HP Announces Support for Debian Linux

Bain writes "PC World reports that HP is to offer support for Debian Linux on its ProLiant and HP BladeSystem servers. Support will be provided by HP telephone operators rather than the discussion-group method that current Debian users rely on. The move to support Debian continues HP's relationship with the community-based OS, which stretches back to 1995."

Comments

hooray!

[doti]

For me it's useless, but I'm sure it will help give Linux a more serious look for the PHB out there..

Re:hooray!

[andrewman327]

This is good to hear, but as always implementation is everything. It will be interesting to watch as their service reps grapple with an entirely new system. We all know how great telephone service is for Windows.

"Ok, now open the control panel."
"What control panel?"
"Click Start, then click control panel."
"Start? What Start?"

Re:hooray!

[Red Flayer]

it will help give Linux a more serious look for the PHB out there..

Now why am I imagining some ominous music and a fade to black?

I feel very, very bad for the poor folks answering the help line in 3-4 years when there are hundreds of small companies without someone who knows what they are doing. You think helpline support for Windows is bad? Wait until you've got to help someone who's only ever used Windows with their Debian install. And no, you can't tell them to RTFM.

/shudder

Re:hooray!

[Curmudgeonlyoldbloke]

As an ex-HP-support user, sometimes it wasn't obvious that their helpdesk people had ever used Windows. The front-line people had been given a script, and followed it with no comprehension. When (in the case of the laptop hardware problems that I was logging at the time) it was impossible to follow their instructions, the only solution was to box it up and send it back. With a laptop that's feasible; just swap for another one - but with a server it isn't.

I suppose that there are always the HP-UX and ex-Dec Unix people - they're already familiar with some of the software (see http://hpux.connect.org.uk/hppd/hpux/Gnu/) and the concept of a package manager shouldn't be too alien to them (HP .depot files).

Re:hooray!

[WindBourne]

Years ago, I use to work at HP. While I was a developer, I did know a few folks in the help group for our product. One of the things that I found out is that they had a big QA DB that handled the vast majority of questions that ppl had. That DB was seperate from what was on the internet (it was 1991; no web) and to the best of my knowledge, still is. Combine that with the famous award winning online linux support, and I suspect that HP will offer cheaper superior support to what anybody delivers on Windows.

Re:hooray!

[chris_mahan]

> "Ok, now open the control panel."
> "What control panel?"
> "Click Start, then click control panel."
> "Start? What Start?"

Exasperated tech support guy takes a deep breath to stop from screaming.
"Ok, use the mouse, point to the lower left of the screen..."
"What mouse?"
"Arrrgghhh!!!!"

Level two support:
"Do you have ssh?"
"Of course"
"Ok, what the ip address and the root password?"
"Nice try."
"Well, I can't help you if you don't give me the root password."
"You said it."
"I said what?"
"You can't help me."

Level three uber-tech-support from hell:
"Ah, yes, I can see what the problem is."
"You can?"
"Of course. Lemme fix it"
"But how can you get in? You don't even have an account on the server?"
"Correction, it's you that doesn't have an account... anymore. BWAHAHAHA."

Sorry. I'll go back to coding crappy corporate proprietary code...

Re:hooray!

[TheLetterPsy]

Windows Version:

Poor Folk: I have a problem with my Windows computer.
Help Desk: Reboot.

Debian Version:

Poor Folk: I have a problem with my Debian computer.
Help Desk: apt-get update && apt-get upgrade

Re:hooray!

[timeOday]

This is good to hear, but as always implementation is everything.

I disagree, in this case it's the declaration of support that matters. Am I ever going to actually call HP for debian support? No, I'll search the web like usual. But when spec'ing out the system, it could help to say my OS of choice is "supported" by HP. And this is a very good indication that all the hardware will work, even on other distros.

Re:hooray!

[timeOday]

I feel very, very bad for the poor folks answering the help line in 3-4 years when there are hundreds of small companies without someone who knows what they are doing.

What, you mean I can't just hire somebody with no clue how to do their job, and rely on the HP helpdesk to give them a free education?

Re:hooray!

[Anonymous Coward]

/usr/share/doc*

Re:hooray!

[martinultima]

Yet another reason I like HP, then. Couldn't care less about Debian itself – I occasionally use their sources if the "stock" ones don't work, their patches can sometimes be useful, but never really used the distro itself – but I definitely like the fact that they've always been so Linux-friendly, and I hope they continue... (note, I'm a bit biased towards HP, my dev box right now is an HP dx5150 MT that I got at an auction for $300, very nice machine, and my other dev box is a COMPAQ DeskPro, not technically an HP since it was before the merger but you get the point...)

<troll>And I'm so glad it's not bloody Ubuntu!</troll>

Anyway, great going HP, keep it up!

Re:hooray!

[larstr]

Finally. HP has had all their internal servers running Debian forever while they only supported the commercial distros SUSE, Redhat and Mandriva.

HP has also had coders inside the debian project and supporting it with coders and money. This has meant that debian has been a breeze to install on HP servers for quite a while.

My guess is that now that Ubuntu (server) is the upcoming OS that takes market shares from the previous mentioned ones, I guess HP has had some pressure from it's customers to bring in Ubuntu support. As each ubuntu release is basicly a snapshot of Debian Testing (with some additional tweaking and adjustments) HP has done a wize decision on taking the challenge at it's roots by first supporting Debian. I guess the next OS they will announce support for will be Ubuntu.

L

Re:hooray!

[rapidweather]

Let's see... Knoppix is based on Debian.

So, will Knoppix work in these boxes?

Knoppix is aimed more at desktop users, but has a lot more in there. It's worth a try, to see what is/isn't supported.

-- Rapidweather

Re:hooray!

[walt-sjc]

I wouldn't say "useless". It would be very nice if by "support" they mean that I will be able to download a debian version of the PSP (which contains special drivers, management tools, etc.) which have only been available for Suse and RedHat. Yeah, you can get some of the stuff to work by manually extracting and installing, but it's a PITA. I couldn't care less about phone support.

Re:hooray!

