Sun Puts its Weight Behind Ubuntu Linux

fak3r writes "Sun today announced that they are putting their weight behind Ubuntu Linux. While Ubuntu has been many people's desktop Linux choice for a few years now, with its Debian heritage, you can see what kind of server it could be. Slap that on the new Sun 1Us with the new Niagra T1's CPU, the one that'll have four, six or eight cores each, and go to town."

Comments

With friends like these...

[SWroclawski]

As a very happy Ubuntu user, I'm scared.

But it could be worse, it could be "Ubuntu, supported by SGI"

Re:With friends like these...

[Penguinisto]

Oh, c'mon - it won't be that bad... you'll just have to get your files from hard drives named "/dev/rdsk/c0t0sUpercalifragilistic" and things like that.

At least you won't have to hunt down and install j2se. /P

Re:With friends like these...

[KingArthur10]

Luckily, in Ubuntu, J2RE et al are available via the multiverse. Thank you sun for making a compatible liscense.

Re:With friends like these...

[tyrr]

"/dev/rdsk/c0t0sUpercalifragilistic" is actually a SysV4 standard. HP or IBM would do the same.

Re:With friends like these...

[Builder]

I sooooo wish Linux had that naming scheme.

When you're automatically rebuilding a Linux box, and you only want to re-install the OS and not blow away the data on the SAN, this would be a godsend.

At the moment, we install Linux on /dev/sda which is a mirrored disk presented by the RAID controller. No worries if you have no SAN connection. But when your san disks are presented as /dev/sdx as well, and there is no guarantee that sda is the internal hard disk, having a controller / target naming scheme makes a lot more sense.

would Sun put all their weight behind apt-get?

[ubiquitin]

Does this mean that Sun is endorsing the Debian package management system over RPM-based approaches? IMNSHO, it's high-time that an enterprise IT vendor saw value in dpkg.

Re:would Sun put all their weight behind apt-get?

[Ant P.]

Don't forget Sun thinks they're competing against Red Hat. RPM would be the last package system they'd want their name behind.

Re:would Sun put all their weight behind apt-get?

[Neil Watson]

I do not believe that the Solaris packaging tools handle dependancies well. It is a mostly manual process.

Re:would Sun put all their weight behind apt-get?

[chicagotypewriter]

Sun has denied that their move to back Ubuntu is a move against Red Hat, or SuSE. Whether or not that is believable is another question, but thats just what they have said.

Re:would Sun put all their weight behind apt-get?

[Knuckles]

The Debian package repositories ;)

Re:would Sun put all their weight behind apt-get?

[digidave]

Non-Debian users will think you're joking, but the truth is that Debian packages are several orders of magnitude better than any other distro's. Slackware may come closest. I think the difference is that Debian packages feel like they've been made by people who love Debian and love the software they're packaging for Debian. There are no bad packages in Debian stable and packages don't do anything they're not supposed to do, like break compatibility.

Debian is the only OS I use in which I feel confident upgrading a production server without extensive testing. 100 packages might need upgrading, but I know it will work and won't break anything.

Re:would Sun put all their weight behind apt-get?

[00lmz]

The real reason for choosing Ubuntu/Debian would be the Debian Policy, not any packaging format. A quote from the linked page:

People often say how they came to Debian because of apt-get, or that apt is the killer app for Debian. But apt-get is not what makes the experience so great: apt-get is a feature readily reproduced (and, in my opinion, never equalled), by other distributions -- call it urpmi, apt4rpm, yum, or what have you. The differentiating factor is Debian policy, and the stringent package format QA process (look at things like apt-listchanges, apt-list-bugs, dpkg-builddeps, pbuilder, pbuilder-uml -- none of which could be implemented so readily lacking a policy (imagine listchangelog without a robust changelog format)). It is really really easy to install software on a Debian box.

This resembles cargo cult religions: that is, apt-get is the visible aspect of Debian's policy system, the same way that cargo-cult practices saw runways and other characteristics as the source of western goods ("cargo"), and built their own replicas, complete with fake wooden headphones for control towers. In the same way, other distributions have created the shallow visible aspect of Debian's packaging infrastructure, without addressing the deep issues of policy. Worse: the conflicts of technical requirements and marketing / economic imperatives often work at cross purposes. Less perversely for most GNU/Linux distros than for proprietary software, but still clearly present.

there's a typo ;)

[Janek Kozicki]

it's Niagara T1 CPU, not Niagra.

