First off, two weeks of setup time to configure and deploy a Linux machine isn't all that bad; especially for a company that's migrating to a new operating system for the first time.
Secondly, there must have been some seriously misconfigured/buggy software to make the system crash so often; leading me to believe that Linux is not at the core of their problem.
In the 10 years I've been working with Linux, I've had no more than 5 or 6 server crashes (total). (As of writing, one of our Linux servers has a little over three years of uptime. Not bad.)
A reoccurring theme that I've noticed with companies that are balking at the prospect of Linux has been the added cost of bringing in consultants to show the IT staff how to operate and setup the new software. In these instances, I would suggest either sending the Network Engineers, Systems Administrators and Support staff to a couple of training courses or better yet, go with a plug and play solution and bring on an already experienced Linux professional. If your network runs on Linux it wouldn't make much sense to have an IT staff full of Microsoft and Novell guys. Analogously, if your car operates on gasoline, it wouldn't make much sense to fill up the gas tank with diesel.
These guys went forward in time in their hyper-modified 1983 Delorean hatchback, powered by a 1.21 jigawatt flux capacitor (yes, I said jigawatt), flying at a velocity near the speed of light around the earth, moving time forward (in a superman like fashion) which caused a rip in the space time continuum allowing them to bring back technology from the future...
Incidentally, this may account for the recent fuel shortage.
You see, according to Einstein's special theory of relativity (E=m(c^2)) the closer an object of intrinsic mass comes to reaching the speed of light, the greater the mass of the object being accelerated becomes. And as the object, in this case, the hyper-modified 1983 Delorean hatchback, becomes larger, it's energy needs become larger as well... requiring it to consume more fuel. Hence, $3.29 a gallon.
On a side note, is it just me or does this site looks as if it was designing and maintained by a nine year old autistic kid with Tourette's.
Let's not forget about the old X.25 Telenet network which is still publicly accessible. A few years back myself and a friend of mine wrote an NUA scanner to poke around Telenet and see what's out there. We were awfully surprised to see that there were many systems still openly accessible. Not only that but we also found that there were a plethora of freely available PADs in most major cities. At one point we had compiled a list of several hundred of these numbers and methodically began mapping out large portions of the network. I would fully recomend those who are interested in arcane forms of networking to dig into this a little further. You may be pleasantly surprised.
I like long walks in the park and warm summer days. My hobbies include blue screens of death, collecting viruses and/or spyware, and rooting IIS servers.
Linux is never going to palatable to the general public. There's almost always going to be a sizable learning curve that accompanies Linux do to the nature of most of the Linux applications and developers. There aren't many LSB distributions because the Linux community, for the most part, doesn't really care about the general user base.
Not to sound elitist or anything but, I really don't want "incompetent", Windows-esq users polluting the Linux community. I like that Linux is difficult to learn and master. That difficulty is what makes our user base strong and committed. If you run Linux, you're going to have to really want to run Linux. And that means... learning to use it. Think of it as a sort of litmus test. If you can't pass... tough. After all... the programmers hobbyists, and system administrators that made Linux what it is today really don't need these "simplified" standards. We already know what we're doing. We know how to compile an application and modify it as necessary to fit our needs. After all, it was that very ability to modify source code to fit our needs that made Linux popular in the first place.
To hell with rpm's and deb's and other such standards, just give me the source. I believe that having one grandiose, de facto standard will ultimately kill Linux through the slow death of conformity. If we begin walking down this road, Linux will end up just like every other user-friendly piece of garbage you see sitting on the shelves of your local computer store.
This sentence sounds more than fair although, I do believe a rather sizable fine should accompany it as well.
If you think about the shear magnitude of seding millions upon millions of e-mails every week and the rather sizeable load that places upon unsupecting peoples bandwidth (especially with dial-up lines) and not to mention the load it places upon major mail servers, this sentence is absolutely just. Bandwidth costs money.. somebody else's right to free speech is fine and dandy as long as it doesn't cost ME anything.
Just my 2 cents.
In all honesty, the gravest health concern facing IT professionals, probably has nothing to do with the hardware that we work around. I would think that the number one concern is that we spend far too much time sitting down, staring at a computer screen and not enough time exercising.
Slashdot Mirror
I for one welcome our new furry overlords.
Didn't you see Men in Black.