[Schraegstrichpunkt]

Knoppix and Debian are different enough that when it comes to troubleshooting, you really have to treat them separately. Just try asking about Knoppix in #debian or Debian in #knoppix (or try answering questions about one when the person is really asking about the other... extremely frustrating).

Re:hooray!

[Schraegstrichpunkt]

<troll>And I'm so glad it's not bloody Ubuntu!</troll>

Heh. Or Gentoo.

Can you imagine phone support for Gentoo?

Customer: "I try to run Firefox, but it says "command not found".
Support: "Okay, Sir, just type emerge firefox"
Customer: "Okay."
Support [45 minutes later]: "Sir?"
Customer: "It's still compiling."
Support: "Ah, okay."
Customer [30 minutes later]: "Okay, done, but now it crashes."
Support: "Okay, I'll log in remotely."
Support [15 minutes later]: "I don't know how you did this, but somehow you managed to compile your entire kernel with ccmalloc. What were you thinking?"
Customer: "IT MAKES IT RUN FASTER."
...

Re:hooray!

[Chacham]

Wow. My sentiments exactly.

Re:hooray!

[martinultima]

Damn near laughed my head off... never really used Gentoo, but with all the sources I've had to build lately – especially with my poor PIII-650! – I can't decide whether it's a joke or a perfect description of what I usually have to deal with (other than the fact that I have no telephone support ;-)

Another Layer of goo

[tacocat]

So when I call HP for support, I can watch for their posting on the Debian mailing list to find out the answer? This should be fun!

Re:Another Layer of goo

[Anonymous Coward]

Now you can hear them say RTFM instead of just reading it.

Re:Another Layer of goo

[Reverend528]

Supposedly, they've rehired Bruce Perens to operate the 1-man call center.

Re:Another Layer of goo

[Orange Crush]

That's the beauty of open-source software--anybody can support it and become an expert just by examining the code. I'm confident HP's support technicians will have an intimate knowledge of administering and running Debian and will consistently provide helpful and accurate answers to all questions that customers bring to them . . .

*snicker*

Re:Another Layer of goo

[neonprimetime]

I'm confident HP's support technicians will have an intimate knowledge of administering and running Debian and will consistently provide helpful and accurate answers

It's tough to teach an old dog new tricks. Especially since the HP support folk are just used to saying: Download the latest Windows Update patches, restart your pc, and try again.

Re:Another Layer of goo

[Reverend528]

You know, this might sound a little crazy, but maybe they'll actually hire new support staff, preferably people with experience using debian.

Re:Another Layer of goo

[neonprimetime]

Where do I submit my resume? Can I work from home? I'm pretty sure I'd enjoy that position over more than the C#.NET crap I'm doing right now :-)

Re:Another Layer of goo

[vhogemann]

So,

How hard will it be to teach them say "aptitude update && aptitude dist-upgrade"??

Re:Another Layer of goo

[neonprimetime]

tech: ok, open a command prompt
customer: you mean like bash?
tech: uh, yeah, sure, try that, now type attitude update
customer: command not found
tech: really? oh wait, this one is weird, try a-p-t-i-t-u-d-e update
customer: there we go
tech: now when that's finished type attitude d-i-s-t minus upgrade
customer: command not found. try it again.
tech: a-p-t-i-t-u-d-e space d-i-s-t minus sign upgrade
customer: there we go
tech: next time RTFM and don't call me. you interrupted my new addiction, frozen bubble

Re:Another Layer of goo

[setantae]

If the experience of my friends is anything to go by, no, you will not enjoy working for HP.

Re:Another Layer of goo

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean to say that their current staff knows how to use Windows? Those scripts that they read off are their for a reason.

Re:Another Layer of goo

[Reverend528]

You mean to say that their current staff knows how to use Windows?

No, but they're windows users. A person can have 10 years of experience with windows and not really know how it works.

How many clueless debian users do you know?

Re:Another Layer of goo

[brainnolo]

If you need to examine the source (who does, anyway?) to know how something works, then there are some MAJOR problem (i.e: missing documentation). Support people just have a DB of Q/A, and at higher levels they mostly have hands on usage experience and technical knowledge that doesn't come from the source of a particular program. Or do you think HP support is going to patch bugs on-the-fly for the customer?

Re:Another Layer of goo

[Anonymous Coward]

tech: uh, yeah, sure, try that, now type attitude update

Well, someone has a poor one of those

Re:Another Layer of goo

[EvilIdler]

>How many clueless debian users do you know?
Was that a trick question? You'd be surprised, unlike people who've
visited the various IRC channels.

Re:Another Layer of goo

[neonprimetime]

I'd venture to guess that clueless Debian users are still 100 times smarter than educated Windows users.

Re:Another Layer of goo

[Schraegstrichpunkt]

How many clueless debian users do you know?

Was that a trick question? You'd be surprised, unlike people who've visited the various IRC channels.

Indeed. On the other hand, the users who attend #debian on Sundays all had the ability to start up an IRC client and find the channel.

Re:Another Layer of goo

[Schraegstrichpunkt]

tech: now when that's finished type attitude d-i-s-t minus upgrade

Damn it Jim, it's upgrade! Nobody (except Debian developers) should ever have done a dist-upgrade of any given Debian machine more than a dozen times. dist-upgrade is for switching between major versions of the distribution. It's not for everyday use!

On the other hand, it's exactly what I'd expect from some techs, just like a lot of them thing ping is a DNS query tool.

Re:Another Layer of goo

[tacocat]

Not hard, but that rarely fixes any real problems. You need to stop thinking like a Windows User and actually start thinking like you have functional grey matter between your ears.

Other Debian distro's?

[crunch_ca]

Does that include support for other Debian distributions (like Ubuntu)? What about testing and unstable? The article is pretty light on what's actually covered.

Still, good for HP.

Re:Other Debian distro's?

[Enoxice]

My guess is they are supporting as little as possible (just the stock, stable, vanilla, debian) so they don't go screwing things up. Good for them. As much as I abhor their Home PCs, their servers and corporate hardware are just fine with me.