Debian

[Anonymous Coward]

So why wouldn't you just use Debian if you want a server linux distro? What will Ubuntu provide over Debian for a server?

Re:Debian

[/ASCII]

Actual releases?

(Though I hope Etch will be the start of a new trend there)

Re:Debian

[towsonu2003]

So why wouldn't you just use Debian if you want a server linux distro? What will Ubuntu provide over Debian for a server?

Latest packages and more features? or maybe better hardware recognition? or both?

Re:Debian

[aug24]

A GUI, so that MSCEs can use it.

Justin.

Re:Debian

[MoogMan]

What will Ubuntu provide over Debian for a server?

Commercial Support.

Re:Debian

[swillden]

I use Ubuntu as the server for the LAN in my house. I have to say it has one very big advantage over Debian. It's stupid easy to install.

Ubuntu uses Debian's installer, so Debian is *exactly* as easy to install as Ubuntu. Specifically, Ubuntu uses the new installer that Debian released with sarge. I suspect your previous experience with installing Debian predated sarge.

Ubuntu actually makes a really terrific server, no disadvantages when compared with plain Debian.

The disadvantages of Ubuntu as compared to Debian are (1) Debian stable is more thoroughly tested and therefore more reliable and (2) Debian has a much larger package repository than Ubuntu. Of course, if you enable Ubuntu's multiverse repository, you get all of the Debian packages as well, but they haven't been tested with the Ubuntu system, exacerbating (1).

That said, Ubuntu is a perfectly reasonable choice for a server OS, IMO. I prefer Debian, but mostly because I'm already extremely comfortable with it.

How far we've come...

[nganju]

Remember this quote from Scott Mcnealy a few years back?

Question

[Kadin2048]

I use Ubuntu (actually Kubuntu) on my Linux desktop machine, but I use straight Debian on my headless server.

Can anyone tell me why a person would want to use Ubuntu on a server, as opposed to just using Debian?

It seems to me that most of the advantages of Ubuntu are on the GUI side of things, and this is the way that most of the software that's different for Ubuntu than Debian is aimed towards. Most of the server-type packages you'd probably be pulling from the Debian repositories anyway, so there's not much advantage and some things might not work, because Ubuntu doesn't follow the "Debian way" in everything (there are some file locations and paths that are different, I believe). Plus Debian has always seemed a bit better documented, although I admit that's arguable.

I'm glad to see Sun put its weight behind a Debian-based distro, but I don't quite get why Ubuntu and not just Debian, especially if it's for servers. The only reason I can think is that they don't want to get too close to Debian's leadership and philosophy, and find Ubuntu more palatable from a PR and customer-relations perspective. Still, it seems like an odd choice.

Re:Question

[deque_alpha]

Can anyone tell me why a person would want to use Ubuntu on a server, as opposed to just using Debian?

I've been a big fan of Debian since I first started using Linux 10 years ago. I really respect their attitudes towards a lot of things, and yet, I hardly ever use it. There a couple factors behind this, most notably their tradtionally huge lag behind current development, and their adherence to "the Debian way" even if it is less convenient for no good technical reason. One example of this is lacking a "local" startup file by default. It is relatively trivial to add one, but there's no reason not to have a template for that in place out of the box, like every other distro I have ever worked with. For me, the Debian experience is sort of a death of 1000 cuts where there are no major deal breakers, but a lot of minor annoyances. For a lot of people, this is offset by the other things they do well, but for even more people, it is not. Ubuntu takes all the stuff that Debian does right, and then removes a lot of the painful little annoyances. That's a big part of the reason that I run Ubuntu on servers as well as desktops. MAybe a lot of this will be fixed by the new leadership that Debian has, but only time will tell. I know a lot of people don't see these as problems to be fixed, but I think those people are the typical "vocal minority" that is so common in the FOSS world. The users don't always know best, but if they are complaining, it's a good sign that a change should at least be seriously considered. Hanging onto dogma is not good just for its own sake, there have to be sound technical or (sometimes) philosophical reasons behind it.

I also run a highly heterogenous environment, and I find it easier to have everything I touch be either completely the same or totally different. Having a number of machines that behave nearly the same is harder for me because of the "close but not quite"-ness of it. Moving between a Fedora machine and an Ubuntu machine is easier than moving from a Debian and an Ubuntu. There's a clearer differentiation, which makes it easier to "change gears". It's like moving between different versions of windows, things are close enough you expect them to be the same, but different enough to be really annoying. This is probably just me though.

