LinuxCare Resurfaces as Linux Device Vendor

An anonymous reader submits "LinuxCare, famous employer of Rasmus, Tridge, and others during the go-go-90's Linux start-up days, has resurfaced as a Linux device vendor. The company, now known as Levanta, is shipping its first hardware product, which it says is the 'world's first Linux management appliance.' At nearly $8K, it's pretty expensive, but the Integra M does appear to bring some of the cool sysadmin features long available on the Windows side over to Linux IT types."

Comments

What sunk Linuxcare

[Anonymous Coward]

So, it was the 90ies, and things did get out of hand, but the basic idea of doing Linux services - tech support, consulting, training - was a good one, and many companies continue to pursue these businesses quite successfully. The things that really sunk that company were two of the nitwits that they hired:

Fernand Serrat - CEO

Doug Nassaur - CIO

The second one managed to spend a metric shitload of money on equipment that there were no plans to even use, and, indeed, if you follow his career around, you see him getting turfed out of pretty much everywhere he goes. The sad thing is that, he comes in at such a high level that instead of just being fired like you or I, he gets a big severance package, and no one says anything bad about him anywhere.

Re:What sunk Linuxcare

[che.kai-jei]

http://www.advogato.org/proj/DougNassaurWatch/

intersting reading

Re:The automation of system administration

[Bandraginus]

Agreed. Techies don't hold the purse strings, and they should be well aware by now that "coolness" factor simply doesn't cut it with PHBs.

Mind you, that cost is still well under the cut-off point at which most level 3 managers can sign off on, so there's a chance that it might gain some market traction.

Still, no matter how bad the material on the website is, it's still fantastic seeing these kinds of products coming out. Good to see these guys haven't given up.

Fair Chance?

[one_who_uses_unix]

It is curious to me to see the frequency that the Linux/Unix enthusiasts complain about the lack of robust/commercial offerings of Linux hosted/compatible systems in various areas compared to those that are Windows hosted/compatible.

We should be supportive of companies and individuals that are attempting to establish a broader base of Linux/Unix hosted/compatible systems since it can only benefit the industry.

If a system truly is a piece of crap, then many will hopefully learn from the experience - even folks not part of the effort. Many great products started as a POS and grew into respectable offerings.

Although I understand people taking the opportunity to thrash this system (it can be fun), I wish that the general attitude of the vocal members of the community was just a little more positive.

I've downloaded the "papers" --- also marketing

[baldvin]

I am really interested, since I've spent the last two years of my life for creating a sysadmin tool, i hope much better than fai, but sort of similar.

Now they come, and create this buzz with only marketing bullshit on their site. I have filled in the form with all my data (curios that they did not ask my mothers maiden name...), and got the chance to download the whitepapers with such a huge amount of marketing stuff in it, that I still don't know how this system works.

So:
- I don't care about cost graphicons
- I don't care about stories
- I don't care about anything, but

could anybody please tell me what the architecture is, what is the way it installs/maintains servers, so how does it work?

porting to appliance form factor

[dan the person]

"Dennis says that porting the Levanta software to an appliance form-factor was "a very smooth operation," which he credits to the maturity of Levanta software as a standalone product.

In related news Microsoft reports they have successfully ported Windows from Intel Desktop ATX platform to VIAs mini-ITX platform