Re:Other Debian distro's?

[neonprimetime]

From cnet

HP's offer will apply to the current "Sarge" version 3 of Debian and to version 4, "Etch," due in December. (Debian versions are named after characters in the movie "Toy Story.")

Re:Other Debian distro's?

[neonprimetime]

"We've had a number of customers continuing to ask us to have broader support for Debian," and HP decided to oblige, said Jeffrey Wade, worldwide marketing manager at HP's Open Source and Linux Organization.

I thought the above quote from the CNet article was also particularly interesting. Hooray for those HP customers that spoke up. When HP says "a number of customers", I assume they don't just mean 5 or 10.

Re:Other Debian distro's?

[Kjella]

Does that include support for other Debian distributions (like Ubuntu)? What about testing and unstable? The article is pretty light on what's actually covered.

Since it's on servers, I find it natural that they support only stable. Testing/unstable is completely out of the question for that kind of support, too much of a moving target. Maybe you're running some backports on stable because of its age but not as the distro. As for Ubuntu, don't they have their own support program?

Still, good for HP.

A bunch of guys doing support who can do first-line support, and maybe provide qualified bug reports to the developers? If you have an easily reproducible issue, most of the work is done in my experience. And if the developers don't think HP is doing their job and just pushing issues on them, they can always tell them to shove it. It's not like they have a contract with HP, so as far as I can tell good for everyone.

Re:Other Debian distro's?

[Jherek Carnelian]

When HP says "a number of customers", I assume they don't just mean 5 or 10.

Actually it was 3.14159265 customers who spoke up.

Re:Other Debian distro's?

[Skevin]

> Actually it was 3.14159265 customers who spoke up.

Wow, talk about a Round Estimate...

Solomon

Re:Other Debian distro's?

[megaditto]

Well, HP offering unix with support for servers is nothing new, really (OpenVMS, anyone?)

The real news would be them providing linux+support for their Home line. Which is extremely unlikely, since this would skyrocket both HP's Windows lincensing costs and the price of chairs at Redmond.

As to their Home PC line, their zv6100 laptop was rather nice: 15.4", AMD64 3200+, 512MB RAM, 12 cell, wireless/burner for $500 a year ago was not a bad deal IMO (selling off a discontinued line). Better than a Dell with the power socket coming off the motherboard (hence the 'standard' 3 month warranty)

Re:Other Debian distro's?

[richlv]

now when i think about it, would be pretty cool if they also supported vanilla linux kernel - in terms of hardware support (which usually is the biggest problem).

all other compatibility isues are more or less solvable, but having unsupported hardware can cause a lot more work.
this is especially true for hw monitoring modules in proiant series ;)

free option

[dontbflat]

At least they are offering a free option for the OS on their servers. Better than nothing, and you get support.

Obligatory "the IT Crowd" quote:

[russ1337]

*Ring Ring*
Hello, I.T.
Have you tried turning it off and on again?

Everybody Loves Linux

[Eberlin]

How many of these do we get nowadays? I've read enough bits about many companies "supporting" linux in one form or another. Dell, HP, Real, even Microsoft has a Linux lab. Yahoo loves the Linux, Google loves the Linux, IBM loves the Linux, SCO owns the Linux.

So where is Linux in all of this? Sure, some of the companies mentioned above have actually shown their support for Linux. Some others seem not to go much further than lip service. Dell comes to mind -- couldn't hunt down a preinstalled Linux box easily. (Not sure if that has changed since I last tried that).

I guess Linux is like that weird looking new kid in school (no offense to Linus) whom everyone just didn't know what to do with so everyone stayed away from him. Hell, some of 'em probably made fun of him and bullied him, too. Then it turns out he's pretty cool and everyone all of a sudden wants to be his friend.

Re:Everybody Loves Linux

[Drakin020]

Then it turns out he's pretty cool and everyone all of a sudden wants to be his friend.

yeah....no?

Re:Everybody Loves Linux

[rucs_hack]

I bought a dell laptop, and they told me I could install linux, but they wouldn't support it officially. That said, they were happy to try and help me sort a few small issues out (soundcard and graphics driver issues), because I had paid for support, it's just that they wouldn't go beyond advice over the phone.

I initially tried to buy the laptop with just linux, no windows, but they couldn't do it. The impression I got was that they weren't able to do it because you still had to buy a windows license with a computer from them, so you might as well have windows installed. This is more likely to be a contractual issue with microsoft tying their hands on the issue.

Re:Everybody Loves Linux

[WilliamSChips]

Show me what Linux can do for a business, and I'll show you how Microsoft does it 20 times better.

Not have a GUI on a server?

Re:Everybody Loves Linux

[Anonymous Coward]

Ok, while we're at it:

No per-seat/per connection licensing on a productivity suite, servers, etc.

Availability of patches on known vulnerabilities

Availability of CODE to look for unknown vulnerabilities

No vendor lock-in with proprietary data formats

No registry. :)

Re:Everybody Loves Linux

[vhogemann]

I don't that there is any contractual issues...

It's more likely that the HD's they put into these laptops come pre-loaded with an Windows image, it's quicker than installing Windows on the machine after its build. After the machine is ready, probably they are tested using some standart built-in auto-test. So there is no way a Dell notebook will come out of the factory without Windows installed.

It's just industrial scale economics.

I also tryed to argue with them, without success... but in the end is easier to buy the notebook and wipe Windows out of it. Looking around, I've concluded that the price difference won't be that much if they didn't bundled Windows, around U$25,00 ~ 50,00 probably.

Re:Everybody Loves Linux

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry, didn't mean to disturb your hibernation. If you go back into your cave now, we'll make sure the rock door is sealed shut this time.

Re:Everybody Loves Linux

[Drakin020]

So your saying a GUI is bad?

Re:Everybody Loves Linux

[Anonymous Coward]

Not really. But a mandatory GUI for a server does seem a bit strange since the UI hogs system resources. A GUI is something servers rarely need anyway -- tweak things over SSH on a command line instead of pointy clicky. It's an efficiency thing.