So, yeah, that's why. For me anyway.

Re:Question

[digidave]

Ubuntu's predictable release cycle and newer software repositories might benefit a lot of businesses. For instance, PHP 5 is not available in Debian stable, but is in Ubuntu Breezy and Dapper. Sure, you can use one of several PHP 5 packages available for Debian stable or use the version from the unstable repository, but then you're compromising a lot of what makes Debian so great... package stability and quality.

I would argue that Debian stable packages are better than Ubuntu packages, but not always once you get outside of the stable repositories. Ubuntu can stabilize newer packages faster.

Must be new math or a time warp

[El Cubano]

While Ubuntu has been many people's desktop Linux choice for a few years now,

I find it interesting that a distro only first released slightly over 18 months ago [1] [2], could be "many people's desktop Linux choice for a few years now" (emphasis added).

Re:Must be new math or a time warp

[Ramses0]

Dude, chill out- the're internet years... sheesh.

--Robert

Re:Must be new math or a time warp

[muellerr1]

That's like, 6 years in Internet Time.

What does this mean for Oracle?

[Billosaur]

"The odds are quite good that we will be aggressively supporting the work that Ubuntu is doing," Schwartz told reporters. "In the hardware we ship, I don't want to be Solaris only, because then I will just define my market to be smaller than the opportunity...I think you should expect to see more of the relationship, and stay tuned."

So if Ubuntu is going to bed with Sun, does this leave Oracle out in the cold? Will they now be forced to look to Red Hat (which is clearly not interested) or Novell (which is probably not the best fit) instead? The Linux-go-round continues to spin.

OSS is being quite the slut lately!

[Anonymous Coward]

Yesterday: Microsoft flirts with open source
Today: Sun flirts with Ubuntu (yahoo article title)

Re:OSS is being quite the slut lately!

[quakeroatz]

Flirts? Ha! Sun has made it to fourth base with Ubuntu.

"Sun Puts its Weight Behind Ubuntu Linux", that has to be awkward.

Nothing builds character...

[GillBates0]

...like lugging some of Sun's monstrosities around on one's back. I have only the Sunblade 100's and their heavy-duty CRT monitors to thank for, for my markedly improved resilience and my super-sturdy balls.

This is a good thing for Ubuntu and Open source.

Re:Server?

[Poppler]

Ubuntu on a server? So what? Ubuntu ...is nothing special as a server.

Well, there is a lot of buzz around Ubuntu, and Sun is trying to capitalize on it.
That aside, there's nothing wrong with running Ubuntu on a server. Do a "server" install to avoid all the bloat, and you have a stable Debian system with up to date software.

Hope you're not in a hurry

[Analogy Man]

If you are going to town with the Niagara chip I hope your application is appropriate for it. If you need to chew up threads...great. If you have a single threaded application you will have 2X the response time of a Sunfire v440 which is hardly a FAST machine (think medium duty truck). If you are doing any floating point processing the FPU is shared across the 32 processors (8 cores / 4 threads) the application sees.

Re:Server?

[arachnoprobe]

Nope, you are wrong. Ubuntu/Canonical offers 5 years of support for "Dapper Drake" as a server. Only because you don't consider it at Desktop OS (like lots of other people, including me) it is not unusable on a server.

Re:Server?

[arachnoprobe]

... Only because you consider ...

Use the Preview Button! Check those URLs!

Java support for Debian at last?

[metamatic]

Perhaps we'll see a repository for Java .debs at last, eh?

Re:Java support for Debian at last?

[kbmccarty]

Perhaps we'll see a repository for Java .debs at last, eh?

You must have missed the big news: official packages of Sun Java .debs were uploaded into Debian's non-free archive yesterday.

The announcement

Link to the page for the "source" package (I put "source" in quotes since it actually contains tarballs of the binaries, but you can obtain real source code in the sun-java5-source binary Debian package.)

License and FAQ about the license under which these packages are made available (note in particular that it permits sublicensing for derived distributions).

Weight?

[fm6]

All I see is a lot of vague statements about how cool Ubuntu is and how Schwarz would like to do stuff with it. That's a long way from "putting weight behind Ubuntu". The headline of TFA is more accurate: Sun is flirting with Ubuntu. Or more accurately, their new CEO is — and I'm not convinced he'll be around long enough to push through that kind of strategy.

