover
SAN issue? Veritas?

>integration w/ 24x7 monitoring
Don't know your monitoring system, but we monitor our own servers and those of many clients 24x7x365.25 without issue, mostly linux (including the boxes doing the monitoring)

>qualified support from multiple vendors (no custom/3rd party drivers or kernel build)
Huh? you don't have that with Tru64, you have HP and um well, apologists for HP.

>lights-out management capability
Any quality x86 server hardware has this.

>server cloning and deployment
Somewhat linked to the previous, and something that's very easy to set up. (We set ours up in ~ 1 day using the new debian installer, no it doesn't go to the level you say, but that's becuase we don't want it to)

>on-line extendable filesystems w/ good performance into the terabyte file system range
XFS -- I'd use nothing else even CLOSE to that size.

>cluster filesystem for both data and OS.
CXFS($ from SGI) or GFS(GPL)

From the package list of Mandrake 10.2

[leonbrooks]

(still in Cooker, so this may not ship, but it is in the "main" repository):

kernel-xbox-2.6.11.2mdk-1-1mdk

Great for cheap thin clients. 733MHz P3 CPU, 64MB RAM, 10GB HDD, DVD reader, ethernet, 4xUSB, drives some cheap 17" LCD screens direct (SyncOnGreen).

Plus a lot of the stuff mentioned by you, plus GCC 4.

Re:Better alternative than active directory?

[jedidiah]

Blaster, Netsky, Slammer.