Desktops, of course, are a different thing.

Re:Everybody Loves Linux

[Drakin020]

Well when it comes to resorces you should not have to worry about the GUI taking away resorces on a server. If your that concerned about loss of resorces then your server is well...pretty shitty. Servers should be made to accommodate a wide variety of services and also have room to expand. As far as just even having a GUI from a command line interface thats just matter of preference. If you can type up a command to create a user in AD faster than I can point and click then by all means go for it. Infact Server 2k3 allows you to do most if not all AD tasks from the command line.

Re:Everybody Loves Linux

[WilliamSChips]

On a server, yes. A GUI takes up more resources than the whole of the server in almost any case excluding a Slashdotting or a 'lightweight'-style GUI(along the lines of twm but minus X--Windows severely lacks this). Without a GUI a small server(we're not talking Google here) can be decently run from a fracking 486. It can save you thousands of dollars on performance.

Re:Everybody Loves Linux

[Drakin020]

Well its kind of how i responded to the last guy. If you have to worry about a GUI eating resorces from a server then your server is shitty. A GUI takes a tiny number from what a server should have in system resorces. If I had the choice between GUI or command line..id take the GUI, but at the same time its just matter of preference.

Lets see *Pulls up server* the GUI on our server takes up ohh...10 megs from explorer.exe (Lets open AD) hmm roughly 10 megs....lets see I have er...4 gigs in memory...yeah i think im just peachy.

Re:Everybody Loves Linux

[kwark]

Welcome to the wonderful world of the X-Windowing System. There a GUI can be launched when needed.

And on typing vs. clicking: just modify the AD "challenge" to add 50 users.
Are you still going to click them into existence or are you going to script it?

Re:Everybody Loves Linux

[clydemaxwell]

Thank you for defining what meets 'acceptable resources' for a server. We needed that.

(the windows mentality is what means that corporations have hundreds or thousands of servers running one application each, but each server is a multi-ghz machine)

Re:Everybody Loves Linux

[Drakin020]

Yeah to be honest your post made no sense...we have 3 servers running Portal server, exchange, AD, CRM, Sharpoint, Greatplains, and quote a few more smaller apps....whats your point...We have plenty of room to expand to.

Linux support

[Riding Spinners]

Knoppix is a linux distroy anyone can use, the automated hardware detection etc is supurb. The DVD 4.0 version does demonstrate a lot of the incompatability issues he's talking about though. because knoppix has about 6 GB of applications (they're compressed on the DVD image) many of the applications are broken.

Debian is the distro Knoppix is based of of, so it has really good hardware detection, but the "stable" version is using the "older" proven stable detection routines. That means it doesn't configure everything perfectly; for instance I had to enable DMA on my DVD-ROM, and I had to use k3b to "configure the system" for CD/DVD burning.

I also have the advantage of having prior experience, So I know how to install Flash support for my secondary browser, and how to configure Java (which isn't included in Debian because it's not FOSS). I knew that the FOSS drivers suck compared to the proprietary ones, so I knew where to find them, and I knew what settings to set in the "install" script for them, because I've been messing around with X11 config files for years now!

So basically, initial set up is probably beyond most users, but the same is true of Windows XP. Most Windows users can't even install applications by themselves, and when they try to the end up with a million spyware programs.

Debian is "ready" for the desktop: the installer is painless for geeks, and simple enough for rice boys. A few noobs might even get lucky with it. The stable version while old, has a very simple gui based app finder that anyone who can use Download.com can learn how to use.

Re:Linux support

[civilizedINTENSITY]

"Debian is "ready" for the desktop...", but what does this have to do with HP providing support for "its ProLiant and HP BladeSystem servers"? Why install a GUI, let alone Flash, for a server? Interesting post, but somewhat off topic...

Re:Linux support

[kwark]

You are little to enthusiastic.

Knoppix has failed me many times (but worked even more times) on desktop machines. Even knoppix 5.0.1 failed to do the simple task of installing grub. Any grub related command completly froze on an opteron, something you kinda need after moving the root partition to soft RAID-1.

And the persons who made the new debian installer images should be the first ones against the wall. Please supply some utilities with the installer, a cp with recursion or a tar that can actualy create archives would be nice, even grub is missing.

Re:Linux support

[Schraegstrichpunkt]

And the persons who made the new debian installer images should be the first ones against the wall.

You could always, you know, help, if you think you can do better.

Re:Linux support

[richlv]

oh, please, not this again...
i don't have to be an experienced cook to say that a panckake is burnt.
i don't have to be an automotive expert to tell that a car has damaged headlights.

don't get me wrong, it is nice to help if a person can do that - but posts like this are useless.
there are cases when such a response is in place, but even then it can be crafted much, much more politely.
like, "those sound like good suggestions - unfortunately, currently all developers/documentation writers are busy with other things, so we don't have resources to implement them. we might get to it some time later, but if you can help in any way, we would be glad to give you information where to start"

you can find somebody with good english knowledge to fix errors & just copy-paste it now and then ;)

Re:Linux support

[Schraegstrichpunkt]

Well, I don't agree that they're good suggestions, because I do have the knowledge to help with the Debian installer.

The Debian installer is designed to install Debian in the common case. It's not a rescue disc, nor is it a way to get Debian installed on weird configurations. If you need a diagnostics disc, use a live CD (there are ones besides Knoppix). If you need to install Debian on esoteric systems, then boot that live CD and use debootstrap.

grub is a fragile program (though less fragile than LILO). If grub is failing, you might have a broken BIOS. That's hardly Debian's fault (though with some effort, you might *still* be able to get Debian working on the machine).

In any case, my real point was that it's a volunteer-run effort, and ranting on Slashdot that those volunteers "should be the first ones against the wall" is completely unproductive.

Re:Linux support

[richlv]

http://m1.2mdn.net/viewad/1265453/DAV_videobanne r_728x90.gif

of course. i'd even say that is stupid and arrogant :)
in any way, i believe that explaining the situation and suggesting ways to help (no, "code it yourself" does not count ;) ) would be way better. remember to suggest possible help in writing or proofreading documentation, testing & reporting problems, and also helping on forums/irc etc.
that could get you one more supporter instead of annoyed user ;)

of course, in cases when somebody who complains is a known troll, that should be simply stated - though i understand that's not the case here.

what about printers?

