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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."
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!
Still, good for HP.
*Ring Ring*
Hello, I.T.
Have you tried turning it off and on again?
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.
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.
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
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
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.
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.
Outsourced HP Linux support? This could get ugly.
the mods may say you posted flamebait, but to me it's a flame that warms my heart. rock on, brother! --chebucto
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.
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.
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.
.depot files).
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
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_projec
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.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
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.
> "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...
"Piter, too, is dead."
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.
He who said 1,000,000 monkeys on 1,000,000 typewriters would eventually type the great novel, never saw an AOL chat room
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.
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
Think of all the people who don't know what "Ampersand" means.
tasks(723) drafts(105) languages(484) examples(29106)
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.
<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."
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