Re:Server?

[Cal Paterson]

Do a "server" install to avoid all the bloat, and you have a stable Debian system with up to date software.

No, you don't. You have the Ubuntu repository without X. The Ubuntu releases aren't particular stable; if you look at the process, you'll see that there's nothing like the level of testing that goes on in Debian.

sun to the destkop

[mikesd81]

Could Sun be using this to eventually get to the desktop, or at the very least, allowing companies to run a complete linux system. Solaris server, Ubuntu clients for the employees?

Re:sun to the destkop

[fm6]

Well, Sun is always trying to get on the desktop. (And wasting a lot of money in the process.) But I don't see how endorsing Ubuntu helps them get there. All the Linux apps that run on Ubunto also run on Solaris/x86.

Ubuntu and Java, a pair of shark-jumpers

[Lord Agni]

I've used Ubuntu, installed it, ran it for a few weeks, and went back to Slackware. It's origins and aims are noble, but it's not my favorite distro. Even as a "live" CD, Pro-Mepis and Knoppix have it beat; I keep a copy of Knoppix 4.03 around just in case I have to (or have the opportunity to) use/fix a PC. Java is a better C++, but not by much; C# is better designed and you're not giving up too much in the way of SDK size, available documentation and libraries or ease of use over C++. It's not available as such for non-Windows, as Java is, but Java is still overdesigned and combines the worst of dynamically typed/interpreted languages and more rigidly typed/compiled languages. On Linux/Unix/etc, I use Python, Scheme and C, because you can't spell cilice without C.

direct support and control

[asv108]

Can anyone tell me why a person would want to use Ubuntu on a server, as opposed to just using Debian?

As a big proponent of debian, the biggest problem corporate/companies have with debian support options is that is not coming directly from the distributor of the software. So maybe thats one reason for choosing Ubuntu is that they offer support directly.

Its also probably a lot easier for Sun to deal with a company when wanting changes/partnerships, rather than dealing with a fully community based effort. You can't just go to 1-2 guys in Debian and say do this and get it in by next week or else!

It's gonna explode!!!

[__aaclcg7560]

If Sun puts too much weight behind Ubuntu, it could explode like a supernova.

I am sticking with SOLARIS

[JavaManJim]

I think Solaris is better. Also that Java and C are better than C# in a previous post here.

That said, go ahead with the different OS versions. We have to appreciate differences.

Peacefully,
Jim

Re:Server?

[Trelane]

The Ubuntu releases aren't particular stable; if you look at the process, you'll see that there's nothing like the level of testing that goes on in Debian.

Nor does Ubuntu have Debian's high latency. It's a tradeoff, really.

That said, I agree that stability on the server is much more important than being on the cutting edge of technology, for most server uses. Besides, if you install Ubuntu to get a Debian system, well, why not just install Debian? :)

I guess it depends on the usage where the maximum cost/benefit point lies. If you want a rock-solid mail/webserver, Debian Stable is great. If you want to stream 3gp to your phone, Ubuntu is probably the best bet (with Flumotion and packages). Or if you want to use the latest version of PHP or whatever.

Main problem with yum - slowness

[brunes69]

This is my problem with yum - it is god awful slow.

Want to install something? 'yum install foobar', wait 30 seconds while it connects to the repository, wait 30 more seconds while it resolves dependancies, wait 30 more seconds for it to think about installing, wait 30 more seconds and it is finally done.

With apt-get this all happens in about 10 seconds or less.

Part of the problem is that *EVERY SINGLE ACTION* causes it to hit the server and verify it's package repository. Any 'yum install' command essentially does a 'yum update' first, even if your database is only 3 minutes old. When you're installing a fair number of packages on a new system, this is very tedious. What is the point of even having 'yum update'? apt-get is much better in this regard, *always* using the local cache unless you explicitly 'apt-get update'.

Also, I don't know if it is because of the differences between .deba nd .rpm, or yum vs. apt, but the reoslution of dependancies is orders of magnitude faster with apt-get than with yum install.

Re:Main problem with yum - slowness

[massysett]

This is my problem with yum - it is god awful slow.

That's a complaint about yum, not about RPM. There are other dependency-resolving tools for RPM, including urpmi, yast and (surprise) apt. Yast and apt don't exhibit the annoying behavior of which you write.

Similarly other posts say that the advantage of apt is the Debian repositories. That's an advantage of Debian, not of apt. Ubuntu uses apt and dpkg, yet Ubuntu's package repository != Debian's package repository.