[Anonymous Coward]

I think they should care more about their linux printer drivers.
i still can't use my printer in my lan.

support for debian?
I think this is a distro for people who already know/whant to learn GNU/Linux.
pretty useless for me.

Re:what about printers?

[SnarfQuest]

this is a distro for people who already know/whant to learn GNU/Linux.

Whell, what else whould you whant from them? Whe need to start somewhere to get Linux mainstream.

Anywhay, I don't think Debian is as hard as some whant to think it is. Those having problems are usually working hard at being clueless. It's like whatching someone try to set the time on a VCR: "What? Press 'setup', select 'set time' and enter the time? Why make it soooooo complicated? I don't understand! If I try that it might exploide! They shouldn't put such dangerous buttons on the control!"

Re:what about printers?

[Anonymous Coward]

I think this is a distro for people who already know/whant to learn GNU/Linux.
pretty useless for me.

If Debian is useless for you in spite of its usefulness for those who want to learn Linux and those who already know it, then that means you don't care about Linux? Well then, any Linux distro will be useless for you. What was the point of that statement?

Re:what about printers?

[Schraegstrichpunkt]

My HP printer works fine, thanks to hplip (which, incidentally, is also a Debian package).

Are you sure it's plugged in?

[XanC]

I'm sorry, are you from the past?

bdale garbee?

[xoundmind]

I'd be interested to know how much this gentleman had to do with it:
http://www.gag.com/~bdale/
He's a former Debian Project Leader and now Linux/OSS CTO at HP.

Re:bdale garbee?

[stu42j]

It is possible that this guy has something to do with it but HP has had connections to Debian for a while. Bruce Perens was "Senior Global Strategist for Linux and Open Source" for two years at HP until they fired him for "Microsoft-baiting". Bruce Perens was the second Debian Project Leader. (Ever wonder why Debian releases are named after Toy Story characters? Bruce also worked for Pixar.)

Re:bdale garbee?

[alfino]

See http://wiki.gag.com/cgi-bin/blosxom/2006/08/15#200 6.08.14

or ask him.

Hey, It's a start

[neonprimetime]

I think this is a distro for people who already know/whant to learn GNU/Linux. pretty useless for me.

But it's a start. HP offers Debian support. Next comes Company X. Then Company Y. Now there is competition, cause 3 companies support Debian. HP decides they want to jump out ahead of the crowd, so they start supporting Ubuntu and Fedora. Company X and Y slowly follow suite. The process continues. Boom, Linux is now part of every Server company's business plan.

apt-get install aclue

[wwiiol_toofless]

Outsourced HP Linux support? This could get ugly.

Re:apt-get install aclue

[cyber-vandal]

"Hello my name is Sanj...errr...Kevin how can I assist you"

Go HP!

[njdj]

Somebody ought to say it:

Well done, HP! I hope this boosts your sales!

And on the day HP overtakes Dell in PC sales, I'll be opening the champagne.

Re:Go HP!

[DJK]

> And on the day HP overtakes Dell in PC sales, I'll be opening the champagne.

You don't drink much, do you?

Re:Go HP!

[Anonymous Coward]

This isn't about PCs. It's about servers -- the kind that cost about $4100 each.

  "... unit sales of 1.5 million Linux servers generated revenue of close to $6.2 billion..."

Also, despite what some folks here have been saying, HP support has, for the past three years or so, been *quite good* with their Linux support, having a dedicated, American-accented phone team who are Linuxheads themselves. I've been running Debian on Proliant DL380s for a couple years and the support techs have been very "unofficially" helpful with any Debian-specific issues.

Bringing out Debian support as an official offering means, for me, that the smart techs are no longer taking a risk by helping me out with any Debian-specific questions (also, we can look forward to kernel-level tools for things like SMART 5+ RAID controllers).

define "support"

[saleenS281]

HP can barely handle the point and click associated with RHEL and Windows. I'm at a loss as to who in that company is going to support Debian. I know it's surely not their L1 or L2 phone techs.

Re:define "support"

[KokorHekkus]

HP can barely handle the point and click associated with RHEL and Windows. I'm at a loss as to who in that company is going to support Debian. I know it's surely not their L1 or L2 phone techs.

Only time will tell I guess but they do have the know-how in the company... since Debian is used as an internal development platform for Linux and they also host one full primary mirror site.

HP also has a handful of employees that are Debian developers.

Source:http://opensource.hp.com/opensource_project s.html

Re:define "support"

[saleenS281]

Well I assumed as much, most major tech corporations today have their fingers in all sorts of open source projects. What do you think the odds of joe schmoe trying to compile the latest kernel getting help from those guys are though? In my experience I've found there's a VERY large void between the lemmings and the experts at HP, and 9 times out of 10, you get stuck in that void trying to get support.

Re:define "support"

[civilizedINTENSITY]

"What do you think the odds of joe schmoe trying to compile the latest kernel getting help from those guys are though?" What are the odds that "joe-schmoe" has bought a ProLiant or HP BladeSystem server rather than a consumer device? If all you want is to upgrade your kernel, apt-get makes this easy. If you want the "latest" kernel (meaning you want to be ahead of the debian release cycle) then I'd think you were on your own. I don't see how that would be covered "as part of the warranty coverage for its Debian Linux servers", which is how this support is packaged.

Re:define "support"

[KokorHekkus]

...What do you think the odds of joe schmoe trying to compile the latest kernel getting help from those guys are though? In my experience I've found there's a VERY large void between the lemmings and the experts at HP, and 9 times out of 10, you get stuck in that void trying to get support.

