Five Reasons Not to Use Linux

UltimaGuy writes "Linux-watch has a humorous article about the top 5 reasons for not using Linux. It does provoke some thought aside from bringing a smile to our lips :)"

Comments

Apache

[RAMMS EIN]

``Take a look at Apache. A server widely acclaimed for its up-time, and yet you can't even change a single setting without restarting the server!'' /etc/init.d/apache reload

Reloads the configuration without taking the server down. Many Unix daemons do this when you send them a SIGHUP.

Re:Such a sacarstic moron

[mengel]

I saw it.

Just to pick one out-and-out lie from the general confusion of your posting:

Excuse me, but the open-source community wrote Apache from standards they didn't write.

Well, lets see, Apache was based on NCSA httpd, which was a rewrite of the original www consortium httpd, which was written originally by Tim Berners-Lee. (all of which were open source). Now lets look at the original HTTP protocol standard -- what do you know, the authors are Tim Berners-Lee, and R. Fielding, from UC Uvine. And look at the Apache core team -- Roy Fielding!

So, in fact, the open source folks who wrote Apache and its predecesors are the folks who wrote the standards.

So as I posted on your site, the above statment is downright slanderous, and you should retract it.

Re:Anecdote time

[Anonymous Coward]

Here is an anecdote. From this past weekend, in fact.

I have been a MS programmer for 15 years. I have been using Linux consistantly during the last several years - I have a whole stack of distro CDs dating all the way back to redhat 5.2. So I am no n00b, but I am still a Windows guy by my day job.

My small team of developers has been in need some issue tracking software, so I decided to get Bugzilla up and running on a fresh Linux install for the team to look at on Monday. I gave myself the whole weekend to get it done. I chose Slackware 10.1 as my distro. I went though the usual partition, choose packages, etc. with no problem. I chose to install mysql and apache (for Bugzilla) as part of the initial OS install.

First boot, the mysql daemon dies immediately and unexplainedly. Hmmm. Ok, I decided to get X running and then I would deal with that later.

GNOME comes up, CRASH, the configuration manager is puking. I dig through some logs, tweak, reapeat. I do this a dozen times over with no luck fixing the problem.

XFCE is my favorite "small footprint" window manager anyway, so I give up on GNOME and copy the XFCE startup script file over. XFCE comes up fine. Phew!

Ok, back to mysql. Nothing really indicative in the logs, but I find some "post install" instructions on the web so lets try those. Modify some config files, run some scripts, still dies with the same error. Tweak, try, fail, repeat. Then I dig with Google some more help info in the newsgroups. I modify more config settings, run the scripts again, repeat, finally the daemon is up and running.

Now, I want to get the graphical admin app running on the new server so that I can prep the users and permissions it for the bugzilla install. So I download the rpms from mysql.org and install them. Hmm, lots of dependancy errors. I dig through the docs and find a mention to use --nodeps and --force. This makes no sense to me, why have dependancies if you are going to blow past them? But I go ahead and it appears to install just fine.

I run the graphical admin app and it comes up. Then I try to add a user and the admin app dies when I try save the user. Hmmm. I look at the error message. I look at the logs. I search online for help. Tweak, run, die, repeat.

At this point I have wasted most of my free weekend futzing around. I decide to install onto Windows Server 2003 just to "git 'r done" before Monday. The mysql graphical install goes without a hitch, enter my port and root password info in to the nice dialogs, and the service starts right up. Same with the apache install. Same with the Perl install.

The Bugzilla install takes a little more time. There is one config file to modify, some Perl modules to install, some scripts to run. 2 hours later I am looking at Bugzilla in my browser. That was after 10 hours on Linux and I didn't finish step one - the mysql install.

The Point: In the Linux vs MS argument, it aint just about being willing to edit config files with an editor, read man pages, dig aroung online, and get your fingers a little dirty. I gave this little project my whole weekend in order to give Linux a chance. How many more hours should I have given it? 10 hours? 20 hours? This was my own time, but had I been on company time our that of Windows 2003 would have just paid for itself.

This was one anecdote, but I have been through this type of things before with Linux. Sometimes things work on Linux "out of the box", and sometimes they dont. Getting my video card drivers to work was a chore. Getting Open Office to create a document with trashing the formatting unexplainedly was a chore. Sigh.