Every distribution I know of uses one program and format to keep track of installed packages and to figure out the dependencies needed (e.g. dpkg, rpm, ebuild) and another program to query repositories and automate the process of fetching needed packages (e.g. apt, urpmi, yum, emerge). A lot of grief directed at RPM has nothing to do with RPM and is instead better directed at the tools that query repositories and fetch packages. Similarly, credit for Debian's repositories belongs to Debian's maintainers, not to the wonders of apt.

Re:Main problem with yum - slowness

[morgan_greywolf]

Similarly other posts say that the advantage of apt is the Debian repositories. That's an advantage of Debian, not of apt. Ubuntu uses apt and dpkg, yet Ubuntu's package repository != Debian's package repository.

Actually, Debian universe and multiverse are in the /etc/apt.d/sources.list by default, they're just commented out by default. You can enable them in synaptic or Ubuntu's default package manager (based on synaptic) with a couple of mouse clicks.

apt-get is not a Linux distribution

[WebCowboy]

Sun is endorsing Ubuntu, a Linux-based operating system. There isn't anything indicating that they are favouring any particular software packaging system. Dpkg/apt-get might be the way Ubuntu keeps its own house in order but nothing prevents anyone from installing and maintaining RPM packages on a machine running Ubuntu.

Merits of dpkg aside, SUN may give standards compliance a high priority in its products, and like it or not in order to comply with ISO23360 the operating system MUST support the installation and management of RPMs (it need not be the native package system of the OS, but ALL ISO23360 compliant applicaitons are distributed as RPM packages). SUN could very likely contribute its resources towards making Ubuntu comply with ISO23360. Mark Shuttleworth himself stated that this was a goal for upcoming Ubuntu releases so they would be on the same page. Therefore if the ISO23360 standard gains traction it could mean that installing RPMs on Ubuntu machines could become more common than you'd think, especially for companies like my employer--large enterprises that salivate over anything with "ISO##### Compliant" on it...and guess what SUN's customer base is?

Oh yeah...perhaps I should explain what this ISO23360 is. Basically it is a standard that specifies a set of requirements for Linux-based OSes (file structures, included shared libraries, software packaging format, etc) to allow compliant application software to be easily deployed and executed on any compliant OS without the need to recompile and/or re-package for each OS as is the case today with Linux systems. It is more commonly known as LSB3.1 ;-)

Re:apt-get is not a Linux distribution

[Homestar Breadmaker]

"but nothing prevents anyone from installing and maintaining RPM packages on a machine running Ubuntu."

Except common sense.

As an aside...

[Ayanami Rei]

Linux on Sun boxes also calls their disks sda, sdb, hda, hdb, etc.
Conversly, Solaris 10 on opteron == /dev/rdsk/cXtYdZsQ galore.

Don't forget Gentoo

[DnemoniX]

About three weeks ago I successfuly got Gentoo loaded onto the Sun T-2000 that I am currently benchmarking with the help of a Gentoo release engineer. Unfortunately there are java issuse still. But hell it was fun watching it run just the same. It is back running Solaris 10 now however.

Re:Don't forget Gentoo

[whimmel]

Did you happen to document your procedure?

Re:Don't forget Gentoo

[DnemoniX]

It's exactly like installing Gentoo on just about any other bit of hardware. You insert the proper liveCD for your arch and install normally. I was working with Gustavoz (Gentoo Sparc Guy), he provided the test ISOs for me to try and I reported back any issues. The main thing is that you need a bleeding edge kernel to support the T1 Niagra and the T-2000 uses SAS drives. Other than that it was completely standard feeling to me.

I don't buy it.

[abelikoff]

I am not sure about the motives of this move. Several explanations come to mind.