As I said, only time will tell. But this isn't a service for Joe Shmoe. It's only available for HP Integrity and HP Proliant servers with some HP specific programs added to the Debian install. Which most likely means it will not be cheap and cheerful but expensive and serious (as 24x7 support is when it works)

And I would also say that HP seems to have way more than a fleeting interest in Debian. Debian IS their internal development platform company wide and has been since about 2002. They had to pick one distro because there were to many different ones used all over the company. So it's just not just "those guys" that have linux experience, those are only the visible to the outside.

And HP also runs QA testing on servers to make sure they actually work as well.

Re:define "support"

[joel_archer]

Amen. I have "used" HP's RHEL support. The first time I called the guy said he was googling for the answer and when I told him to look at the appropriate man page he didn't have a RHEL machine available! Their business model is confused as well. RHN updates are available from the date you activate but HP support runs from the date you purchase which can lead to gaps in support. Further, you are not allowed to talk to their "backline" support (if it in fact exists) and must submit your request by email which will be "forwarded" to the backline. Not really good when the frontline can't google the answer and you have production down. Worse, Redhat support will not deal with you because you purchased from a third party. Finally, it is pretty pricey.

Re:define "support"

[saleenS281]

pretty high. I deal with "admins" on a daily basis trying to install drivers for our FC gear on redhat and can't figure out how to run an install script that is literally ./install.

Re:define "support"

[saleenS281]

I don't buy it. HP fully supports RHEL and SLES, and have for quite some time, and again I've yet to find a clued tech among their L1 or L2. It takes engineering involvement to get someone who even knows what a kernel is. The only reason I've EVER managed to come in contact with them is because they OEM our hardware.

I think the slashdot community is out of touch with who is really running linux. I can't even begin to guesstimate the amount of clueless windows admins who were thrown a linux box and told to figure it out. Yes on *expensive* blade systems. Yes with 0 linux experience. And yes, they really do call up asking for support because they paid for contracts. Nobody said their bosses were clued, and I'm sure they weren't all about losing their job when given the option of figuring it out or taking a walk.

I can tell you from real-life experience working with these fools that they are out there, and there are a LOT of them.

Re:define "support"

[saleenS281]

I can tell you that they do in fact have some clued techs on the backline. As I said in another post, I can only confirm this because they OEM our hardware and we have direct links back to their engineering. As you found out and can attest to though, the normal user calling into support doesn't have a snowball's chance in hell of being connected to a clued engineer, and you're better off googling yourself then trying their main phone lines.

Re:define "support"

[Schraegstrichpunkt]

To be fair, the idea of specifying an explicit path using ./ is new to many users who are familiar with other command shells (DOS, old versions of Red Hat Linux, AmigaDOS, etc).

Re:define "support"

[asciiRider]

Why does support always mean telephone support to Slashdotters?

- They will probably distribute white papers on making debian work.
- They may distribute driver packages for the hardware in the different models.
- They may issue a proliant support pack that will install easily on debian that works with HP Systems Insight Manager (SIM) (an snmp trap destination for server monitoring.) ETC ETC ETC
- Online firmware updates via SIM are possible
- They may distribute new 'jobs' with HP Rapid Deployment (It's really Altiris) that install debian on the different models for - just a drag a job to a server.

ETC ETC ETC.

You see SUPPORT means having software (Proliant packages) that works without calling for help. It means having the tools available for deployment (Rapid Deploy), and having the tools to know when something goes wrong (Insight Mangager).

Re:define "support"

[richlv]

well, . could be added to root path... but he was referring to "admins", not users - which usually means their job title is "systems administrator" and they get pais for managing servers. one could hope that they know at least some of the things they are supposed to do ;)

Re:define "support"

[Schraegstrichpunkt]

well, . could be added to root path...

There's a reason why it was removed in the first place. If . is in your path, the following commands can wipe out your system: "cd /home/someuser ; ls". The reason it could is that there could be a shell script called "/home/someuser/ls" that contains the command "/bin/rm -rf /". With . removed from your path, "ls" will always mean "ls".

Otherwise, you have a point.

This is vital

[Almahtar]

Support is vital for any OS to be taken seriously where downtime is unacceptable. I know way too many IT guys who would love to run some form of *nix for their servers, but their CEO's wouldn't let them. The reason? If there's a problem they can't fix, they resort to googling, mailing lists, forums, etc: they're pretty boned.

If there's a Windows problem they can't fix they can fly someone in from Redmond to get the job done in a few hours. Unfortunately Red Hat can't compete with that (yet). If minutes of downtime = millions in losses, Official support that always gets the job done is a requirement that can't be ignored.

Re:This is vital

[Jherek Carnelian]

Unfortunately Red Hat can't compete with that (yet). If minutes of downtime = millions in losses, Official support that always gets the job done is a requirement that can't be ignored.

If a company is in a business where minutes of downtime means millions (of dollars) in losses, then they have the resources to be able to afford a guru on staff and official support is limited to hardware.

Re:This is vital

[IANAAC]

Unfortunately Red Hat can't compete with that (yet)

They sure are ramping up though. They're heavily recruiting. I went through a round of interviews with them for a travelling support position.

When I say travelling, I mean 95% of your job is travelling to other sites.

Re:This is vital

[Almahtar]

Sweet! That's really good news. Keep it up RHEL!

Re:This is vital

[Almahtar]

I wish it was as easy as $ == good staff. The problem is that the head of the HR department really doesn't know what a Linux Guru is, the kid down the street thinks he's a linux Guru, and there aren't a whole lot of organizations, certs, etc that can really prove that someone knows as much as they say (and perhaps believe) they do.

In the case of Microsoft, the creator of the product (MS) can guarantee the knowlege level of their techs, so if your employee turns out to be a dud you can fall back on MS's techs.

Troubleshooting Linux is easier than Windows.

[khasim]

I feel very, very bad for the poor folks answering the help line in 3-4 years when there are hundreds of small companies without someone who knows what they are doing. You think helpline support for Windows is bad? Wait until you've got to help someone who's only ever used Windows with their Debian install. And no, you can't tell them to RTFM.

In my experience, working through the boot process of a Linux box is incredibly simple compared to Windows.

Remember, this won't be troubleshooting Apache/SSL or anything. This will be determining why the OS doesn't like the hardware and whether it is an OS problem or hardware problem.