Secondly, there must have been some seriously misconfigured/buggy software to make the system crash so often; leading me to believe that Linux is not at the core of their problem.
In the 10 years I've been working with Linux, I've had no more than 5 or 6 server crashes (total). (As of writing, one of our Linux servers has a little over three years of uptime. Not bad.)
A reoccurring theme that I've noticed with companies that are balking at the prospect of Linux has been the added cost of bringing in consultants to show the IT staff how to operate and setup the new software. In these instances, I would suggest either sending the Network Engineers, Systems Administrators and Support staff to a couple of training courses or better yet, go with a plug and play solution and bring on an already experienced Linux professional. If your network runs on Linux it wouldn't make much sense to have an IT staff full of Microsoft and Novell guys. Analogously, if your car operates on gasoline, it wouldn't make much sense to fill up the gas tank with diesel.
These guys went forward in time in their hyper-modified 1983 Delorean hatchback, powered by a 1.21 jigawatt flux capacitor (yes, I said jigawatt), flying at a velocity near the speed of light around the earth, moving time forward (in a superman like fashion) which caused a rip in the space time continuum allowing them to bring back technology from the future...
Incidentally, this may account for the recent fuel shortage.
You see, according to Einstein's special theory of relativity (E=m(c^2)) the closer an object of intrinsic mass comes to reaching the speed of light, the greater the mass of the object being accelerated becomes. And as the object, in this case, the hyper-modified 1983 Delorean hatchback, becomes larger, it's energy needs become larger as well... requiring it to consume more fuel. Hence, $3.29 a gallon.
On a side note, is it just me or does this site looks as if it was designing and maintained by a nine year old autistic kid with Tourette's.
Let's not forget about the old X.25 Telenet network which is still publicly accessible. A few years back myself and a friend of mine wrote an NUA scanner to poke around Telenet and see what's out there. We were awfully surprised to see that there were many systems still openly accessible. Not only that but we also found that there were a plethora of freely available PADs in most major cities. At one point we had compiled a list of several hundred of these numbers and methodically began mapping out large portions of the network. I would fully recomend those who are interested in arcane forms of networking to dig into this a little further. You may be pleasantly surprised.
http://www.securityfocus.com/bid/13977
The less they tell me, the more I want to reverse engineer it...
I like long walks in the park and warm summer days. My hobbies include blue screens of death, collecting viruses and/or spyware, and rooting IIS servers.
Linux is never going to palatable to the general public. There's almost always going to be a sizable learning curve that accompanies Linux do to the nature of most of the Linux applications and developers. There aren't many LSB distributions because the Linux community, for the most part, doesn't really care about the general user base.
Not to sound elitist or anything but, I really don't want "incompetent", Windows-esq users polluting the Linux community. I like that Linux is difficult to learn and master. That difficulty is what makes our user base strong and committed. If you run Linux, you're going to have to really want to run Linux. And that means... learning to use it. Think of it as a sort of litmus test. If you can't pass... tough. After all... the programmers hobbyists, and system administrators that made Linux what it is today really don't need these "simplified" standards. We already know what we're doing. We know how to compile an application and modify it as necessary to fit our needs. After all, it was that very ability to modify source code to fit our needs that made Linux popular in the first place.
To hell with rpm's and deb's and other such standards, just give me the source. I believe that having one grandiose, de facto standard will ultimately kill Linux through the slow death of conformity. If we begin walking down this road, Linux will end up just like every other user-friendly piece of garbage you see sitting on the shelves of your local computer store.
Anyway, that's just my $0.02.
Did anybody else notice that April 13th, 2029 falls on a Friday... Friday the 13th. Be afraid... be very afraid.
This sentence sounds more than fair although, I do believe a rather sizable fine should accompany it as well. If you think about the shear magnitude of seding millions upon millions of e-mails every week and the rather sizeable load that places upon unsupecting peoples bandwidth (especially with dial-up lines) and not to mention the load it places upon major mail servers, this sentence is absolutely just. Bandwidth costs money.. somebody else's right to free speech is fine and dandy as long as it doesn't cost ME anything. Just my 2 cents.
I would say cool the room. Because, without a cooled room your, the fans inside the pc are just pushing around hot air.
In all honesty, the gravest health concern facing IT professionals, probably has nothing to do with the hardware that we work around. I would think that the number one concern is that we spend far too much time sitting down, staring at a computer screen and not enough time exercising.