• Pure FUD. This is a plausible one. Sun has a lot to lose with Linux success. Linux has always been a competition to Solaris and this is not going to change. Leave "Let's be friends - there is place for everyone." rhethoric for glossy corporate press releases. As long as Sun cares about Solaris it will fight tooth and nail against Linux. becaus if Linux wins, Sun will be reduced to a vendor of exotic albeit powerful and very expensive hardware running a commodity OS on it. And this is not a good position to be in, now that Intel/AMD platform is becoming cheaper and more powerful every day.
• Change in strategy with Schwartz steering the company. It is unlikely, but still possible that Sun will try to get out of the OS business altogether. But as I said, it is very unlikely - someone will have to do a lot of explaining to the customers, why Linux, so much maligned by the Company, suddenly became the top choice despite all the hype around Solaris (OTOH, seeing the sheer number of people that drank Apple's Cool-Aid during both PowerPC heyday and during the recent migration to Intel platform, one learns to no be surprized by anything). And someone would have to convince customers to buy an expesive piece of hardware running Linux from Sun, not from Dell...
• Finally, and this is the most possible case, the Comany continues to do what it's been doing the best for about 6 years - running around like a chicken with head chopped off. The company is losing ground and has no strategic direction whatsoever. This might be yet another testament to the "we are clueless and will become irrelevant soon" motto.

Re:I don't buy it.

[Orrin Bloquy]

becaus if Linux wins, Sun will be reduced to a vendor of exotic albeit powerful and very expensive hardware running a commodity OS on it.

No, I believe that violates several of Apple's patents.

Re:Server?

[musther]

You can set up root in the 'normal' way, this may be default in the server install (if it's not, that's something to think about for the future).

Dammit!

[curtlewis]

I just put Ubuntu on my desktop.

Now I'm gonna have to go and put something else on it because obviously I made a bad choice.... :-/

Didn't Ian Murdock try this already?

[tomcres]

As a big proponent of debian, the biggest problem corporate/companies have with debian support options is that is not coming directly from the distributor of the software. So maybe thats one reason for choosing Ubuntu is that they offer support directly.

I understand this, but didn't Ian Murdock (founder of Debian) already try this with Progeny? The distro went belly-up and eventually Progeny became just another Linux services and support company. I'm not even sure if they're still around TTT. How is Ubuntu more a more corporate-friendly face for Debian than Progeny was (supposed to be)?

Re:Didn't Ian Murdock try this already?

[xenocide2]

Partly, it's a matter of timing. When Progeny started, it was 2000. Perhaps the height of the .com bubble. There were a lot of competitors to Debian. Redhat was still officially supporting a free desktop OS. GNOME hadn't yet recieved a critical look via a Usability study that demonstrated that half the crap in it was not only useless, but confusing. Distributing an .iso was feasible but finding software to burn them was still arcane. Crappy modem support was still a fundamental problem. A notable constants though: Debian stable was two years old, and woudn't be out for another year.

By the time Ubuntu came out, Fedora had taken (and partly dropped) the torch, GNOME was vastly improved, KDE wasn't in danger of being placed in non-free, and a lot of Linux providers dropped out after the .com crash.

The other half of the equation was simple: goals. Shuttleworth aims to be truly successful, not just something to feed himself and his kids (*cough* his progeny *cough*). He capitalized on the fact that Debian stable was so sorely out of date that when everyone else stated they'd not be packaging xfree 4.4, debian had just gotten 4.3 into unstable. Ubuntu's release schedule is (usually) designed to be synchronized with GNOME so that, for a brief moment, Ubuntu is one of two places to go for the latest (the second being CVS). Shuttleworth recognized that a number of people didn't have access to windows based CD burning software, or perhaps the knowhow to find some, and funded ShipIt.

While Murdock was aiming for NOW (network of workstations), Ubuntu's initial focus was on laptop support. Even in 2000, the question was asked "why do you think your SSI will succeed in today's environment?" If the answer was "it's open source," well that answer clearly wasn't adaquate. NOW assumes a very specific kind of resources, and adds a lot of complexity to gain something that rapidly falls in price. It might be interesting, but you have to own more than a couple workstations to make it worth your time, and it doesn't really aid mysql or apache much.

It almost seems like Canonical learned from Progeny that half of selling Debian support was going to be making people want it, instead of capitalizing on some imaginary underserved market segment looking for ways to reduce the cost of Debian deployment. As always, sales, sales, sales!

RPM in ubuntu :: HOWTO

[hummassa]

Alternative 1 (dirty, two steps):

$ sudo apt-get install rpm
$ sudo rpm --force-all -ivh PACKAGE.rpm

Alternative 2 (cleaner, four steps):

$ sudo apt-get install rpm alien fakeroot
$ fakeroot alien PACKAGE.rpm
$ sudo dpkg -i package.deb
$ sudo apt-get -f install # will install any dependencies

Alternative 3 (suppose multiverse is in sources.list)

$ sudo apt-get install package ## it is probably there :-)

Why Ubuntu ?