Re:Troubleshooting Linux is easier than Windows.

[Dielectric]

No kidding, is there even a Windows equivalent of dmesg or /var/log/*? I'm genuinely curious. I just looked in C:\Windows\Debug, and there are some empty log files. I found one that was a few KB, so I tried to open it. MS Application Search services didn't recognize the file, which seems like a really bad design to me. (Description: Windows does not recognize this file type).

Re:Troubleshooting Linux is easier than Windows.

[IANAAC]

The Windows event logs do pretty much what you're looking for, even though they're not plain text files, per se.

If you want to take a raw look at the files, they're located in c:\windows\system32\config\... event, application and security.

This isn't anything new. It's been around for ages.

Re:Troubleshooting Linux is easier than Windows.

[alienmole]

Digging around a Windows hard disk for text files? You haven't grokked the Windows mindset. (Some might consider that a plus.) There's a GUI Event Viewer that lets you browse the logs. See How to view and manage event logs in Event Viewer in Windows XP. A similar viewer is available in all varieties of Windows NT and W2K.

In general, randomly browsing around a Windows filesystem won't tell you much, because most system file formats are binary, and system files are treated more like central repositories than documents, which means that they don't have file associations. You're better off randomly clicking around the GUI, if you insist on the trial and error approach, but you'll still miss a lot.

BTW, the only way I know about Windows is from a misspent pre-Linux youth. I'm posting this from a Debian box, honest.

Re:Troubleshooting Linux is easier than Windows.

[19thNervousBreakdown]

Ahh, Windows. Stick a log file in a configuration directory, then take that configuration directory and stick it in a system file directory. Brillant!

win-win?

[bcrowell]

I would guess this is going to be very inexpensive for HP to do. The article doesn't say, but I assume they're going to be selling the servers with Debian preinstalled, in which case not much should go wrong, and it should be easy to support. And if a lot of their customers have already been buying servers and installing Linux distros on them themselves, HP is probably already getting tech support calls from them (even if they're phrased as hardware support calls). The difference would be that now, the customer gets a machine that has had everything set up correctly by HP, and HP will only be supporting a single distro, which will be easier. Sounds like a win-win.

Servers are a lot easier to configure than desktop systems, too. The amount of software is small, and most of it is relatively mature. None of this insanity with rapidly changing versions of GTK+ libraries, etc.

Debian wins! Debian wins! Debian wins!

[Charles Wilson]

That's what this means. As soon as a winner became apparent in the OSS Distro fog, the major players would join in to try to make a buck. Good for them! Good for Debian. Good for you. Charles

Enterprise Support != Home Support

[dave562]

I've read a lot of replies in this thread knocking the HP support by making comparisions with what sounds like (to me) their home support line. The technicans that you talk to when you call for support on a Proliant server are not the same guys you are going to talk to when you call with a problem on your Pavillion Media Center PC. HP has been supporting *nix for a long time now and I'm sure that they will do a good job with Debian. If their Debian SmartStart CD is anything like the Windows and Novell ones, then getting the OS up and running on a Proliant will be SIMPLE. Like another poster said, all the HP techs are going to be doing is helping you figure out why the OS and the hardware aren't getting along with each other. Based on past experience with HP, the only reason something wouldn't work is because of an actual hardware failure. I've never, ever had a problem with an HP driver on a production server.

Debian support means any GNU/Linux should work

[psydeshow]

As someone who recently tried to install Debian on a newish ProLiant, and failed miserably because of unsupported hardware, I'm happy to see this announcement. It means that HP will be using hardware for which Linux drivers already exist, and that the Debian installer will be able to load those drivers into the kernel at install-time.

The bigger bonus is that if vanilla Debian can do it, any Linux disto can: Ubuntu, Gentoo, Slackware, whatever.

Re:Debian support means any GNU/Linux should work

[kwark]

You normally don't run Debian I guess?

HP supporting Debian will not change the installation nightmare on new machines, unless they supply an updated (and thus unofficial) installation disk for their machines. But links to those can already be found on the debian site anyway.

Re:Debian support means any GNU/Linux should work

[richlv]

well, that could help with hardware support for vanilla kernels... but then again it also could not. of course, debian guidelines would never allow including of proprietary kernel modules or other software, but, if understand correctly, nothing prohibits hp from maiking them available for specific debian kernel versions - which would be pretty useless for other distros.
of course, that would be pretty dumb from hp, so i really hope they are not going that way... at least when i was concerned with it, their hw monitoring modules were in a separate download & precompiled mode.

Companies selling preinstalled Linux

[cyber_rigger]

couldn't hunt down a preinstalled Linux box easily

Here's the LIST.
Companies selling preinstalled Linux Desktops and Laptops

http://lxer.com/module/forums/t/23168/

Better than OpenView I hope

[Neil Watson]

HP's OpenView product mentions support for Debian. Unfortunately, this idea of support means that you have configure your Debian box to work with RPMs and then try and install them.

That makes sense

[Anonymous Coward]

"The move to support Debian continues HP's relationship with the community based os which stretches back to 1995."

That's because it is from 1995.

Oh, wait, I thought this was alt.os.linux.slackware

Security Support

[baggins2001]

Are they kidding. The last version was only supported for one year after the previous version. So I'm going to go tell the PHB we should start using a distribution that should be upgraded every other year. Unless they can offer longer version support I don't see this helping.
Those of us working in the real world don't change versions unless we have to, because it lowers our TCO.
I know a data center that was still using RH8 on some of their servers up until 4 months ago and last year I talked with a guy who said they still had RH6.2 on one of their servers.
Heck, until six months ago I had RH7.3 running on 3 servers and still have RH7.1 running on one.
At a minimum I want 3 years security support and prefer 5. Why would I care if I obviously have servers which aren't using security support. Because I don't want multiple flavors of linux, this keeps my training cost down and support cost down.

sweet

[Anonymous Coward]

sweet

Wow!

[CCFreak2K]

I'm getting a Woody just thinking about this!