[this great guy]

I use Ubuntu as well as Debian, both on desktops and servers. Here is a couple of advantages Ubuntu has over Debian on servers:

• Server install. I have to point it out because many people don't know it but installing Ubuntu doesn't necessarily mean installing a full-fledged desktop OS. You can actually select the "server" option during installation and it will only install server-related packages with no X11/X.org packages whatsoever.
• Fixed release schedule. Ubuntu releases a new version of its install CDs every 6 months while Debian is more irregular and does it less often. It makes it easier for example when you need to install Ubuntu on recent hardware, the kernel is generally more up-to-date and Debian may not detect all of your hardware. Of course it is always possible to find workarounds for Debian (loading an optional kernel module, netbooting a more recent kernel, etc), but it involves more work.
• Packages freshness. Ubuntu tends to have more recent packages than Debian. For example I recently had to install 2 servers, one Ubuntu and one Debian, that had to boot off a software md RAID setup. It worked off-the-shelf with Ubuntu because it uses a more recent initrd package (mkinitramfs, IIRC) while the latest AMD64 Debian release uses an older initrd package (initrd-tools) that was unable to correctly detect and assemble the RAID arrays when booting up, I had to manually fix that to make it work.
• Homogeneity. When you already run Ubuntu on your desktop machines, running the same OS on your servers (without the desktop packages of course) simplifies everything: your local package mirroring server only has to mirror packages for 1 OS, maintaining and supporting only 1 OS requires less work than 2 OSes, etc.
• Developers. It seems Ubuntu developers are extremely active and, simply said, bright people. I have already fixed a couple of bugs in various Ubuntu scripts/packages over the past year or so and Ubuntu developers have always been very quick to respond and apply the patches. I also tend to keep an eye on what they are doing and it is obvious that Ubuntu developers make a lot of efforts to correctly engineer every little detail in their distribution.

As a Unix guru/developer I also regularly use a couple of other Linux and BSD distros (FreeBSD, Gentoo, OpenBSD, etc) because I like to experiment a lot and like to live on the bleeding edge of technology, but all in all I have realized that Ubuntu plainly rocks and there is a lot of reasons why it is becomming so popular. I think every IT engineer easily understands the advantages of Ubuntu. And somehow it totally makes sense that Sun, "a company built for engineers, by engineers" [1], is interested in Ubuntu :-) I am a technological perfectionist and Mark Shuttleworth (the man behind Ubuntu) seems to have created a distro the way I would have done it. It is well engineered and It Just Works (TM).

[1] http://blogs.sun.com/jonathan

Re:Why Ubuntu ?

[Respect_my_Authority]

You've made a nice marketing speech for Ubuntu but you fail to give any actual reasons why Ubuntu would have an advantage over Debian on servers. Let's take a look at the moot arguments you present:

> "Server install. I have to point it out because many people don't know it but installing Ubuntu doesn't necessarily mean installing a full-fledged desktop OS. You can actually select the "server" option during installation and it will only install server-related packages with no X11/X.org packages whatsoever."

Well, Debian has also a "server install". Just install the base system with the netinstall cd and select the type of server you want from tasksel. Verdict: Ubuntu has no advantage here.

> "Fixed release schedule. Ubuntu releases a new version of its install CDs every 6 months while Debian is more irregular and does it less often. It makes it easier for example when you need to install Ubuntu on recent hardware, the kernel is generally more up-to-date and Debian may not detect all of your hardware. Of course it is always possible to find workarounds for Debian (loading an optional kernel module, netbooting a more recent kernel, etc), but it involves more work."

Every six months, you say? I'm sorry, but it doesn't look like Ubuntu is any good in keeping their promises. It is no secret that there is a two months delay for the Ubuntu Dapper release, which actually makes the release cycle from Ubuntu Breezy to Dapper eight months long. And Edgy Eft is planned four months after Dapper. But Edgy is not going to be a stable release in the same sense as Dapper (and Ubuntu devs don't recommend upgrading any production machines to Edgy), so the Edgy+1 release will come ten months after Dapper.

Six months? Eight months? Four months? Ten months? -- Ubuntu's release cycle seems to be totally unpredictable, changing all the time. Verdict: No advantage to Ubuntu here.