UUBBUUNNTTUU is da bomb bozos !!

[Anonymous Coward]

UUBBUUNNTTUU is da bomb bozos !! Get it on your drive NOW or be da luzer, geek

Reboot Hell!

[Dareth]

I got 15 minutes of uptime on this computer and I am not about to lose them because of you!

Etch in December?

[Dareth]

As a Debian user for many years... I am not sure if I like this frantic release schedule. I got 3 good years out of Woody... barely got Sarge installed on my test box and a few edge machines, now it almost time to upgrade again.

Sarcasm aside, good job Debian, congrats on earning vendor recognition. News like this does affect hardware purchases. Rather fond of Debian, and a nice blade chasis may be just the ticket.

.debs?!

[ldspartan]

Does this mean I'll be able to get debian packages of the tools for my DL380 Gen4 without having to do magic with alien and their crap ass RPMs?

--
Phil

Woo Hoo

[thorkyl]

IBM & Suse - Cool HP & Debian - Cool Dell & RedHat or Suse - Cool Gateway & Microsoft - Boo Hey 3 out of 4 aint bad

A little too late

[slayer99]

"The move to support Debian continues HP's relationship with the community based os which stretches back to 1995."

August 16th, 1993.

Have you tryed

[jlebrech]

Have you tryed: shutdown -r now

Oh is this for servers :D

Re:Have you tryed

[neonprimetime]

Have you tryed: shutdown -r now
Oh is this for servers :D

Yeah, duh. For servers you type: rm -rf /

HP Announced Support for Lesbian Linux

[Anonymous Coward]

I am not kidding, that is how I scanned the headline and to go back and read it again more slowly. Too much Howard Stern, I guess... :-)

How long before

[ScottCooperDotNet]

How long before a system maker like HP (or someone other than Apple) buys / starts their own Linux distro?

Re:How long before

[prencher]

Sun's already doing it with their java desktop thingi.

Oh god...

[Short Circuit]

Think of all the people who don't know what "Ampersand" means.

Re:Oh god...

[Shilkanni]

Uppercase 7.

Re:Oh god...

[Short Circuit]

apt-get update [CAPS LOCK]77[CAPS LOCK] apt-get upgrade

"It says something about an unrecognized argument."

Linux Support?

[kemo_by_the_kilo]

Duh, dont you /.'ers know?
its Linux, once its installed and config'd you dont touch it and it just works.
so HP supporting linux will be easy, soon as the client installs other software and it doesnt "work" its not HPs fault because it it not a product they are supporting.
Although L1 support will still prolly not know anything, but thats okay because they have to filter out all the non-OS related issues.
and why do i have the feeling that the callcenter will be in india and run on MS only products (except for maybe the PBX)

Just 'Linux' support?

[Anonymous Coward]

We currently use RedHat AS 4 on our Dell servers as management decided we could call in for any help. After 2 years we had tonnes of incompatiblity issues which neither RedHat nor Dell wanted to help us out with (yes im being a tad bit irrational about it). So my questin is; where does the 'Linux' suport end? Lets say I have a problem wtih DRBD which would just choke up. In case of Debian-HP, would it actually fall under items that they offer support for? How about more obscure programs?

Very good! Now Oracle!

[ghostbar38]

This is very good so now the very well know Debian distribution will fight against the big ones whit commercial support like RedHat and SuSe.

I know people that doesn't use because things like "Oracle doesn't support them", but now that HP does another companies like Oracle will do the same. :)

Re:Very good! Now Oracle!

[Anonymous Coward]

They (Oracle) won't. If HP pulls back after 12 months saying "there wasn't enough demand blah-blah" it will be a lost investment. If Oracle adds another supported distro, it will be their own (which I doubt either). There was speculation about that some time ago. However, I think this was just one (financial) analist talking up his Oracle shares. You can't find community support for a project like that.

Some advice for you: don't get too emotional. The IT market doesn't work that way. If you're a Debian fanboy, I guess it's because of their strong free software foundations just like Fedora (and unlike SuSE). I don't get it why people want a "fight". Never mind.

HP Integrity servers

[Anonymous Coward]

HP's Integrity server line has supported Debian Linux for some years now (coming onto 4 now, IIRC.) This is the "Linux enablement CD" for Integrity systems, which range from clusters of 2-way Itanium blades to 128-way Superdome servers.

They're pretty good systems (the rx4640 makes for a great bulletproof departmental file+compute server) and the Debian support makes it that much nicer. (There are HP guys actively keeping the ia64 Debian port kicking ass.)

Did ANYONE RTFA?

[miro f]

... of course not. what was I thinking

well if you DID, you would notice that the support is for thin client servers. I very much doubt the people calling for support will have these kinds of issues

Re:Debian wins! Debian wins! Debian wins!

[wwiiol_toofless]

I just happened onto Debian for my first and only flavor, just to get a feel for the install, config and use (I had used gentoo in college programming lab). I was initially drawn by the package system and I gotta say I liked it. Once you get a feel for the basic commands and control schemes it's pretty easy. I commend the whole (even while poking obligatory fun at HP, which has turned into a heaping pile of mediocre hardware and abysmal software)

Insight Agents

[Anonymous Coward]

This is cool, I won't have to run CentOS, the only other free OS I care to try and get the Insight Agents running on. Well I hope they plan on releasing Insight Agents anyway. We are a HP shop. When you want to know when drives fail, or a memory module needs replaced, the Insight Agents tell you. It's the really the reason you go with a hardware vendor exclusivley, it's more than just an OS, it's a hardware platform that your familiar with across hundreds of servers. SmartStart, Insight, Openview. All this shit will work now with a community OS.

Support and inevitability

[dacarr]

I see where this is going. HP will create their own flavor of Debian - which, because it'll stop being Debian, the Deb community won't support either.

hp

[ralph1]

Dead in the water for me. Sell 64 bit laptops and no 64 bit software Pavilion zv6000, No 64 bit windows drivers after all this time. Never buy an hp product ever again. When our compaq equipment dies at work i will purchase sun servers from now on. Watch a global rol out