> "Packages freshness. Ubuntu tends to have more recent packages than Debian. For example I recently had to install 2 servers, one Ubuntu and one Debian, that had to boot off a software md RAID setup. It worked off-the-shelf with Ubuntu because it uses a more recent initrd package (mkinitramfs, IIRC) while the latest AMD64 Debian release uses an older initrd package (initrd-tools) that was unable to correctly detect and assemble the RAID arrays when booting up, I had to manually fix that to make it work."

Ubuntu Dapper will be supported for five years. Can you guarantee that Ubuntu Dapper can keep its "packages freshness" all the five years in the fast moving world of GNU/Linux software? Can you guarantee that Ubuntu Dapper's kernel will support all the latest hardware for five years? If you cannot guarantee this, then Ubuntu is in this respect no different from any other distro, including Debian. Verdict: No advantage whatsoever to Ubuntu here.

> "Homogeneity. When you already run Ubuntu on your desktop machines, running the same OS on your servers (without the desktop packages of course) simplifies everything: your local package mirroring server only has to mirror packages for 1 OS, maintaining and supporting only 1 OS requires less work than 2 OSes, etc."

You seem to forget that Ubuntu is based on Debian. When you take Xserver and the GNOME desktop tweaks away from Ubuntu, what you've got left is an unstable version of Debian with considerably less officially supported packages available. You don't have to give up on homogeneity if you run Ubuntu on the desktop and Debian on your servers -- you just get a more stable and reliable server. Verdict: Definitely no advantage to Ubuntu here.

> "Developers. It seems Ubuntu developers are extremely active and, simply said, bright people. I have already fixed a couple of bugs in various Ubuntu scripts/packages over the past year or so and Ubuntu developers have always been very quick to respond and apply the patches. I also tend to keep an eye on wha

Re:Why Ubuntu ?

[this great guy]

Yes the "server install" option is, stricly speaking, not an advantage since you have this option with Debian too. I just wanted to point out this not so well-known feature...

Regarding the fixed release schedule, yes Dapper is late by 2 months, but this is in no way comparable to the past of Debian (2 years between potato and woody ! 3 years between woody and sarge !), which you seem to completely ignore. If what you say is true, then good for Debian if they start trying to do more frequent releases, starting from now (so it has yet to be proven if they succeed).

Regarding the 5-year support for Dapper, yes this is basically what Ubuntu guarantees: that the distro packages and kernel will be supported for 5 years.

Homogeneity: of course it all depends on what OS are running on your desktops and servers. For example you can decide to go for all Debian or all Ubuntu. For those that run Ubuntu on their desktops, then running Ubuntu on their servers is the way to achieve homogeneity.

Developers: Yes I know there are bright people on the Debian side too. However in my experience, I have been more impressed by the Ubuntu ones than by the Debian ones. You are welcome to share with us your opposite experience instead of just saying "The same, of course, applies also to Debian developers".

This could be interesting.

[IGnatius T Foobar]

This could be interesting. They don't want to lend support to rivals like Red Hat or Ximian, so they go with a more neutral player. Ubuntu seems to have a lot of steam behind it in the community, and it's a fairly well put together system. Sun may be doing something right this time.

Ubuntu?

[wclacy]

I have tried several Linux Distros on the desktop and have yet to see why people would prefer Ubuntu to Suse. Mandriva, or Xandros.

When it comes to running a server I like Suse or Red Hat.

I don't like Ubuntu on the Desktop and cant see how it would be any better for a server. ( I don't care much for Solaris 10 either)

Re:Time to revisit!

[Compenguin]

> If Java could release supported GTK bindings instead of having to rely on Swing It would be a dream come true.

You want Java-GNOME http://java-gnome.sourceforge.net/

The Sun

[Anonymous Coward]

...with a mass of 2x10^30 kg, that's saying something.

Phttt. Sun changes their mind every two months

[walterbyrd]

Hasn't anybody else noticed this?

x86 is crap! x86 is great, now that solaris runs on it! Penguin suit McNeally loves Linux! McNeally funds scox to destroy linux. No wait, Linux is great, but only as desktop where it competes with msft, but not with sun. No, wait again, Linux is Java - and sun is proud to offer the only legal version of Linux. Msft is sun's mortal enemy, no wait, msft and sun are biggest, bestest, buddies.

Sun may be a great company is some ways. But when it comes to x86 and/or Linux. Sun is all over the map. I wounldn't make a big fuss over what sun is saying about Linux plans.

Re:Little, if anything

[schoaff]

OK, I'm listening. What specifically are the aspects of Ubuntu that make it a "very poor server distribution?"